Groping with their hands or with boughs,
etc. etc.
There is also a particular season of the year (about September), when in
the larger rivers the fish become ill or diseased, and lie floating on
the surface unable to descend, or drift down dead with the current.
Fishes weighing nearly eighty pounds are sometimes taken in this way. The
natives are always looking out for opportunities of procuring food so
easily, and never hesitate to eat any fish, although they may have been
dead for some time.
I have never seen the natives use hooks in fishing of their own
manufacture, nor do I believe that they ever make any, though they are
glad enough to get them from Europeans.
The large fresh-water lobster is sometimes procured by diving, in which
case the females are generally employed, as the weather is cold, and
night is the best time to procure them. It is extraordinary to see a
party of women plunge into the water on a cold dark night, and swim and
dive about amongst logs, stumps, roots, and weeds without ever hurting
themselves, and seldom failing to obtai the object of their search.
Turtle are procured in the same way, but generally by the men, and in the
day time.
Muscles of a very large kind are also got by diving. The women whose duty
it is to collect these, go into the water with small nets (len-ko) hung
round their necks, and diving to the bottom pick up as many as they can,
put them into their bags, and rise to the surface for fresh air,
repeating the operation until their bags have been filled. They have the
power of remaining for a long time under the water, and when they rise to
the surface for air, the head and sometimes the mouth only is exposed. A
stranger suddenly coming to the river when they were all below, would be
puzzled to make out what the black objects were, so frequently appearing
and disappearing in the water.
Cray-fish of the small kind (u-kod-ko) weighing from four to six ounces
are obtained by the women wading into the water as already described, or
by men wading and using a large bow-net, called a "wharro," which is
dragged along by two or three of them close to the bottom where the water
is not too deep.
Frogs are dug out of the ground by the women, or caught in the marshes,
and used in every stage from the tadpole upwards.
Rats are also dug out of the ground, but they are procured in the
greatest numbers and with the utmost facility when the approach of the
floods in the river flats compels them to evacuate their domiciles.
