Note 18 — II. Industries at the Time of Discovery and Conquest
Reading edition
Report of Conditions in the Philippines, Antonio de Morga, Manila, June 8, 1598.—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 10, pp. 85–86.
“The fishing is done with salambaos, and with fine-meshed nets; with which they block up the bay and kill the small fish. These nets ought not to be employed, and the size of the mesh should be regulated so that the supply of fish will not be exhausted; for already experience has demonstrated that they are not so abundant as formerly.”
Night fishing was also practiced. “What we call pitch in this region is a resin from which the natives make candles in order to use in their night-fishing, and is the same as the copal of Nueva España, or at the most differs from it very little in color, smell, and taste.” (Expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. [Résumé of Contemporaneous Documents, 1558–68.]—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 2, p. 153.)
Artificial fish-culture seems to have been introduced by the Japanese before the Spanish arrival. “The greatest of the Japanese industries, which they taught the natives, was breeding ducks and fishes for export. The rivers and coast waters of the Archipelago provided splendid feeding grounds for numerous varieties of fish and fowl, and the Japanese assisted nature’s breeding process, particularly in the case of fishes in a manner followed by present day experts. The roe were transported to safe places for development, tanks were used to guard small fish from harm, and various other precautionary measures were adopted properly to rear the fish. To the early Spaniards, the pisciculture of the Filipinos was regarded almost as a new art, so much more advanced it was than fish breeding methods in Europe.” (Commercial Progress in the Philippine Islands, Antonio M. Regidor and J. Warren T. Mason, 1905.)