The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1909-04-30
WORSHIP THE SHARKS.
South Sea Islanders Fear Them
as the Abode of Ghosts.
HOLD SOULS OF THEIR DEAD.

The Natives Offer Gifts and Food,
Sometimes Human, to Appease the
Man Eaters-The Hawaiians Used to
Feed Their Dead to the Monsters.
In view Of the wide distribution of
sharks and their strength and ferocity,
qualities which appealed to the savage
mind, it is not strange that the cult of
shark worship should have arisen. This
south seas, where sharks are very nu-
merous, says the Detroit Free Press.
In the Solomon islands living sacred
objects are chiefly sharks, alligators,
snakes, etc. Sharks are In all these is
lands very often thought to be the
abode of ghosts, as natives will at
times before their death announce that
any shark remarka BILE for size or color
which is observed to haunt certain
shore or rock is taken to be some ones
ghost, and the name of the deceased is
given to it.
Such a one was Sautahfmatawa at
Ulawa. a dreaded man eater, to which
offerings of porpoise teeth were made.
At Saa certain food, such asrcocoanuts
from certain trees, is reserved to feed
such ghost shark, and there are GER
tain men of whom it is known that
after death they will be in sharks.
These, therefore, are allowed to eat
such food in the sacred place In Saa
and Ulawa if a sacred shark had at
tempted to seize a man and he had
escaped the people would be so much
afraid of the sharks anger that they
would throw the man back in the sea
to be drowned. These sharks also were
thought to aid in catching the bonito,
for taking which supernatural power
was necessary.
In the Banks islands a shark may
be a kangaroo, a sort of familiar spirit
or the abode of one. Some years ago
Manurwar, son of Mala, the chief man
in Vanua Lava, had such a shark. He
had given money to a Manwo man to
send 1t to him. 1t was very tame and
would come up to him when he went
down to the beach at Nawono and
follow along In the surf as he walked
along the shore. In the New Hebrides
some men have the power, the natives
believe Of changing themselves into
sharks.
The Samoan native believed that his
gods appeared in some visible incar-
nation. and the particular thing in
which 1T, was in the habit Of appear
ing was to him an object Of venera-
ton. Many worshiped the shark in
this way, and. while they would freely
partake Of the gods Of others they
felt that death would be the penalty
should they eat their own god. The
god was supposedAsto ayenge the in
suit. by taking up his abode in. the
offenders ,ody and causing to gen.
crate there the very thing which :he
had eaten until it produced death. In
one village Taema, the war god, was;
present in bundle of sharks teeth.
These curiosities were done up in a
piece of native cloth and consulted be-
fore going to battle. If the bundle
felt heavy that was a bad omen, but
if light the sign was good, and Off they
went to the fight: -,
In the Fiji islands, yiayia and other
gods claim the shark as their. abode,
and their deyotees must never eat OF
that fish, for If they did they would be
partaking of the god himself. -. r
1t was in the Hawaiian Islands, how
ever. that shark worship reached its
greatest perfection. It's worship was
quite common on the islands, each: one
having q special shark as his ances-
trail god. The worship Of sharks was
due largely to the fact that the belief
in the transnigration of souls is quite
general among the Polynesians, and
the Hawaiians would feed their dead
to the sharks under the supposition
that in this way the soul Of the dead
would enter the sharks and so animate
the latter as to incline them to respect
the bodies Of the living. j
Several Of the African coast tribes
the shark. Three or four times
in the year they celebrate the festival
of the shark, which is done in this
wise: They all row out in their boats
to the middle Of the river, where they
invoke, with the strangest ceremonies,
the protection OF the great shark. They
offer to him poultry and goats in order
to satisfy his sacred appetite. But this
is nothing. An infant is every year
sacrificed to the monster, which has
been feted and nourished for the sac
rifice from It's birth tic the age of ten.
On the day Of the fete 1t is bound to a
post on n sandy point at low water.
As the tide rises the child may utter
cries Of terror, but they are OF no
avail, az It is abandoned to the waves,
and the sharks soon arrive 70 finish its
agony ard thus permit It to enter into
beaten.
The Dolynesians have an ancient ia
bic treating of fhe fight of Ina. the
daughter of Taisorirga and Ngaetna,
10 the sacred isle. After the sole
dumped her at The edge OF the break
ers With such disastrous results to it.
self from the angry princess the latter
summoned the shark and by its help
succeeded in reaching the sacred is
Iand. Feeling thirsty during the voy-
age. Ina cracked a cocoanut on the
forehead. and this accounts for
the bump nov found on the forehead
Of all sharks.