Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/312

 In the salt-water creeks and rivers (especially the former) the casting net (jeuë) and the nyaréng are employed. The latter is a square net, with which a piece of water is barricaded as it were with a wall, so that the fish get entangled in its meshes as they try to pass through. Birds are caught in the same manner in the open country, and the net used to catch them bears the same name. To ensure a good catch with the nets, two men are sometimes posted one at each side of the stream to drive the fish from some distance off. The two hold between them a long rattan or pliant trailer which they move up and down in the water, and the fish, frightened at the noise, dart away towards the net. Driving of this sort is called meuʾurèt.

Small seines (pukat) are also employed for catching fish in the creeks and rivers.

In shoal water both in the swamps and in the creeks and rivers, fish are sometimes caught with purse-nets, some of larger size called nyab and some smaller, ali, the latter being used especially to catch cray-fish, crabs and prawns. These ali are let down to the number of fifty at a time; they sink to the bottom by means of the lead with which they are weighted in the centre, but remain under the control of the fisherman by means of a rope, to which a float is attached.

The neuheuns and lhòms fulfil the same functions in the creeks and rivers as the fish-ponds in the rice-fields.

The neuheun is a kind of pond made by piercing the bund that runs alongside a creek or river by a pipe (grōng-grōng) and receiving the water that pours through this in a pit excavated for the purpose. This is then made an attractive abode for fish by placing in it bits of wood, leaves etc, The neuheun is protected from the raids of net-fishers by planting thorny bushes or bamboo stakes in them and also by keeping watch over them at night. The fish is caught with a casting-net.

The lhòm is formed by collecting a mass of heavy timber in a deep portion of the river when the water is low, and surrounding it with stakes driven into the river-bed in order to prevent it from being