Nine spike canopy-like fishing spear

Thrusting implements are among the oldest and most widespread fishing tools. In the 19th and early 20th centuries in Pomerania, the most popular of these were multi-pronged spears, known here as ościenie. They were considered more useful than single-prong spears because of their greater effectiveness in catching smaller fish. The multi-pronged pears varied in design, making method, size and shape. These differences resulted from several factors, such as the size of fish being caught, the habitat of specific species and also the traditions passed down from generation to generation. In the collection of the Department of Ethnography of Pomerania of the National Museum in Szczecin, there are thirty-two multi-pronged spears. Most of them are tulip-shaped or rectangular, one of them resembles a candelabra. Its axis is a prong with a triangular head, around which smaller prongs are placed, nine in total. The candelabra-shapes spear was made at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Western Pomerania. It is one of the relics taken over by the Museum of Western Pomerania (now the National Museum in Szczecin), from the Regional Museum in Białogard when it was closed down in 1951.

Agnieszka Słowińska