Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1889-11-30
THE SAMOAN'S PALOLO.
a Curious Worm That Comes Once "A Year
to Delight Dusky Epicures.


The palolo is probably the most
curious table delicacy in the world.
1t is worm about as thick as IA strand
OF yarn and from FIVE to eight inches
long. 1t is caught once year near
the Samoan Islands and is eaten by tue
native Samoans Very early in the
morning of the first day of the last
quarter of the November moon
hundreds of small boats full of Sa
means put out from the shore near
Apia to the coral reefs. Every boat is
provided with fine nets stretched be-
tween bent sticks and attached to a
short handle. At the reefs little
skirmishing for the best places.
many collisions. a good bit of
Samoan cursing, and any amount
of singing and shouting precede the
fishing. Then an occasional shout of
"Palolo! palolon' is heard as some one
scoops in a netful of worms. Sud-
denly the water begins to crawl 1t
seems to be boiling with tiny water
SudheS- In6 HdIlNOS IlION No" II CllOAA
paddles and grasp their nets Those
VINO have no nets snatch up baskets,
sleeves. any thing that will hold worms
and not water and begin to scoop IN
the palolos. They work with tremen-
dous energy. for they realize that the
minute the sun rises the palolos will
be off again for another year Buck
cts, baskets. bowls, and platters are
filled with the tiny squirming worms,
yet the natives work on with will
which white people have rarely given
them the credit for possessing. The
sun rises, and all is over. The palolos
are gone, no one knows where, and
the SamOans put back to shore with
their catch.
In sea water the palolos can be kept
alive for hours. Without water they
die in few minutes. Roasted palolos
are of dark brown color. Boiled
palolos and raw paloIos are blue,
brown, light yellow or green. Many
natives eat them raw; others roast or
boil them. The time of year at which
the worms appear near Samoa and are
caught is probably their spawning
season, as microscopic examination
shows most of them to be full of the
tiniest eggs Eggs and worms together
taste something like strong sea fish.
Fondness of them as table delicacy
is usually an acquired taste. This is
not particularly strange, as several
features of their appearances are apt
to suggest very disagreeable ideas to
the civilized Imagination. In the first
place, the palolo's body is fashioned
pretty much after the plan of the tape
worm. 1t consists of an indefinite
number of sections. Each section
has underneath two "crawlers"
or feet and on top black dot On the
head are two little horns and three
feelers, not unlike tiny warts in APP
pearance. The upper lip is compare
lively rough and hard. Like the tape
-Sy7tesssssz the palolo is not kifled-by be-
ing taken apart The removal eff sew
eral sections of the palolo is followed
by a shrinking together of the rest of
the body till the worm looks a thin
thread. When the palolO breaks itself
in two, as often happens, by its quick,
snake-like movements through the
water, the same result follows. This
phenomenon has given color to the de-
fusion that the pololo is kind of self
desolving creature, and that the almost
instantaneous disappearance of them
from the Samoan waters at sunrise
ON the day of the annual catch
is the result of the general self-dissolu-
ton Of the worms. In fact only those
sections removed from the head and
the section next to the herd of the pa
lolo die. After a short time other sec
tons grow out of the section next to
the head, and the palolo is as good as
new. The female palolo does not diff
fer from the male palolo in appear
ance, and breaks herself up in the
same way and with the same results.
The mystery of the palolo's sudden
appearance near Samoa for a few
hours annually and its magical disap-
pearance at sunrise are unexplained.
Why the palolos come to be caught by
the dusky Samoans only at the begin
ming of the last quarter of the NOvem-
Der moon, where they go to, how they
breed, and where they live-all this is
something that nobody knows.-N. Y.
Sun,