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There were garments made of fish-skins and bird-skins, smelling of oil and semi-transparent, as if saturated with it; and half-musical instruments, or implements, made of twigs strung full of the beaks of birds that clattered with a weird, unearthly Alaskan clatter.
Here the fish are pressed down as hard as possible, and the top is covered with fish-skins, which are secured by cords through the holes of the basket. These baskets are then placed in some dry situation, the corded part upward, seven being usually placed as close as they can be put together, and five on the top of these.
The phosphorescence of decayed fish-skins was tried; but this, though safe, was very inefficient. The most common method employed was what was called a steel mill, the notched wheel of which, being made to revolve against a flint, struck a succession of sparks, which scarcely served to do more than make the darkness visible.
Outwardly all now was peaceful. Each waking-time the fishers put forth in their long boats of metal strips covered with fish-skins. Every sleeping-time they returned laden with the fish that formed the principal staple of the community. The weaving of seaweed fiber, the making of mats, blankets, nets and slings went on as probably for many centuries before.
The peasant furnishes the native with salt, flour, and other things, while the latter catches fish, enough for both. Each has a peaceable disposition, and I was told that quarrels were of rare occurrence. The Chinese call the natives Yu-pi-ta-tze, which in English means 'wearers of fish-skins. I saw many garments of fish-skins, most of them for summer use.
Dagon seems to have been a fish-god with human head and hands; his worshippers wore fish-skins. In the temples of Apollo and Aphrodite were sacred fish, which may point to a fish cult. Atargatis is said to have had sacred fish at Askelon, and from Xenophon we read that the fish of the Chalus were regarded as gods. Goat.
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