教你怎么编渔网

Traditional Net Making Adult Education Centre of Kuusankoski

2005

This teaching material has been produced in Adult Education Centre of Kuusankoski as a part of the project "Promoting Intra-European Mobility for Elderly" which is supported by the European Union. The project is coordinated by Athens Network of Collaborating Experts (ANCE), Athens, and the other partners are Kolleg - College for Management and Design of Sustainable Development gGmbH, Berlin, SCIENTER - Centro di Ricerche e Servizi Avanzati per la Formazione, Bologna, Italy and K.A.P.I - Elderly Day Care Center, Athens. The one year long project has been started in the autumn of 2004.

More information on the project: .

Traditional Net Making in Finland

Net Making History

A hundred years ago net making was a part of everyday housework in the wintertime. Net was mainly needed for fishing gear, drag seines and drum nets. In the inland net making was mainly women's job, whereas in the coastal area, where fishing had a more important role as a means of living, also men took part in net making.

However, making and using nets has been practised much longer. The oldest net in the world was made of willow bark and according to archaeological studies it was nearly 10,000 years old. The net was found on the Karelian Isthmus in the former Finnish municipality of Antrea, which nowadays belongs to Russia. The net had been preserved in the bottom mud and peat of ancient Lake Ancylus until it was found in 1913. The length of the net was estimated to have been 30 meters and the height 1.5 metres. The meshes, i.e. the knot intervals of the net, were 6 centimetres, so it is possible that it had been used for catching for example lake breams.

In the old days willow bark, tree roots, leather bands and birch bark were used as net making material. Later, twine and rope made of flax and hemp were used. In Finland nettle twine was commonly used, since it was tough and water resistant and therefore good material for nets. Manufactured cotton became popular in the 1870s, from which on fisherman's twine was used in net weaving. In the 1920s and 1930s nylon twines replaced cotton.

The tools have remained the same throughout the centuries. The shuttle, on which the twine is wound and with which the meshes and knots are made, was made of as hard and tough wood as possible, for example of birch, and also of bone and metal. Nowadays plastic has replaced other materials. For smaller meshes a smaller shuttle was used, but actually the size of the meshes was determined by a gauge stick. The gauge stick was made of same material as the shuttle. It had to be as smooth and hard as possible so that the meshes would glide on it.

According to Leea Virtanen (Tapiola, Suuri suomalainen eräkirja 3), in order to guarantee a good catch, magic was used already when making nets. A net weaver would slap on the fingers of his/her helper and simultaneously mention a name of a fish. This was repeated until all the fish of the local lakes had been mentioned. Finally the net weaver would snatch the net from the helper, slap the helper's fingers and exclaim, "All the fish in the water."