FISHING SUPERSTITIONS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 319, 9 January 1909, Page 4

FISHING SUPERSTITIONS

la British Columbia the Indians cerenoniousiy go out to meet the salmon, md in llattering voices try to wiu th.ii favor by calling them all chiefs. Every spring in California the Karaks used to dance tor salmon. Aleauwnile one of their number secluded himscll in the mountains and fasted lor leu days. Upon his return lie solemnly ap preached the river, took the lirst sat moil of the catch, ate some of it, aac with the remainder lighted a sacrilicUt lire. The same Indians . laboriously climbed to the mountain-top, after tin poles for the spearing booth,'being eon .vinecd that if they were gathered when the salmon were watching no fish woulc ,be caught. In Japan, among the primitive race o .'the Ainos, even the women left at honii are not allowed to talk, lest the tisl may hear and disapprove, while the lirs fish is always brought in through j window instead of a door, so that othei lish may not see. The Eskimo women of Alaska neve sew while the men are lishiug, am should any mending be imperative the; do it shut up in little tents out of sign of the sea. Under no circumstances on the noith I'east coast of Scotland will a lishennai | at sea mention, certain objects on lanJ such as " minister," " kirk," " swine,' '" dog," etc., and the line will surely b< lost if a pig in seen while baiting it. A on the land chickens must not be count ed until they are hatched, so a I sea lisl must not be counted until they ar< caught. it is good luck to find mice nibbliiij among the nets ; a horseshoe nailed ti the mast will help, and a herrinj caught and salted down will product I wonders.

In the Shetland Islands a cat must be mentioned before, a man baiting I his line, and among the Magyars of 'Hungary a fisherman will turn back and Wait over a tide if he meets a woman a green apron. 1 Every year the natives of the Duke of York Island decorate a canoe with flowers and fern, fill it with shell monev ■and cast it adrift, " to compensate the lish for their fellows caught and eaten." '• It was always the custom of the Maoris, the primitive inhabitants of 1 SVw Zealand, to put lire first lish they caught back into tile sea "with a pray.'r that it might tempi other fish to come and he caught."