Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/315

 purely superstitions. Superstition, however, plays a much more important part in the fishing with the pukat or seine-net.

Fishing with the pukat in the open sea (mupayang) is only carried on for a small part of the year. It requires the coöperation of two sampans, and it is only the surè-fish that is caught in this manner.

Various kinds of fish, great and small, are however caught inshore with the pukat. One end of the net is made fast on shore while the other is taken out to sea in a sampan and then brought ashore again, the object being to make a big haul of fish with the gigantic bags forming the centre of the net which are thus dragged through a considerable tract of water.

The men (awaʾ) who form the crew of a sampan are subject to the orders of a master (pawang), who is also usually the owner of the vessel and its belongings. Pukat-fishing presupposes great skill and especially sundry sorts of èleumdèë (= ilmu) or knowledge of magic lore, principally consisting of formulas which must be recited at the proper time in order to resist malignant influences by sea and to attract the fish. Just as in hunting the secrets of the forest must be known to the pawang rusa, the indispensable "master" of every deer-drive, who is alone able to exorcise wood-spirits, to take bees' nests from the trees unharmed, etc., so must the pawang pukat know all the influences that prevail beneath the sea, and be armed against them so far as may be necessary.

Some of the rules which have to be observed are universally known, as for instance that which forbids fishing with the pukat on a Friday under any pretext. Other methods of catching fish may be practised with impunity on this day, but pukat-fishing is prohibited as strictly as ploughing. Thus on Fridays the pawang and his crew may be seen lounging about in their best clothes.

There are besides a number of words which cannot be uttered without danger at sea. This holds good for other fishermen as well as the