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White Bluffs
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| Credits |
August 17, 1811
We were paddling along at daylight. On putting on shore to breakfast, four Indians on horseback joined us. The moment they alighted, one set about taking care of their horses, another to gather small sticks, a third to make a fire, and the fourth to catch fish. For this purpose, the fisherman cut off a bit of his leather shirt, about the size of a small bean. Then pulling out two or three hairs from his horse's tail for a line, he tied the bit of leather to one end of it, in place of a hook or fly. He entered the river a little way, sat down on a stone, and began throwing the small fish, three or four inches long, on shore, just as fast as he pleased. While he was doing this, another picked them up and threw them towards the fire, while the third stuck them up round it in a circle on small sticks. They were no sooner up than roasted. The fellows then sat down and swallowed them, heads, tails, bones, guts, fins, and all, in no time, just as one would swallow the yolk of an egg. Now all this was but the work of a few minutes. Before our man had his kettle ready for the fire, the Indians were already eating their breakfast. When the fish had hold of the bit of wet leather, or bait, their teeth got entangled in it, so as to give time to jerk them on shore, which was to us a new mode of angling. Fire produced by the friction of two bits of wood was also a novelty. What surprised us most of all was the promptness with which they proceeded and the quickness of the whole process, which actually took them less time to perform than it has taken me to note it down.
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Indians fishing on the river bank
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