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| A fishing-boat off the island pagoda of Paknam. |
One of the chief commandments of the Buddhist religion is, "Thou shalt not kill." This does not refer merely to the lives of human beings, but to all creatures—mosquitoes, fleas, flies, or elephants. The reason for the commandment is that, as we have already explained, when a person dies, his soul is reborn again in another body, and this body may possibly be that of some animal. Hence, if you kill a mosquito, you may possibly be killing your own or some one else's long-deceased relative. The rule about not taking life is very generally observed, but is neglected in the case of fish. The Siamese excuses himself for fishing, on the ground that he does not kill the fish. He only pulls them out of the water; they die a natural death.
In Lower Siam fish forms an important part of the food of the people. In Upper Siam it is looked upon as a great luxury, for the rivers in the north are singularly poor in animal life. The absence of fish in the streams of Upper Siam is probably due to the fact that in the dry season the water is too shallow to allow the fish to live, and that in the wet season the current, swollen by the heavy rains, is extremely rapid, and drives them down-stream.
Of the many methods employed for catching fish, the favourite one is by means of enormous traps. These traps are made by fixing a number of bamboos upright in shallow water. A long V-shaped neck is formed, which is sometimes nearly a quarter of a mile long, and which leads by a narrow opening into a square space measuring about sixty feet each way. The fish swim along the V-shaped passage, and, having once entered the square trap, few of them ever find the way out again. They are removed from the trap every two or three days by means of nets.
Many of the canals are bordered for miles with a weed which has a large flat leaf. In places the mass of weeds is so thick that only a small passage of water remains in the centre for the use of the boats. Under the weeds fish are harboured. Bamboo stakes are fixed here and there in the mud to keep the weeds from floating away. Once or twice a year men surround a portion of this mass of floating water-plants with nets that reach to the bottom of the canal. Thus the fish within the enclosed area cannot escape. The stalks of the weeds are cut close down, and then the whole net is drawn ashore, enclosing vast quantities of fish. Netting fish in this way is not permitted in those places where the canal banks pass in front of a temple, for opposite the grounds of a temple all life is sacred, and the fish that live there are free from interference.
A circular hand-net is also used for catching fish. For permission to catch fish in this way a tax of fourteen pence for each net must be paid. The fisherman stands on the bow of his canoe, and throws the net with an easy swing into the water. It is pulled up by a string fastened to the centre. The edges, which are weighted by a small chain, fall together and enclose any fish which happen to have been lying beneath it when it was thrown into the water.
Prawns are plentiful. They are caught in nets of very small mesh. Two boats go out together for a little distance from the shore, and then separate. Between the boats a heavily weighted net is suspended. When the net is stretched as far as possible, the boats move in towards the shore, dragging it with them. In this way thousands of prawns and other small fish are easily taken. The prawns are pounded into a paste with salt, forming a mixture that tastes something like anchovy sauce. A fermented mixture of fish and shrimps is manufactured for export to Singapore, Hong-Kong, and Java, where it is looked upon as a great dainty by the Malays and the Chinese.
Long poles are driven into the sand in those waters where mussels and other shell-fish are abundant. After a while the poles are covered with the shell-fish which have fastened on them. The poles are then pulled up and scraped.
"A canoe with a white board dipping into the water is paddled along near the bank at night, and the startled fish, endeavouring to jump over it, are caught in the air by a net which projects from the far side. We can easily form some idea of the efficiency of this method, for as the launch tows us up-stream, fish are continually jumping away from the bows of the boat, and it will be unlucky if in the course of the day one does not alight on board. Fine fish two or three pounds in weight may thus be secured without trouble. Large numbers of fish are left in the fields as the water goes down, and every pond is the scene of active fishing operations. I have camped upon the bank of a river and imagined that I heard waves breaking on a sandy shore, only to find that the noise was caused by shoals of small fish jumping" (Thompson).
One of the commonest fish is plah-tu, about the size of a herring. When fresh, it tastes like trout; when smoked, it resembles kippered herring. Plah-tu is caught in the Gulf of Siam during the north-east monsoon. The fishing-boats return in the early morning and transfer their cargo to buffalo-carts, that carry it to the village. There the fish are cleaned. The gills are removed, and these, together with all the other refuse, are thrown into strong brine. The mixture of fishy odds and ends is afterwards sold as "fish-sauce."
There are mud-fish, that come up out of the water and crawl about in the slime, and there is a fish that hides under the banks and shoots drops of water at the flies that are hovering just above. This fish is an excellent marksman, and brings down many a dainty morsel for his meal.