By BC Cook
For Variety
“THREE years ago I was fishing for barracuda and a shark took my line. I drew in the line close to the canoe and tied it around my waist and paddled ashore, pulling the shark behind me. I pulled the shark onto the beach and took the hook out, I did not cut the line. I cut the hook away at the mouth. Then I helped the shark back into the sea, he was not biting me.
“I wanted to save the shark, yes, but I wanted to save my line too. I saved the line and the hook. All the fish that are in the sea here we can eat- sailor fish and boar fish and sea slugs and bonito and trevally and barracuda. Dolphins too, but not shark. Sharks are human. To us a dolphin is just like another fish. A dolphin is not a shark.
“Sharks can save people, yes. I know of two cases. In one case a boat broke in two and was smashed out there in the open sea. There were four people in the boat, two were salt water people like us and two were bush people. The two bush people were lost. The other two people were taken, yes guided, by the sharks to an island and were safe. The sharks did not touch them, only guided them. They helped them swim to the island. The sharks did not help the bush people because the bush people don’t believe in the spirit. They are not related.
“Is it safe for you to swim in the sea? Yes, it is safe. Of course there are sharks but it is not dangerous. On the other side, on Guadalcanal, the sharks attack people but not here. Here you are protected. What happened was that a long time ago a shark, the one that my tribe follows, came out of a woman. The woman gave birth to the shark. We say, ‘came out of.’ Ever since then my people worship the shark, and the sharks stop attacking people in the lagoon. The spirit of that woman entered into the shark, therefore when we worship the shark we are worshipping the old people. It is a belief that was in us before. We can talk to the sharks when there is a sacrifice.
“The priest makes the sacrifice, he sacrifices a pig. The shark priest is the one who controls the area. The sharks come in but they can’t attack anybody. The priest makes it safe. Oh, the sharks come in! They come right in, almost to the beach. The last time we called the sharks- my brother was there, everyone was there, women, children, everybody. We were all in the water with the sharks, talking to them and patting them on the back. Nobody was harmed.”
This is part of an extraordinary interview with a man in the Solomon Islands. The full interview can be found in the book “Art of the Pacific” published in 1980. I am told that these beliefs about sharks are still widely held, but few will admit it to outsiders.
Dr. BC Cook taught history for 30 years and is a director and Pacific historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org). He currently lives in Hawaii.
