Heritage: Traditional, Native American, Innuit & Aboriginal spear fishing

[Mr. X]

I've wondered for a while if there might be interest in spearfishing traditions and traditional spear fishing methods. Having recently seen the UN (through UNESCO) protect falconry (hunting with birds of prey) as an important living tradition/heritage of many countries (I believe 40 were mentioned), including several in the Middle East; perhaps this is something we need to look into for spear fishing.

Just to kick things off. I thought it might be useful to remind the British, esp. Welsh members, of our extremely long tradition of spearing fish in Britain (keyword: microlith):

Hunting for food in the Stone Age | Rhagor
http://www.recipes4us.co.uk/Cooking by Country/Wales Recipes Culinary History and Information.htm

I'm hoping/expecting we have some native American/Canadian members who might be interested in contributing. I'm sure others all around the world could contribute though (Hawaii, Polynesia, Indonesia, Japan, China, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Oz, Middle East, Russia, ...)

 

[Mr. X]

Any interesting article re. antiga:

Wadadli The Pre-History Of Antigua And Barbuda


And another from Canada:

Traditional Fishing (Canada)

Another from Hawaii:

http://www.surfingforlife.com/culture.html

 

[devondave]

Interesting stuff, chemical warfare to get your dinner.
Curare-tipped trident next year for me.

 

[Mr. X]

Poisoning your food - sounds like a winner!

Here's one from Denmark (Viking?). Apparently a very early "slip-tip" design - the tip is intended to separate from the spear:
Viewing image Viking era fish spear and fish hook - 10th Century - I Forge Iron

 

[Mr. X]

...
And another from Canada:

...

Do you reckon this would hold a fish? I've seen many similar designs (strangely common throughout the world) but usually they have a central point/spear & the side "clips"/barbs/hooks seem to be intended to hold the speared fish.

 

[Mr. X]

Making and using a salmon spear:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmBQjWNG1M]YouTube - Fish Spear Making[/ame]

 

[Mr. X]

An impressive collection of fish-spears from a bush-craft website: Wildwood Survival - Wilderness Survival - Fish Spears

 

[spaghetti]

The ancient Romans used 3 pronger tips.

 

[Mr. X]

The ancient Romans used 3 pronger tips.

That reminds me, I read something about the Roman "Gladiators" that used a trident & net instead of a sword (gladius), the Retiarii - thought an image might make an interesting avatar. But apparently they were not much favoured by the crowds and were sometimes considered effeminate (retiarius tunicatus).

Gladiatorial Exhibition​

Apparently they sometimes used a dagger for dispatching their prey too:

File:Astyanax vs Kalendio mosaic.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia​

Interesting related Wiki links:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator]Gladiator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_gladiator_types]List of Roman gladiator types - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retiarius]Retiarius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[spaghetti]

Nice input, Mr. X.
Indeed the Retiarii (netters) were a very particular type of gladiator (no body armour, no helmet, no mask, with fishing tools as weapons) and indeed they were not favoured by the public for basically two reasons:

-for they wore no body armour, and were normally opposed to heavily armoured adversaries, they (wisely) tended to run around a lot, and to avoid direct clash, by using elusive tactics, based on velocity and sudden turns.
But the attendance did not enjoy to watch naked guys running around: they wanted blood, they wanted close quarters, they wanted to see intense man-to-man fight. That's why they normally boo'ed at the Retiarii. :vangry

-for they wore no helmet nor mask, they were the only ones to fight bare face. For this reason, the attandance was able to see the expression on their faces while they were dying. They found that vision, the face of a man who dies, to be very entertaining. And that's why they always wished the Retiarii in particular to die.

 

[Mr. X]

Interesting insights but rather gory. We should get back on thread... native and traditional spear-fishing.

 

[spaghetti]

We should get back on thread... native and traditional spear-fishing.

Couldn't agree more: back on track.

One of the merits of this thread, for the way I see it, is showing that spearfishing has always been a human activity since the beginning of times, and thus is not to be considered a weirdo hobby of nowadays.

In facts I added the ancient Romans bit because that is my own nation's heritage/historic/native/traditional spearfishing.

I'll throw in more Roman mosaics (pics below).
In pic #1, see people throwing various types of spears from boats. In pic # 2 and #3, watch the characters on the right, stinging octopus with spears. In pic #4 you see my old granpa practicing freediving.

Ancient stuff that is:

 

[Mr. X]

...
One of the merits of this thread, for the way I see it, is showing that spearfishing has always been a human activity since the beginning of times, and thus is not to be considered a weirdo hobby of nowadays.

In facts I added the ancient Romans bit because that is my own nation's heritage/historic/native/traditional spearfishing...

That's cool - didn't want to upset our members with unnecessary gore (or should I more accurately say, their parents?) - as I did with the shark wound links:yack.

When you say "my own nation's heritage", don't forget that much of Europe (except Germany & Scotland) fell to the Roman Empire - although the language never really took hold here in Britain, to the extent that it did on the continent anyway. The Catholic church probably had more impact introducing Latin here later, esp. for church, law & science. There were apparently Gladiators in Londinium (London - they recently discovered the remains of a large amphitheatre here) and York (where a Roman grave yard was recently found and is being studied intensively by York University), and probably numerous other places in Britain (Cirencester? Dorchester? Colchester?...). There remains a Roman mosiac - part of a villa - a few miles from my home (and still the site of a major house/minor stately home), Roman roads and abandoned settlements scattered all around the area. The City of Bath, of course has the remains of the extensive Roman Bath complex for which it is named - very cool (actually quite hot).

 

[Alden]

Making and using a salmon spear:
YouTube - Fish Spear Making

This is great video and thanks to you for sharing this if you have some more pleas share with us.

 

[yugyug]

cool thread. I'll see if I can find some stuff out about the indigenous Aborigines here in Australia and add it.

Also, its interesting because a a few years ago I spent some time getting the Wikipedia spearfishing page into shape. ...then later someone else came along and added info about traditional pre-modern spearfishing (and rightly so) but since then the two aspects of the page don't sit well together. One solution is to split the wiki page into two (traditional and modern) but perhaps there is a better way - what are the historical links between them? How can we produce a narrative that creates a flow and connects the two? For example, what traditional forms of spearfishing were still being practised in the Mediterranean just prior to the development of modern goggles and spear guns?

(Off the top of my head I hazard a guess that most of the modern developments revolve around one particular thing - the invention of vulcanised mouldable rubber?)

 

[Mr. X]

Yes, I guess rubber was important for masks, fins, snorkels and speargun rubbers. And for those of us in colder waters, the neoprene wetsuit was a critical developments.

There is some really interesting history in the Freediving Manual (I forget the name/Italian authors now -see the Spearo Books-threads). It includes a story about a sponge diver (complete with a range of physical ailments) deep diving for a Navy anchor in exchange for the right to fish with explosives! It was probably the first scientificially monitored free dive of significant depth, certainly in Europe.

I was hoping we might get some postings on Japanese pearl divers. Apparently it is still practiced - although probably not to the same extent. I recently saw a program on TV recently (possibly Extreme Fishing with Robson Green) where he met and dived with some mature lady pearl/shellfish divers.

I think the Americans and Europeans/Italians in particular have started to collect together historical information of the more recent evolution of spear fishing. Inevitably much of it involves competitions, trophies, technical innovations and commercial developments because they tend to be documented. The early American spearos came up with some incredible speargun designs, particularly for big fish (see the online museum).

 

[devondave]

Relevant article from New Scientist -

Found: fine American fishing tackle, 12 millennia old - life - 03 March 2011 - New Scientist

 

[Erik]

I remember reading about this guy. He had holes in his ears and some lung problems. he did a "variable weight" dive to free the anchor. Pellizzari did a dive to commemorate it I believe; head first hanging on to a heavy weight.

There is some really interesting history in the Freediving Manual (I forget the name/Italian authors now -see the Spearo Books-threads). It includes a story about a sponge diver (complete with a range of physical ailments) deep diving for a Navy anchor in exchange for the right to fish with explosives! It was probably the first scientificially monitored free dive of significant depth, certainly in Europe.

 

[spaghetti]

I remember reading about this guy. He had holes in his ears and some lung problems. he did a "variable weight" dive to free the anchor. Pellizzari did a dive to commemorate it I believe; head first hanging on to a heavy weight.

He was Georgios Haggistattis, a Greek. In 1913 he found and made possible to pick up the lost anchor of an italian Dreadnought (Corazzata Regina Margherita) with a series of dives between 50 and 80 meters, as witnessed by numerous officers of the Italian (at that time Royal) Navy and medics.

He suffered from emphysema pulmonaris, had a broken eardum and the other missing (no eardrum at all) and his dry static breathold was shorter than one minute. But then he attached himself to a stone (skandalopetra?) and zoooom! Down he go and up and down.

 

[Mr. X]

...He suffered from emphysema pulmonaris, had a broken eardum and the other missing (no eardrum at all) and his dry static breathold was shorter than one minute.

Yes, it just goes to show what can be achieved by the disabled/differently-abled. Wasn't he a heavy smoker too? His environmental credentials are rather marred by his request that he allowed to "fish with dynamite" as reward though:head.

They say Greek but I suspect he might be a Yorkshireman (the climber Pete Livesey - father of modern rock climbing - was known, on occasion, to cross rivers by walking across them underwater carrying a large rock) .

I didn't realise that it was as recent as 1913. Surely the Japanese pearl divers must have similar stories?