Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/194

 pounds exposed to the sun. Water, when carried to their wigwams, was kept in gourds, which served as the flagons of the aboriginal Virginians.

The Indians obtained an important proportion of their supplies of food by fishing and hunting, this being the province of the men, as agriculture was that of the women and children. Their manner of fishing consisted of angling, spearing, netting, and trapping. The hook was made of a grated bone carefully bent in the form of a crooked pin. To this hook the bait was tied; the thread of both the fishing line and the net was spun by the women from the bark of different trees, from the sinews of the deer, and from the fibre of grasses. In spearing fish, the Indians either employed a long arrow secured to a stout string, or a strong javelin headed with bone or with the prickles of certain varieties of fish. The habit of spearing fish by night was practised among them very extensively, the canoe used in this operation being many feet in length, and capable of carrying many persons in safety. A large fire was lighted in the centre of the boat, which cast a glare over the surrounding water, the steadiness of the flame being maintained by the fagots that two Indian children or women were constantly adding to the fire as the material upon which it fed was consumed; at either end of the canoe, an Indian fisherman stood with his spear poised in his hand, prepared to strike as soon as the light brought a fish in the stream below to view. The sturgeon was in many instances so enormous that it was difficult to kill with a spear, and in a case of this kind the Indians were only able to secure their