Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

“The pahua is also a devil,” said Nohea. “In the lagoon he lies with his shells open to catch his prey. Many a shark has torn off his tail in trying to get free when the pahua has closed on him, or has died in the trap. When a young man, I put my hand into a shell not bigger than your face, and it shut upon it. I was feeling for pearl-shell under fifty feet of water. I could not reach the threads that anchor the clam to the rock because it was in a crevice. If I could have cut them I could have freed myself, but I was able after a minute to force my knife beside my hand and stab the pahua so that it let me go. Paumotuans have often lost their lives in the pahua’s shells, and one cut off his fingers and left them to the fish. I always drive my knife into him, and then cut the cord that ties him to the rock. They are hard to lift,—the big pahua,—and often we must leave them. Sometimes they have pearls in them that are very fine—not like oyster-pearls, but just like the white inside of the clam-shell itself, which is like the marble of the tombstone of Mapuhi’s wife.”

Photo by Brown Bros.
Spearing fish

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
A canoe on the lagoon

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Ready for the fishing

Nohea rubbed me every day with the oil from the robber-crab’s tail, and my wounds healed quickly, although the scars remained. He said that Paumotuans died of coral poisoning, but usually recovered, unless their blood was tainted by tona, the syphilis brought originally by the white, and which the Paumotuan cured with native remedies. He pointed to a species of corals which stung one if touched. The stony branches or plates when fresh from the water had a harsh feeling and a bad smell, but were not slimy. They pricked me when pressed against my arm, and the sting lasted from a few minutes to half an hour, with different specimens. The sensation was as painful as from nettles or the Physalia, the Portuguese man-of-war. One coral, sulphurous or dark in color, Nohea warned me not to touch, saying it would cause my hand and arm to swell for days. There was a jellyfish, he said, the keakea, that in certain months, January, February, and March, almost filled the lagoon, and they stung so fiercely, especially about the eyes, that diving ceased as soon as they appeared.

There were fish, too, that were deadly to eat, some at one time and some at another, as fish venomous in one lagoon were innocuous in another. Some isles were blessed by having no poisonous fish, as Hao, Amanu, Negonego, Marokau, Hikueru, Vahitahi, Fakahina, and Pukapuka. Marutea of the north, Raraka, Kauehi, Katiu, Makemo, Takume, Moruroa, and Marutea of the south, were cursed by the opposite condition. In Rangira only the haamea of the pass was hurtful. The meko was the most feared fish at Marutea of the south, occasioning a terrible dysentery with cramps, which ended in vertigo and extreme weakness. Mullets, also, were often harmful in certain lagoons, and the muraena killed.

What made these fish poisonous? Science guessed that the larvæ of the coral animals were the cause. These fish ate the coral, and it was noticed that in December, January, and February, at the time the corals expelled their larvæ,—were in blossom, as the expression went,—the toxicity of the fish was highest. Other fish were made poisonous by eating the sea-centipede, curious creatures which looked like yards of black string and wound themselves around the corals. They had thousands of minute legs.