Fishing Skills Of The Native Americans: No Hooks, No Reels, No Problem!

If you love to fish, you might have wondered how the indigenous people of the Americas managed to fish without all that expensive equipment so many people seem to use today.

When you think about it, many native tribes relied on fish as one of their main food sources, but without metal hooks, reels, rods or sonar devices, how did they manage to catch enough fish to not only survive, but to thrive?

My father was an avid fisherman, and although he liked his expensive reels, when he took my brothers and me camping, we rarely used any type of equipment other than the occasional net, which we actually brought for frogs. (I will tell you about my father’s favorite fishing method, the one he learned from his grandfather, later on.)

Let’s take a look at some of the forgotten or little-known ways that native people caught fish and other aquatic foods.

Spears and Other Obvious Methods

Most people think of spears as a means of catching fish — like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. While native people certainly did use this method, it isn’t always as easy as old Tom Hanks made it look like in the middle of the movie. If one was lucky, rocks provided a good platform from which to stand and wait for a fish, or a school of fish to pass. Canoes also were used, with one person navigating the canoe and holding it steady when they needed to, while two or more other persons would spear fish.

In a pinch, even the old bow and arrow could be used in shallow water. If the water was too deep, you could easily lose the fish, and your arrow, in the depths. A few tribes, such as the Powhatan, did make a type of line, called a “pemmenaw,” which was attached to arrows so they could be retrieved, along with the fish.

Get The Essential Secrets Of The Most Savvy Survivalists In The World!

During the winter, a common method to catch fish was the lure and spear method. A hole was cut in the ice, and then a white piece of bone was lowered into the hole on a piece of sinew. Fish would follow this “shiny” bone to the surface, then speared.

Nets or Obstruction Techniques

These methods remind me of my father’s favorite fishing method. He often referred to it as “the lazy way to eat.” Native people were known for making obstructions that worked like a net that they placed across the opening of streams or channels. These were made from woven reeds or other types of tough grasses, tied to stakes. These stakes were then placed on either side of a channel or part of a fast running stream, very much like a fence. Fish were held fast to this “fence” by the swift moving current.

Native people used similar types of traps as well. One method involved putting reeds or small twigs in the water, making a giant V. Rather than trying to swim back the way they came, the fish would congregate at the small part of the V, trying to find an exit. Fish could simply be pulled out by hand.

Image source: FineArtAmerica

Another common trap, called a weir, was made from reeds. It formed a type of funnel that fish would swim in to, but found they could not escape due to either a fast current or multitude of fish behind them. These weirs were quite large, sometimes being three feet wide at the opening and about 10 feet in length!

Still other tribes used nets made from plant fibers. These large nets were then suspended between people standing in two canoes stationed on either side of a river. Once a few fish were caught, they were placed in the boat, then the net replaced in the water. Since the nets were not strong like nylon nets, they could only hold a few pounds of fish before they needed to be pulled in. Over the course of a day, however, this resulted in a bounty of fish. This also ensured that plenty of fish were left to replenish the waters.

Another type of net involved using a tree branch that made a large Y. Reeds or plant fibers were then tied and woven between the Y, making something like a very loosely woven basket. A person could stand in the river or ocean, or on a rock or in a canoe and scoop up fish, or wait patiently until the fish swam over the net, and then quickly pull up the net.

New Solar Oven Is So Fast It’s Been Dubbed “Mother Nature’s Microwave”

My father would employ us kids to get sticks for firewood. He would then select a few dozen sticks about 2 inches in diameter. He used these sticks to make a large U in the water, usually in front of a swift moving part of the stream. The fish we caught, usually rainbow trout, would become trapped in the U, unable to swim out due to the strong current. This worked remarkably well and we often had fish for dinner each night, as well as fish to take home to our mother.

Seasons and Tides

Native people understood the cycles of nature. Pacific Northwest tribes knew when the salmon were returning to spawn, and would wait for them to finish spawning, before taking their dead or dying bodies as meat. In the fall, tribes could collect, literally, thousands of salmon. Drying the meat would ensure that they would always have something to eat, no matter what happened that winter.

Atlantic salmon will return again and again to spawn, so native people would make traps or use nets to catch them on their return route, after they had spawned and lay eggs. Indigenous tribes knew that if they took salmon before they spawned, there would soon be no more salmon to catch.

Those who lived near the seas quickly learned to catch fish, crabs and other sea life in tide pools. Tide pools make natural traps for fish, leaving them in very shallow pools after the tide goes out. Some tribes would take nothing more than baskets to the tide pools and pull out fish and crabs by hand.

Native people learned to find other food sources by watching nature at work. They knew when they could collect turtle eggs, birds’ eggs, clams, frogs, crayfish, sea otters, seals and basketfuls of migrating anchovies.

What alternative fish-catching methods have you used? Share your tips in the section below:

Learn How To ‘Live Off The Land’ With Just Your Gun. Read More Here.

Why Do Leftists And Globalists Hate Tribalism So Much?

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

Over the years I have heard the word “tribalism” used consistently as a way to deride and attack conservative groups with political stances outside the boundaries of globalization. Many readers have been exposed to this propaganda recently as “tribalism” becomes the go-to denouncement of the Trump Administration. From The Atlantic to CNBC to The Washington Post and beyond, tribalism is used almost as often as the fascist label, and there are very specific reasons for this.

Tribalism (like nationalism and populism) has slowly but surely been falsely associated with totalitarianism, as if the two are synonymous. The use of “tribalism” as a dismissal of sovereignty concepts is a distinctly globalist and leftist habit; clearly, they hate the very notion of it, so much so that they have sought to turn it into a four letter word. But why?

The fact of the matter is, tribalism revolves around sets of principles; meaning, some people hold principles that are completely incompatible with other people"s principles. Some principles simply cannot be reconciled with other principles, and they cannot coexist. Groups tend to form around principles, and thus, certain groups cannot live in close proximity with other groups. When they do live in close proximity, one will invariably absorb the other or destroy the other.

This is more likely to occur when two groups have diametrically opposing views rather than minor deviations and disagreements.

For example, the mass injection of millions of Muslim immigrants into European nations has in a very short period of time resulted in the steady decline of Western ideals and even the decline of legal frameworks in the areas where the immigrants concentrate. Sharia law is a direct antithesis to traditional Western values such as religious freedom, free speech, freedom of association, individual rights, economic independence, free markets, etc. (It is interesting to note that western socialists and communist ideals run parallel to Muslim culture when it comes to the desire to dismantle sovereignty.) The effects of this clash of principles are quite obvious at this point.

Sharia-based groups have been transplanted into the Western sphere in what I consider a deliberate Cloward-Piven strategy of cultural destabilization of Europe.

These groups do not assimilate, they devour the surrounding culture and turn it into something that sublimates in accordance with their principles. This is why the leftist and globalist call for “multiculturalism” is nonsensical. You cannot have two or more diametrically opposed cultures within the same society — one of them has to take precedence over all the others. Globalists in particular KNOW this is the reality, and they use multiculturalism as a means to undermine nations specifically built upon traditional sovereign values.

Leftists are in most cases merely useful idiots that promote multiculturalism as a means of “penance.” That is to say, they believe that traditional western culture should be punished for past transgressions and in due course, phased out completely in exchange for a new utopian system.

Both leftists and globalists will often try to argue that if tribalism was not prevalent there would be no ill will between Muslims and Westerners or any other groups for that matter. But, as stated earlier, what they are glossing over is the inevitability of groups separating based on principals.  The only way for all groups to coexist in close proximity in the multicultural paradise we are being sold is for ALL value systems to be eliminated except for one. And perhaps that is the point.

Globalists prefer an outcome in which traditional values are erased and replaced with a “new world order” mindset; a system that is rooted in collectivist suppression of individual liberty, where freedom is exchanged for “harmony;” one global tribe worshiping one global god — the state.

The existence of tribalism might lead to conflicts if opposing cultures are deliberately mashed together, but it also makes the formation of a single overarching tyranny very difficult. Globalists seek to irritate existing divisions and trigger chaos between groups because ultimately, they want to demonize the very concept of tribalism and make way for a one world ideal that fits THEIR agenda.

Leftists are decidedly less self aware on why they fight so hard against tribalism. They see cultural division of any kind on the part of the west as inherently evil. Ironically, when it comes to so called “victim groups” like Muslims, social-justice warriors will argue that their aggressively divisive behavior is off limits to criticism because you have to be “from that culture to understand it”.  So, tribalism on the part of designated victim groups is beyond reproach, and tribalism on the part of westerners is a cancer that must be eradicated.

To reiterate, leftists love tribalism initiated by those they consider victim groups.  They only hate tribalism when it is initiated by conservatives and the traditional western middle class.  The double standard is evident.

Exactly what is happening here? Well, we are being given a false choice. We are offered tribalism at the cost of endless social crisis (which is being deliberately instigated), or, the erasure of tribalism and traditional principles for the sake of “peace.”  No other solutions are being presented.

Liberty proponents like myself would point out that there is an underlying principle within natural law that could solve many of the problems that arise between groups with differing world views without sacrificing everything to join a one-world collectivist hive mind. That rule would be the “Non-Aggression Principle.”  To summarize, the non-aggression principle holds that no person or group has the right to impose their beliefs or will on another person or group. The only time force of action is warranted is in self defense and the defense of innocents.

If a society was to operate by the rule of non-aggression, and people were to abide by that rule, then most groups and cultures could live peacefully. For the people who do not abide, removal from that society or nation would be necessary. This is the intrinsic advantage of tribalism in its purest form; tribalism allows us to discriminate against groups with destructive principles and behaviors, or against those that have different objectives. Some divisions are useful divisions. This allows for a group with shared goals to accomplish those goals without constant internal obstruction or sabotage. As long as the non-aggression principle is adhered to, tribalism is the ideal system.

Of course, there are certain groups that are incapable of accepting this dynamic.

Leftist ideology depends upon thought control and manipulation in order to remain relevant. Because their values are not based in logic or self examination, they don’t have the ability to win people over through compelling arguments; all they have are lies and force. When in power, they use the force of government. When out of power, they use the threat of the mob. If tribalism and the non-aggression principle were to thrive, the leftists in their current form would represent a failed group, and they would fade away.

Globalists see themselves as social architects, and an architect cannot function if his building materials will not cooperate. Globalism is impotent without the ability to impose will and the ability to undermine practical divisions between ideological opposites. Tribalism in the name of sovereignty and free society is an impassable wall to globalization. Their only option is to utilize and exploit groups that are anti-liberty as a weapon against existing societies that still have some basis in sovereignty. This is much easier to do when anti-liberty groups are organized within those free systems, or, when they are imported into them. A strong, free people cannot be destroyed from without, they can only be destroyed from within.

Social divisions are absolutely rational and healthy, and there is nothing “evil” or totalitarian about organizing only with people that share your values. The real evil comes from those that would suppress our values in the name of “harmonization” — there is no such thing.  Globalists and leftists argue for the adoption and toleration of all ideologies and principles as a means to peace, but what they really want in the end is the erasure of all the ideologies and principles they see as disagreeable in order to make way for their own.