Re: NANFA-- upsetting the ecology

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus_at_hotmail.com)
Sat, 07 Oct 2000 11:05:02 EDT

Another fun by-product of eels is that their skin can be cured and works
great as an elastic hair-tie. Nantucket whale crews learned that trick from
the Tomcod Indians on Nantucket.

--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL

>From: Christopher Scharpf <ichthos_at_charm.net>
>Reply-To: nanfa_at_aquaria.net
>To: NANFA Mailing List <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
>Subject: Re: NANFA-- upsetting the ecology
>Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 09:40:02 -0400
>
> > And during my recent visit to Ohio I went to Clifton Gorge
> >Nature Preserve near Dayton. A sign there mentioned that the Miami
>Indians
> >used crushed walnuts or buckeyes (I forget which, maybe neither) or their
> >hulls to herd fish.
>
>This reminds me of the Penobscot Indians of Maine, who formed large eeling
>parties and stunned eels by stirrng a mile-long stretch of water with a
>poison
>derived from pokeberry and Indian turnip root. Not only was this poison
>fatal to
>eels, but it also caused painful skin inflammations among the Indians.
>Apparently, the pain was worth it. Within a half hour or so, the stream was
>littered with the bodies of dead or dying eels. Indians smoked their eels
>and
>used the vertebrae for stock in corn soup.
>
>
>Chris Scharpf
>Baltimore

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