CULT OF SHARK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 871, 15 January 1930, Page 6

CULT OF SHARK

COLOURFUL RELIC OF SOLOMONS FOR MELANESIAN MUSEUM Weird chanting and incantations by the headman, rising and falling in the stillness of the tropical day .. . islanders moving forward n stately procession, laying the first fruits of their gardens in a basket before the canoe—surmounted, wcoden-carved effigy of a shark in whose interior lies the skull of a chief. . . . Again the strange, funereal chanting . . . the Cult of the Shark is honouring its sacred dead. . . . All this is signified by the colourful relics of old Melanesia—the shell-in-laid, carven replica of a shark, on top of which is a native canoe, together with a basket and pilot fish, brought back from the Solomon Islands by Dr. E. C. Fox. For 50 years, long before missionaries set foot in the' islands, it has occupied a place in the sabred house, and the strange beliefs of the islanders of Santa Anna, just off San Christo val. Until a year ago the islanders still performed the attendant gruesome rights of the Cult of the Shark, for Santa Anna is the last island to be Christianised. And now this effigy is to find a last resting-place in the Melanesian Mission museum at Kohimarama. It is of considerable value from a Melanesian viewpoint, as it is a relic now well-nigh impossible to obtain in the islands. To the islanders the shark was sacred, and they believed that certain of their headmen, known as sharkmen, possessed magic powers to control the monsters and direct them to attack and bring back their enemies. The belief extended so far that the sharkmen were considered immune from assault while wading in the waters off the island, and certain of the deepsea monsters were believed to be semi-human and were known by name. Ceremonies attending the death of Sharkmen or headmen were certainly colourful and gruesome. The body was first placed in a hollow tree trunk and allowed to decompose until only the bones were left. Then the skull was deported to the carven shark with attendant ceremony and prayerful offerings of first fruits and money. The carven shark was always in the sacred house in which no woman dared pet foot. “You see, the shark was not regarded as the honour we look on it,” Dr. Fox added. “At a football match on Norfolk Island I heard a spectator enthusiastically yelling, “He’s a shark” ■—meaning a great player. And to some extent the belief in the shark still exists in the islands today.