Place · shore-operated lift nets · India
Chinese fishing nets, Fort Kochi
Also known as Cheena vala, Chinese nets, shore-operated lift nets, tangkul
The Chinese fishing nets of Fort Kochi are cantilevered shore installations, each at least ten metres high, that lower a net twenty metres or more across into the water and lift it with ropes against a counterweight of hanging stones, worked by a team of up to six. Such nets are used along coastal southern China and Indochina but in India almost only at Kochi and Kollam, and they are traditionally said to have come with Chinese seafarers in the fourteenth century.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Material
- timber, rope, stone counterweights
- Confidence
- Traditional / narrative attribution
- Location
- 9.966, 76.242
Worth knowing
The balance is so fine that a man walking along the main beam tips the net into the sea. The modest catch is often sold to passers-by within minutes and cooked by street cooks a few steps away.
About the place
Placed on the Fort Kochi waterfront using the Fort Kochi article's coordinates; the nets line that shore.
The Chinese introduction is tradition rather than documented fact: Wikipedia says the nets were introduced by Chinese explorers or traders in the fourteenth century and that Zheng He 'may have' brought them.
Connections (3)
- Site withinKochi
Kochi's Chinese fishing nets line the waterfront of Fort Kochi, and Wikipedia's Kochi article calls them a symbol of the city and a tourist attraction in themselves. In India such shore-operated lift nets are found almost only at Kochi and Kollam. Kochi rose as a port after the Periyar flood of 1341 ruined Muziris, and the nets are traditionally attributed to the Chinese contact of that age, when Admiral Zheng He's fleets later brought the chronicler Ma Huan to the city.
- Site adjacencySt Francis Church, Kochi
The Chinese fishing nets and St Francis Church stand close together on the Fort Kochi headland, and Wikipedia's Fort Kochi article names them side by side: the church of 1503 in which Vasco da Gama was once buried, and the series of precolonial Chinese fishing nets on the waterfront, the landmark that draws the most public interest. Between them they record the two older maritime worlds of the port, Chinese and Portuguese, before the Dutch and the British arrived.
- Traditional linkGuangzhou / Canton, China
Shore-operated lift nets of the Kochi type are used throughout coastal southern China and Indochina, while in India they are almost confined to Kochi and Kollam, which is why tradition credits Chinese seafarers with bringing them. Guangzhou was southern China's great maritime gateway to the Indian Ocean. No record documents the transfer: Wikipedia says only that Chinese explorers or traders introduced the nets in the fourteenth century and that Zheng He may have done so.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Chinese fishing nets", "Fort Kochi", "Kochi".
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