FISH-EATERS, a name given to a people, or rather to several different people, who lived wholly on fishes; the word is Greek, compounded of ἰχθύς, πῖστις, "fish," and ἐδέρε, "to eat."

The Ichthyophagi spoken of by Ptolemy are placed by Sanfon in the provinces of Nanquin and Xantong. Agatharcides calls all the inhabitants between Carmania and Gedrocia by the name Ichthyophagi.

From the accounts given us of the Ichthyophagi by Herodotus, Strabo, Solinus, Plutarch, &c., it appears indeed that they had cattle, but that they made no use of them, excepting to feed their fish withal. They made their houses of large fish-bones, the ribs of whales serving them for beams. The jaws of these animals served them for doors; and the mortars wherein they pounded their fish, and baked it at the sun, were nothing else but their vertebrae.