2. Gods of the sea


Large sea animals, whether fish or marine mammals, have always been creatures of awe and inspiration. They are embodied in cultures and religions all over the world. Images of sharks, porpoises, swordfish, seals, and whales, adorn palaces, temples, and homes on every continent. In the Bible, it is written that Jonah was swallowed by a leviathan, or a whale, and in his world-famous novel, The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway romanticized the marlin, one of the ocean's giants. Many fishing families in developing countries still pray to gods of the sea for protection at small private altars or shrines before setting out on the water. They often seek immunity from the shark, which in many societies evokes terror. But for a number of peoples, even those who fear its attack, it is respected as a top predator and worshipped as a god. In Hawaii, for example, the shark is known as an aumakua, or 'guardian god of a family' into which it is hoped that a child of the shark god will be born. In Hawaiian legend, it is an honour for a dead person to return as a shark, an animal that reportedly helps drowning people safely to shore, goes fishing with humans and shares the catch, kills enemies, and protects families from other sharks.

Similar legends are still told among many fishing peoples in the Pacific to this day. In the Solomon Islands, caves have been carved out for this god of the sea, and in Vietnam, where the whale shark is known as Lord fish, its bones are taken to selected temples and given sacred burials. In the Solomon Islands, elders or shamans engage in "shark calling." After attracting the sharks, they swim with them. In effect, so do avid snorkelers and scuba-divers, often seeking sharks out. The legends vary however, and in some cultures the shark is a demon, both worshipped and feared as the ruler of the seas. The constellation of Orion, as it was named by the Greeks, is to the Warran people of South America a cluster of stars depicting a man's leg bitten off by a shark. To the bathers and surfers off the coast of Australia, in what are considered to be some of the most dangerous shark waters in the world, the image of a shark is chilling, especially in areas where they are not held back from shore by a system of nets.

Fish worship is by no means limited to the shark. In Japan, the shark is an important mythological figure, paid homage to as the god of the storms or the shark-man, Same-Hito. The Japanese have also built a Buddhist shrine in honour of the red snapper. Around 700 years ago they created a marine sanctuary which prohibits fishing for this species. Japanese legend varies; some say that at the birth of the holy Buddhist monk Nichiren-shonin, schools of red snapper exhibited unusual schooling behaviour. The numbers were massive and the waters red with their brightly coloured bodies. Some people believe that a huge red snapper saved the life of the venerable Buddhist monk by carrying him safely to shore. In Japan, the red snapper has been declared a "natural monument", and a temple erected in the monk's honour on the shore near the site of his birth. Upon entering the area, visitors are greeted by a huge sculpture of a red snapper.

Like the villagers of Tainoura in Japan, the Squamish people of the Pacific Northwest welcomed their visitors with the image of a wooden statue in the likeness of the Salmon Chief. Carved in the statue is the legend of "why the salmon came to the waters of the Squamish people". The tale describes how one of four brothers transformed himself into a salmon in order to entice fellow fish into the waters of the Squamish, how subsequent salmon feasts were shared, and how what is gained from the sea must be returned. It is a parable of generosity and giving. Along a similar line of philosophy, but from a distant part of the globe, one of Germany's best loved fairy tales describes the wisdom of a fish and the lessons he teaches a fishing couple about the pitfalls of greed. Given the state of the world's fisheries today, humankind seems to have ignored the ancient lessons of its ancestors and has forgotten many stories and beliefs that today are still shared among small-scale fishers.

Early Fishing Peoples

The first semi-sedentary fishing people known to anthropologists lived along the coast of the Baltic Sea some 10,000 years ago. The main diet of the Maglemosians, who lived during the Mesolithic and then into the Neolithic period, consisted of wild plants and shellfish gathered from the coastal marshes and bogs rimming the Baltic. In addition to fish hooks and serrated harpoon tips fashioned from bone, they also left behind huge shellfish mounds and the remains of the first coastal boardwalks. In warmer climates, fishing societies were well established at the mouth of the Nile some 8,000 years ago and in Japan and Peru some 5,000 years ago. The first documented `fish crisis' due to overfishing occurred along the coast of Peru between 3000 and 1000 BC. Anthropologist James R McGoodwin suggests that the sequence of events probably happened like this: "First, a climatological catastrophe such as the El Nino phenomenon caused a sudden and widespread reduction in marine resource supplies along the coast; second, the large sedentary and concentrated populace that had been accustomed to relying heavily on these resources, probably attempted to exploit them at their usual levels...". This would have prevented recovery of the stocks and led to a collapse of their fishery. The flourishing society had no choice but to find other terrestrial food sources and to stop fishing, or at least sharply reduce the levels at which they were fishing. This seems logical, and McGoodwin says the Peruvians probably did just that, developing a "passive strategy of fisheries management". Mexico's Olmec civilization, which began around 800 BC in coastal zones along the Gulf, and societies located north of Mexico in California, also left behind evidence that they practiced fisheries management. However, other societies, some of which were living along the coast of California, fished themselves into oblivion. Disastrous declines in salmon fisheries caused by aboriginal peoples along the northern coast of California have also been confirmed, while overhunting of dolphins for their teeth in the Solomon Islands, and serious depletions of marine resources by indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Hawaii, the Aleutian archipelago, and the Caroline islands of Micronesia, to name a few, have also been recorded. Like the modern fisheries of today, some pre-modern peoples managed their fisheries resources and survived, while others depleted them so seriously that they brought about their own cultural extinction.


Copyright 1996, The World Wide Fund For Nature