Once the fish had been loaded into the stage, the process of cleaning began.21 This took place on a splitting table (figure 16).

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(figure16) Splitting table, Stanley Waterman's stage, Deep Bay.

All stages had a splitting table located 90 degrees to the longitudinal plane of the building. Often there was a small window over this splitting table, usually the only window in the structure. The table itself was approximately 4' by 6'in size, a series of planks supported by permanent legs. There were one or two semi-circular cutouts where the splitters would work; next to these cutouts would be nailed a small strip of wood--a cleat--that would be used to steady the fish as it was being split. The cutout permitted the fish to be worked at an angle as the backbone was removed.

Ideally, at least three people stood around the splitting table, and were involved in the cleaning process (figure 17).

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(figure17) Ripper, header and splitter working at the splitting table (Canadian Illustrated News, November 18, 1871).

Two would stand beside one another along one of the longer dimensions of the table: someone who slitted the belly of the fish from anus to head, sometimes making a cut across the throat of the fish to facilitate head removal (figure 18); and a person who then removed first the guts and then the head by breaking it off by hand.

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(figure18) Morley Coles ripping fish, Deep Bay.

On the opposite side of the table would be a person who split the fish along the back and removed the backbone. The workers who performed these various tasks usually had specific names: the person who gutted the fish was called the "ripper"; the one who removed the head was the "header"; and the person who cut out the backbone was the "splitter". Sometimes the cutting of the throat was done by a separate person, rather than the ripper; this person, then, was known as a "cut throater". Depending on the number of available workers, there might be two or as many as five people doing one task around the splitting table. There could be two splitters--as indicated by the fact that some tables had two cutouts for this activity; however, according to Dan Greene, you had to rip and head fish pretty fast to supply two splitters. Larger fish--those over two feet and sometimes the entire length of the splitting table--had to be specially cut around the head to permit its removal. This was referred to as "jowling", and the ripper had to make sure that these larger fish were jowled properly or the header would not be able to remove the head by hand.

Once the gutting and splitting process started, fish would be worked on "fast as ever you could", as Dan Greene described it. Fish would be gutted, headed and split in usually one counterclockwise circular motion as each person performed his or her particular operation, sliding the fish on to the person beside them for the next step. When fish were plentiful, a morning haul of 70-80 quintals of fish (8000-9000 pounds) would not be unusual, and work would have to continue as rapidly as possible to ensure that it would be finished by midnight or early morning. Workers would obviously take turns in this work which required long hours of standing; sometimes the header would get especially tired, and would rig up a special board seat to sit on.

No other fixed objects were found in this part of the stage; nothing could get in the way of work that had to proceed as quickly as possible. Quick work required that offal which would accumulate during the cleaning process be efficiently removed. Most stages had at least one hole in the floor for this; in some cases, this hole took the form of a chute located under the splitting table (figure 19).

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(figure19) Offal chute in Leslie Coles' stage, Deep Bay..

Martin Hart (figure 20) of Deep Bay referred to this as a "headin' hole".

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(figure20) Martin Hart, Deep Bay.

As people worked around the table, they could quickly kick the fish head or guts out of the stage through the hole at their feet.

After a fish was split, it was dropped into some kind of tub or barrel filled with salt water for washing, which would be located just under the splitter. The container could be a tight box, a terce tub or half of a molasses puncheon (figure 21).

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(figure21) Molasses puncheon used for washing fish, Leslie Coles' stage, Deep Bay.

When this tub became full, the fish were washed to remove any portions of guts or blood. They would be then moved to the fish pounds to begin the salting process. In the past, a small sled-like object, often known on Fogo Island as a dredge bar, was used to drag the fish from splitting table to pound. This dredge bar was similar to a sled used by the French (figure 22)--again, indicating the borrowings between English and French traditions.

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(figure22) Detail of De Fer's 1705 print; a sled used to drag fish through the stage similar to the Fogo Island dredge bar is seen near F.

Each stage had a number of these, and younger boys were often in charge of dragging these back and forth; curved runners made them easily move over the stage bedding. Like the splitting operation, this activity went at quite a speed; a full one was pulled out from under the splitter and replaced with an empty one. According to Dan Greene, "everything was going pretty fast."

Since the work of gutting, heading and splitting the fish had to occur as rapidly as possible, especially when a large amount of fish had been caught, all physically able members of the household took part in the processing. Women generally performed the same tasks as men, except for splitting the fish. They worked around the splitting table as rippers and headers, carried fish to the pounds, and spread salt when necessary (figure 23).

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(figure23) Women working in the stage (Harper's Weekly, January 9, 1875).

As Leslie Coles recalled, his wife worked one entire summer gutting fish when they caught 538 quintals (over 60,000 pounds); he remarked that it was "a lot of ripping open...a lot of work for a woman to do and do the rest of her work too." Women might start working in a stage at four in the morning alongside the fishing crew, and continue work throughout the day and late into the night. In the summertime, Martin Hart remembered that if you were not out fishing, you would be in the stage the entire time; you'd "go in the house long enough to eat...that's all." And Bill Godwin (figure 24) of Barr'd Island recalled an incident that indicates just how crucial was a woman's involvement in the cleaning process: "

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(figure24) Bill Godwin, Barr'd Island

I've seen my momma in the stage twelve o'clock at night washing fish." She had been working in the stage all day. "I've seen my momma sat down, the kids were up here [in the house] and the baby crying...and mom down there washing fish. 'Bring her down to me'. Mom would take off her apron, and Joyce, my sister, I took her down. Mom would breast feed her right there on the barrel tub sitting down in the stage." Children would begin to help at an early age in the stage; Bill Godwin remembers that he began helping his father cut throats when he was twelve.