THE STONE-FISHING OF BORA BORA
At five in the morning the conches began to blow. From all along the
beach the eerie sounds arose, like the ancient voice of War, calling to
the fishermen to arise and prepare to go forth. We on the _Snark_
likewise arose, for there could be no sleep in that mad din of conches.
Also, we were going stone-fishing, though our preparations were few.
_Tautai-taora_ is the name for stone-fishing, _tautai_ meaning a
“fishing instrument.” And _taora_ meaning “thrown.” But _tautai-taora_,
in combination, means “stone-fishing,” for a stone is the instrument
that is thrown. Stone-fishing is in reality a fish-drive, similar in
principle to a rabbit-drive or a cattle-drive, though in the latter
affairs drivers and driven operate in the same medium, while in the
fish-drive the men must be in the air to breathe and the fish are
driven through the water. It does not matter if the water is a hundred
feet deep, the men, working on the surface, drive the fish just the
same.
This is the way it is done. The canoes form in line, one hundred to two
hundred feet apart. In the bow of each canoe a man wields a stone,
several pounds in weight, which is attached to a short rope. He merely
smites the water with the stone, pulls up the stone, and smites again.
He goes on smiting. In the stern of each canoe another man paddles,
driving the canoe ahead and at the same time keeping it in the
formation. The line of canoes advances to meet a second line a mile or
two away, the ends of the lines hurrying together to form a circle, the
far edge of which is the shore. The circle begins to contract upon the
shore, where the women, standing in a long row out into the sea, form a
fence of legs, which serves to break any rushes of the frantic fish. At
the right moment when the circle is sufficiently small, a canoe dashes
out from shore, dropping overboard a long screen of cocoanut leaves and
encircling the circle, thus reinforcing the palisade of legs. Of
course, the fishing is always done inside the reef in the lagoon.
“_Très jolie_,” the gendarme said, after explaining by signs and
gestures that thousands of fish would be caught of all sizes from
minnows to sharks, and that the captured fish would boil up and upon
the very sand of the beach.
It is a most successful method of fishing, while its nature is more
that of an outing festival, rather than of a prosaic, food-getting
task. Such fishing parties take place about once a month at Bora Bora,
and it is a custom that has descended from old time. The man who
originated it is not remembered. They always did this thing. But one
cannot help wondering about that forgotten savage of the long ago, into
whose mind first flashed this scheme of easy fishing, of catching huge
quantities of fish without hook, or net, or spear. One thing about him
we can know: he was a radical. And we can be sure that he was
considered feather-brained and anarchistic by his conservative
tribesmen. His difficulty was much greater than that of the modern
inventor, who has to convince in advance only one or two capitalists.
That early inventor had to convince his whole tribe in advance, for
without the co-operation of the whole tribe the device could not be
tested. One can well imagine the nightly pow-wow-ings in that primitive
island world, when he called his comrades antiquated moss-backs, and
they called him a fool, a freak, and a crank, and charged him with
having come from Kansas. Heaven alone knows at what cost of grey hairs
and expletives he must finally have succeeded in winning over a
sufficient number to give his idea a trial. At any rate, the experiment
succeeded. It stood the test of truth—it worked! And thereafter, we can
be confident, there was no man to be found who did not know all along
that it was going to work.
Our good friends, Tehei and Bihaura, who were giving the fishing in our
honour, had promised to come for us. We were down below when the call
came from on deck that they were coming. We dashed up the companionway,
to be overwhelmed by the sight of the Polynesian barge in which we were
to ride. It was a long double canoe, the canoes lashed together by
timbers with an interval of water between, and the whole decorated with
flowers and golden grasses. A dozen flower-crowned Amazons were at the
paddles, while at the stern of each canoe was a strapping steersman.
All were garlanded with gold and crimson and orange flowers, while each
wore about the hips a scarlet _pareu_. There were flowers everywhere,
flowers, flowers, flowers, without end. The whole thing was an orgy of
colour. On the platform forward resting on the bows of the canoes,
Tehei and Bihaura were dancing. All voices were raised in a wild song
or greeting.
Three times they circled the _Snark_ before coming alongside to take
Charmian and me on board. Then it was away for the fishing-grounds, a
five-mile paddle dead to windward. “Everybody is jolly in Bora Bora,”
is the saying throughout the Society Islands, and we certainly found
everybody jolly. Canoe songs, shark songs, and fishing songs were sung
to the dipping of the paddles, all joining in on the swinging choruses.
Once in a while the cry _Mao_! was raised, whereupon all strained like
mad at the paddles. Mao is shark, and when the deep-sea tigers appear,
the natives paddle for dear life for the shore, knowing full well the
danger they run of having their frail canoes overturned and of being
devoured. Of course, in our case there were no sharks, but the cry of
_mao_ was used to incite them to paddle with as much energy as if a
shark were really after them. “Hoé! Hoé!” was another cry that made us
foam through the water.
On the platform Tehei and Bihaura danced, accompanied by songs and
choruses or by rhythmic hand-clappings. At other times a musical
knocking of the paddles against the sides of the canoes marked the
accent. A young girl dropped her paddle, leaped to the platform, and
danced a hula, in the midst of which, still dancing, she swayed and
bent, and imprinted on our cheeks the kiss of welcome. Some of the
songs, or _himines_, were religious, and they were especially
beautiful, the deep basses of the men mingling with the altos and thin
sopranos of the women and forming a combination of sound that
irresistibly reminded one of an organ. In fact, “kanaka organ” is the
scoffer’s description of the _himine_. On the other hand, some of the
chants or ballads were very barbaric, having come down from
pre-Christian times.
And so, singing, dancing, paddling, these joyous Polynesians took us to
the fishing. The gendarme, who is the French ruler of Bora Bora,
accompanied us with his family in a double canoe of his own, paddled by
his prisoners; for not only is he gendarme and ruler, but he is jailer
as well, and in this jolly land when anybody goes fishing, all go
fishing. A score of single canoes, with outriggers, paddled along with
us. Around a point a big sailing-canoe appeared, running beautifully
before the wind as it bore down to greet us. Balancing precariously on
the outrigger, three young men saluted us with a wild rolling of drums.
The next point, half a mile farther on, brought us to the place of
meeting. Here the launch, which had been brought along by Warren and
Martin, attracted much attention. The Bora Borans could not see what
made it go. The canoes were drawn upon the sand, and all hands went
ashore to drink cocoanuts and sing and dance. Here our numbers were
added to by many who arrived on foot from near-by dwellings, and a
pretty sight it was to see the flower-crowned maidens, hand in hand and
two by two, arriving along the sands.
“They usually make a big catch,” Allicot, a half-caste trader, told us.
“At the finish the water is fairly alive with fish. It is lots of fun.
Of course you know all the fish will be yours.”
“All?” I groaned, for already the _Snark_ was loaded down with lavish
presents, by the canoe-load, of fruits, vegetables, pigs, and chickens.
“Yes, every last fish,” Allicot answered. “You see, when the surround
is completed, you, being the guest of honour, must take a harpoon and
impale the first one. It is the custom. Then everybody goes in with
their hands and throws the catch out on the sand. There will be a
mountain of them. Then one of the chiefs will make a speech in which he
presents you with the whole kit and boodle. But you don’t have to take
them all. You get up and make a speech, selecting what fish you want
for yourself and presenting all the rest back again. Then everybody
says you are very generous.”
“But what would be the result if I kept the whole present?” I asked.
“It has never happened,” was the answer. “It is the custom to give and
give back again.”
The native minister started with a prayer for success in the fishing,
and all heads were bared. Next, the chief fishermen told off the canoes
and allotted them their places. Then it was into the canoes and away.
No women, however, came along, with the exception of Bihaura and
Charmian. In the old days even they would have been tabooed. The women
remained behind to wade out into the water and form the palisade of
legs.
The big double canoe was left on the beach, and we went in the launch.
Half the canoes paddled off to leeward, while we, with the other half,
headed to windward a mile and a half, until the end of our line was in
touch with the reef. The leader of the drive occupied a canoe midway in
our line. He stood erect, a fine figure of an old man, holding a flag
in his hand. He directed the taking of positions and the forming of the
two lines by blowing on a conch. When all was ready, he waved his flag
to the right. With a single splash the throwers in every canoe on that
side struck the water with their stones. While they were hauling them
back—a matter of a moment, for the stones scarcely sank beneath the
surface—the flag waved to the left, and with admirable precision every
stone on that side struck the water. So it went, back and forth, right
and left; with every wave of the flag a long line of concussion smote
the lagoon. At the same time the paddles drove the canoes forward and
what was being done in our line was being done in the opposing line of
canoes a mile and more away.
On the bow of the launch, Tehei, with eyes fixed on the leader, worked
his stone in unison with the others. Once, the stone slipped from the
rope, and the same instant Tehei went overboard after it. I do not know
whether or not that stone reached the bottom, but I do know that the
next instant Tehei broke surface alongside with the stone in his hand.
I noticed this same accident occur several times among the near-by
canoes, but in each instance the thrower followed the stone and brought
it back.
The reef ends of our lines accelerated, the shore ends lagged, all
under the watchful supervision of the leader, until at the reef the two
lines joined, forming the circle. Then the contraction of the circle
began, the poor frightened fish harried shoreward by the streaks of
concussion that smote the water. In the same fashion elephants are
driven through the jungle by motes of men who crouch in the long
grasses or behind trees and make strange noises. Already the palisade
of legs had been built. We could see the heads of the women, in a long
line, dotting the placid surface of the lagoon. The tallest women went
farthest out, thus, with the exception of those close inshore, nearly
all were up to their necks in the water.
Still the circle narrowed, till canoes were almost touching. There was
a pause. A long canoe shot out from shore, following the line of the
circle. It went as fast as paddles could drive. In the stern a man
threw overboard the long, continuous screen of cocoanut leaves. The
canoes were no longer needed, and overboard went the men to reinforce
the palisade with their legs. For the screen was only a screen, and not
a net, and the fish could dash through it if they tried. Hence the need
for legs that ever agitated the screen, and for hands that splashed and
throats that yelled. Pandemonium reigned as the trap tightened.
But no fish broke surface or collided against the hidden legs. At last
the chief fisherman entered the trap. He waded around everywhere,
carefully. But there were no fish boiling up and out upon the sand.
There was not a sardine, not a minnow, not a polly-wog. Something must
have been wrong with that prayer; or else, and more likely, as one
grizzled fellow put it, the wind was not in its usual quarter and the
fish were elsewhere in the lagoon. In fact, there had been no fish to
drive.
“About once in five these drives are failures,” Allicot consoled us.
Well, it was the stone-fishing that had brought us to Bora Bora, and it
was our luck to draw the one chance in five. Had it been a raffle, it
would have been the other way about. This is not pessimism. Nor is it
an indictment of the plan of the universe. It is merely that feeling
which is familiar to most fishermen at the empty end of a hard day.