LOCATING FISH BY SOUND

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20928, 6 January 1938, Page 4

LOCATING FISH BY SOUND

DIVERS EMPLOYED New facts about the life of the Malay fishermen of Trengganu, one of the isolated States in the Malay Peninsula, are revealed by Mr N. R. Jarrett ,the British Adviser, in his annual report, says the “News Chronicle.” There are, it is estimated, no fewer than 15,000 Malays In the State who earn their living by fishing in the China Sea, and practically all boys living on the coast are, on reaching the age of sixteen or seventeen, absorbed into the fishing' industry, which gives employment indirectly to a considerable number of other men, women, and children. Almost the entire community on the coasts of’ Trengganu are thus dependent for their livelihoods on the success of the fishing fleets which brave the monsoon winds and other hazards of the China Sea in ships that the natives have themselves built. Mr Jarrett says that Trengganu Malays will undertake to build any type of boat from a seventy-ton motor-boat, through a range of schooners and smaller sailing craft to a minute dug-out. Methods of fishing include deep-sea fishing with drift nets practised anywhere from half a mile to ten miles off the shore, line fishing, and off-shore fishing with drag nets. The first method is the most popular, and is practised with at least five different kinds of nets which cost anything up to £72 each, a lot of money for these fisher people whose monthly income is often as little as £4. All catches are sold to the Malays for home consumption or to Chines dealers for curing and export. The proceeds of the sale are divided, the owner of the ship and net receiving

half and the crew (often numbering twenty or thirty) sharing the other halt. In Trengganu the "unjam,’’ an arrangement of dried palm leaves, anchored and buoyed in the sea to provide shelter, is often used to attract fish, and, provided the owner of the “unjam” is not fishing in that particular locality, any other person may make use of it, but the user is required by custom to pay 10 per cent, of the catch to the owner. Often it is possible to see shoals of fish, especially if they are being hunted by sharks or porpoise, and the presence of these monsters always attracts the fishermen when they are trying to locate shoals. The fishermen mainly rely, however, on a native diver to locate shoals. A good diver is much sought after, and by diving he can locate by sound a shoal of fish and recognise the species up to a distance of about a mile. Although they profess the Islamic faith, the fishermen still practise certain pagan rites, the most interesting of which is called “Semah Kuala.” For three days the fishing community gives itself up to feasting and play,

during which time no boats are allowed to land or leave. On the third day a white buffalo is slaughtered, and after the usual feast the head is floated out to sea accom-

panied by the Incantations of a witch doctor as an offering to the spirits of the sea.