Left: Fishing display at the permanent exhibition
Plentiful rivers and lakes have contributed as much to Estonian traditional culture, way of life and beliefs as forests have. All year round the main food eaten with bread was salted Baltic herring (silk). An old Estonian saying states that by Ash Wednesday supplies of meat would run out and people had to live on fish alone.
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Fishing in inland waters is supposed
to date back as far as the foundation of the first settlements. The oldest
finds date from the 8th millennium BC from the neighbourhood of Sindi where
people made their living mainly from fishing. However, the conquest of
the open sea was too difficult for them. With the shift in onus onto tillage,
settlements moved away from the water ways and lakes and rapid improvements
in agricultural implements can be observed. Fishing lost its primary importance
and hence the ancient types of fishing implement were retained until the
beginning of this century.
Left: Fishing display at the permanent exhibition |
| From the 13th century we can start to talk about sea
fishing. Waters were divided between villages. Fishing was a collective
activity associated with particular seasons of the year and lulls in agricultural
work. Permanent settlements had not extended to the coast yet. The first
historical record of a fishing village (Pärispea
near Kuusalu) dates back to 1295. However, the population of the village
was of Swedish origin. After the conquest of Livonia by the Germans and
Danes in the 13th century fishing waters become the property of estate
owners and tithe had to be paid for the right to fish.
The fishing act of the "Baltic Private Law", enacted in 1865, laid down principles similar to the ones from the Middle Ages. According to which all the waters were divided between public and private ownership. Although the sea was declared to be public property and everybody was allowed to fish there, the owner of a particular part of shoreline had the exclusive right to fish within a zone extending about three kilometres from that part of the coast. In most cases these were the local estate owners. Another point establishing their control over fishing was the fact that the fishing equipment most commonly used was only suitable for fishing in coastal shallow waters. |
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Although in the 1860s Russians were the predominant fishermen on the Estonian coast, by the 1890s the situation had swung in the Estonians favour. Nevertheless, fishing was still a side line activity, and was carried out only when agricultural work permitted. In the early days surplus fish were exchanged for corn with the inland farmers, however, from the last decade of the 19th century fish began to be sold. This change was caused by the growing need for money in connection with the transition to monetary rent and the buying of land for freeholds. Owing to these processes we can start to talk about professional fishermen in the last quarter of the 19th century.
