Note 32 — DOMESTIC LIFE

Fish-traps are of various kinds. The most elaborate is that called osa, which is used on the Doyang and consists of a V-shaped bamboo weir pointing down-stream, with a long spout-like outlet, closed with stakes set closely together, and roofed at the end so that fish cannot jump out. The floor of the outlet is covered with bamboos laid lengthways, so that a fish once caught in the rush of water can get no grip to work up-stream, but is held by the current against the stakes at the bottom. Another type, also called osa, is used on smaller streams and consists of a semicircular weir of bamboo or piled-up stones, with gaps at intervals, each gap being blocked with a strong bamboo basket from which, if a fish is once swept in, it cannot escape against the stream. This kind of trap is particularly successful if otters fishing in the pool above drive the fish down, a curious parallel to the way in which Biscayan sardine fishers used to depend on porpoises to drive the shoals of sardines into their nets. A third type used on moderate-sized streams is called eyinga. This consists of a bamboo weir right across the river and another weir with a big opening in the middle about twenty yards lower down. Fish feeding their way up-stream in the evening pass through the gap, which is closed at night, shutting the fish in. A rough inner fence of bamboo is built along the lower weir, and the fish trying to jump over on their return down-stream are caught between the two fences. Fish weirs are in operation throughout the cold weather, till they are swept away by the first big flood. The task of building a weir is not one which can be entered upon without due precautions. For three days beforehand the builder must not speak to strangers and must refrain from sexual intercourse. On the last morning neither he nor any of the men who are to help him may kill anything, and the working party while engaged on their task may speak to each other but to no one else at all, whether of their own village or not. A man begins by helping his father, or one of his father’s friends, when he is a boy, and gradually grows up to be the owner or joint owner of a weir himself. Were a man who had never done so before to take it into his head to go down and build a fish-trap he would surely die. When he was sleeping near his trap at night the deity of the stream, the Water Master (Tchhüpfuo), would come along and look at the soles of his feet and see that they were not white like the soles of men who spend much time in the water. Then he would cause illness to come upon him so that he would die. In a few villages a small hand-trap (naching) is set in swampy pools for mud-fish. It consists of a small bamboo basket entered by an inverted funnel, so that a fish once in cannot find the way out. When the rivers are high fishing-rods (ngoko) made of bamboo are used, with a line made of twisted chütsung bark, the bark used for bow-strings. Hooks (mukhu) are either bought at a shop or made out of umbrella wire. It is unlucky to catch a kind of fish called süwo with the rod and line. Anyone who does so splits the fish in half lengthways and lays the two halves on the ground. He then goes home by a road other than the road by which he came. Were he to go home by the road he came he would meet and be killed by a tiger or leopard. This fish can be eaten without any precautions if it is caught in any other way. Where a stream is divided into two channels with an island in the middle, one channel is often blocked with a temporary weir and all the water diverted down the other. The fish in the blocked channel can then be caught by hand. When a stream is both cold and highly coloured the fish appear to lose their vitality and large numbers are caught by hand in holes and cracks.32