Goad

Fishing is one of the oldest known methods of obtaining food. Initially, people caught fish with bare hands or by using random tools. Gradually, however, as they gained experience and knowledge of the species and habits of fish, they began to make equipment and tools designed for fishing. Among the oldest and most widespread fishing tools are the thrusting instruments, one of which is a combined eelspear, known in Polish as bodarz, bodor or lirka. It is a kind of a one-pronged spear mounted on a long pole, equipped with two flexible arms used for catching the fish on the proper prong. In Pomerania, these spears were commonly used, especially in spring during the spawning season, but also in winter, under the ice. A description of winter fishing with a combined spear can be found in Stefan Żeromski’s poem Międzymorze „...he would wait for big eels or motionless pikes, lying with his chest on the ice surface for a long time, in order to pierce them with an unerring hit of a sharpened gaff, with a precise bodor.” Fishing with the combined spear was not easy, as it required a lot of skill and patience from the fisherman. However, the effort paid off – the eels caught with it were a real delicacy, for which Pomeranian cuisine was famous. Combined eelspears, just like other thrusting instruments, are harmful to fish. The presented specimen is one of thirty tools of this type in the fishing collection of the Department of Ethnography of Pomerania of the National Museum in Szczecin. It was made at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It comes from the village of Skolwin, which on 8 July 1946 became a district of Szczecin. The Museum received it as a gift in 1949.

Agnieszka Słowińska