One of the things I've found the most interesting in Pacific
Passages so far is the amount
of respect and admiration that the native Pacific Islanders show toward the ocean.
One place in the text where I found this particularly evident is the story of
“Ka-ehu”(the little yellow shark of Pearl Harbor.) According to Samuel Kamakau,
“sharks, are useful in other ways in saving lives at sea and on the deep ocean,
some people were made into shark ‘aumakua, or guardian gods.”(p29) In the story
Ka-ehu learns of a man-eating shark that has been attacking surfers off the
shore of Waikiki. Ka-ehu and a few of his shark friends trick this shark into
getting stuck in a coral hole where he is then caught and killed by the people
on the beach. I think it’s really interesting that within their culture the sea
is considered such a thing of beauty and honor that they think of sharks as
friends and honor them as gods and the guardians of men.
Sharks, generally from a western perspective are considered incredibly
dangerous and frightening. It’s also common in the English language to refer to
somebody who’s very cunning and deceiving as a shark. Shark's are not to be
trusted. Obviously films like “Jaws” and ‘Open Water” have only furthered the
western notion that sharks are a villain and a threat to all of mankind. The
Hawaiian/Polynesian culture however seem to have no fear of the ocean or of any
of its creatures.
The Explorer’s journal entries are another spot in the text where the Pacific
Islander’s sheer joy whilst being in the ocean is highlighted. William Anderson
recalls watching a Tahitian man paddling his canoe so eagerly that Anderson
assumed that the man had stole something from one of the boats. After Anderson
realizes that the man is simply partaking in a type of canoe surfing known as ehorooe
he’s astonished that the
natives can obtain such bliss by simply riding the waves. The fact that
he assumes that the man has stole something is indicative of the western
ideology that the ocean is a treacherous and unforgiving place and that the
people who inhabit it are quite savage. In his journal he writes that the
surfing gives the natives, “as much pleasure as skating, which is the only one
of ours, with whose effect I could compare it.”(p66) The closest activity that
Anderson could relate to the fun that the natives enjoyed in the ocean was that
of ice-skating. The Anglo/American's felt much safter when the bottom off a
boat or a sheet of solid ice was between them and the water, they didn't see
the appeal of playing in it.
-Alec Brooks
Alec -
ReplyDeleteIntriguing post. I like the binaries you teased out in your discussion about Anderson's descriptions of oceanic pleasures compared to ice-skating, of all things. I particularly enjoyed your insights about sharks as amakua and the common perceptions of sharks as mindless maneaters within the western ethos. Having had my share of close encounters, once you come to grips with the fact that it is just an animal that has no hands or any other method of gathering information about an alien object except to bite it - the malicious character of these animals fall away. Which explains why most shark attacks are of the bite-and-release nature. But there are some maneaters out there, hence the passages describing natives surfing with knives strapped to their boards. And the differences were often marked by species. For example, black tips are smaller, more common, and non-aggressive; while tigers are bigger, meaner, and not scared of humans - luckily they are no where near as plentiful.
- Trey
Also, here's a link to a great story about a fisherman who got lost at sea and credits a shark with saving his life:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/toakai-teitoi-fisherman-shark-saves-life-lost-at-sea-kiribati_n_1890705.html