Seine fishing
Interview with Martinique writer Roger Ébion:
"La senne is a series of paintings filled with memories. First of all, here are a few images from my childhood. It takes place in Bellefontaine, where I used to spend my vacations. On the beach, I'd see big, wide gumboats, loaded with a large net, carrying "cork" floats on one side, as my memory tells me, and lead weights on the other side, so that when the net was released into the water, it had a certain verticality to prevent the fish from getting through.
I can see the men sitting there, darning the net with a wooden tool. I also remember them as elderly, all wearing large bakoua. They didn't look at all like the other fishermen I'd seen coming back from fishing in Miquelon in the afternoons.
The sound of the seine was first and foremost a cry, an alert, for I still have the feeling that the inhabitants of the village were constantly watching the sea, which they never took their eyes off. They knew who had set sail and at what time. How many there were in the gumboats, which in those days were powered by rowers or the sails they carried. They knew all this better than the police. So these cries of alarm heralded a shoal of fish, what we refer to here as a kouliwou or balawou stain.
Some men came out from who knows where to push the big canoe carrying the seine into the water, better than any one man. Two other boats were immediately delivered to the sea. From then on, it was a matter of doing everything possible to surround the shoal of fish and, above all, to keep it prisoner. The two smallest canoes were positioned on either side of the seine carrier, all three off the bank. The maneuver consisted of gradually launching the large net, with each gumboat pulling a rope to form a barrier preventing the fish from escaping out to sea, and progressively keeping them encircled. I remember that the men in the two canoes pulling the net would strike the water with their oars to push back towards the center of the seine any fish trying to escape the encirclement. The canoe with the net still seems to me to be the one that guided this manoeuvre. Once the bank was surrounded, the two canoes would reduce the circle by moving closer together. This maneuver was carried out while gradually regaining the beach.
It was now occupied by those who had to or wanted to pull the seine, because once the two canoes encircling the bank had touched the ground, the fruit of the catch had to be brought ashore. So the seine was pulled and pulled and pulled, until a distinct ripple could be heard in the water, indicating to the initiates the quantity and quality of the catch.
Legend has it that every seine shooter gets his share of the fish. I'm forced to say that this is not the case. The fishermen take the bulk of their catch in the big canoe that's still in the water, emptying the contents of the net into the boat. Yes, some are rewarded with a certain quantity of fish, but I don't know by what criterion. Out of my childish naivety, I'm convinced that there is solidarity between professionals, but also towards those whom the fishermen think have earned their share of the spoils.
I saw a seining operation at Bellefontaine again, and noticed that the fish had been locked in a circle a few meters from the beach. Intrigued because I'd seen the vast majority of shooters leave empty-handed, I asked a fisherman who told me that this was how they kept the fish that would be recovered later.
I also saw the end of a seining operation in Case Pilote, where the canoe filled with balawou was carefully emptied into baskets by the fishermen. A few people, mostly women, waited patiently for permission to catch a few fish from a batch left in the seine on the ground.
Bellefontaine also had what I call the tourist seine. I don't know if it's still going on. Seining is done without any real fishing objective. Tourist clients, fond of this kind of originality, are invited to pull the seine, getting wet up to the knees and sometimes even up to the waist to make it more real. And after pulling and pulling and pulling the seine, practically standing on the spot, don't forget to have the scene filmed or photographed, all the while proudly posing with the poor little fish, wriggling with innocence, that you're about to release back into the water. And that's all there is to it, and the cinema too, so when your friends come back from vacation, they'll be amazed."
A conger fishing party
Testimony of G.-H. Léotin:
"He was a man who lived with the times, and never had the chance to experience the comforts of modern life: transistor radios, television, smartphones, even electricity... none of these things were indispensable to him, and he never knew them. He was a fisherman by profession, and the sea was his mother, helping him to feed his large family. We remember accompanying him fishing for conger eels off the islets of Le François with his eldest son, in his skiff "Dun-Dune" - an enigmatic name evoking the masculine and feminine of the indefinite article - who knows why.
The bottom of the gum tree was loaded with large bamboo bottles, resembling woven jeroboams. These were conger eel traps made in such a way that, attracted by what served as the bait - a small catwou sacrificed and roasted and dropped into the bottom of the bottle trap - any conger eel that slipped in would remain trapped.
One day, when we had to return to port loaded with our good catch and the day was beginning to decline, his young son had a moment of hesitation, perhaps even panic, as to the direction to take. This prompted the father to say:
- Kouman tibolonm, ou pa konnet chimen lakay ou? How can you not know the way to your house?
Far from the coast, he had lost his bearings(mak). An gran dlo, ou pa an salon manman'w. (On the water, you're a long way from sitting in your living room.) We were testing the truth of Plato's saying that there are 3 kinds of men: those who live, those who have died, and those who go to sea. The Creole language and culture also warn us: " Lanmè pa ni branch " (The sea has no branch to cling to)
Bottle nets for conger eel fishing. Serge Harpin's Dictionnaire encyclopédique des technologies créoles, La pêche à la Martinique (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Creole Technologies, Fishing in Martinique) tells us that: "Bottles or bottle-shaped woven nasses have a neck or goulo in Creole, and a cork. They measure from 50 to 70 cm in length and are specialized for fishing for moray eels: lapech-kong . They are also known as nas-kong and sometimes nasses-bouteilles. In Le François and Tartane, they are also called machwa In Grand-Rivière, they are rarely eaten. They are used to hold eels in the currents of the Grand-Rivière, where their traps are also called machwa.
Grand River and the titiris fishery
Grand-Rivière is a fishing village at the foot of Mount Pelée, between the communes of Le Prêcheur and Macouba, at the very tip of Martinique, as neighboring Le Prêcheur is inaccessible by car. It's a commune in the northeast of Martinique and south of the Dominica Channel. The road to Le Prêcheur is very steep, due to the rugged terrain. Its inhabitants are called Riverains. The longest and highest iron bridge in Martinique overlooks the Rivière du Potiche. Below, the vegetation is dense and lush, and the sight of fireflies rising at dusk is enchanting.
Founded in the late 17th century, the town lies on the left bank of the Grande-Rivière, from which it takes its name. Located in a valley, Grand-Rivière is renowned for its bois-flots and titiris hunting. The festival season runs from July to December. It begins 3 days after the last quarter-moon. Titiris or silver fish are fry, and include various species of gobid fish, eleotrid fish and small crustaceans that have just hatched. They are caught in river mouths, notably at Grand-Rivière, Lorrain, Macouba, Carbet and sometimes Saint-Pierre. The less turbulent Caribbean coast is ideal for dip-net fishing, which is impossible in Grand Rivière, as the current is too strong.
The signal. " Boul titiri a pété " (The titiris are here!) is the signal heard in the coastal village, and everyone rushes to the mouth of the river at 5 a.m. to set up their guano bags. The bag is cut in half, burnt at the edges and covered with gravel to conceal the trap. The bag is laid open on the riverbed, and gradually the titiris that swim upstream come to be trapped, so right away, 2 or 3 people take it in turns to set up the titiri trap. Once the titiris have been spotted in the bag, they need to be harvested quickly so as not to cause the fry to escape. The sand and gravel are removed, and after patient sifting, the product of the hunt is recovered. For many, it's a passion that everyone loves to recount with great pleasure. After 2 or 3 days in the mouth, the titiris, which have grown a little bigger, take on a darker color and sell for half the price of those first caught.
Fishermen, families, everyone gets involved. It's everyone's business, and the daily catch can be as much as 50 kg. This traditional fishery feeds a few households, and above all supplies the local restaurants, where the titiris arrive fresh in their pans. The surplus is frozen. It will be served as accras. Acras or accras or akra in Creole are small, salty, fried fritters whose batter can contain titiris, cod, crabmeat, vegetables, herbs and spices, more or less spiced up with chilli. They can also be eaten as titiri bread, court bouillon à l'étouffée, and soup.
In Guadeloupe, titiris are called pisket in Martinique Creole, pisiet and pisquettes in the regional language. But don't confuse them. In Martinique, the difference is that pisquettes are much larger.
