Fishpond
p. 98 · Read in the full issue
Romance Of The Fishpond
“Hawaiian Fishponds" by Catherine C. Summers, and published by the Bishop Museum Press, is not, as one might sup pose, a modern recipe for breed ing tilapia fish.
This is fishponds anthropo logically-wise. Before Europeans, ever came to the Hawaiian Islands, the Polynesians on the islands of Hawaii, Maui, Molo kai, Oahu and Kuuai, all buih fishponds. The reasons was thai catching fish in the sea was “tabu” during spawning season This did not, however, preven\ the people taking fish out oj ponds, because ponds were con sidered part of the land.
Some ponds were built at the edge of the sea; others were con structed inland; but both were stocked so well that they saw the Hawaiians over the “tabu * season.
Although it is estimated tha. over 200 of the ponds onct existed, most of them are now in ruins or completely destroyed and of interest only to scientists (Published by the Bishop Museur Press, Honolulu. $U51.25.)