80 Man Against Shark 



as an aggressive predator who will attack any potential food. The sharks often 

 follow boats and canoes at night, biting the oars, paddles and outriggers. 



I was told of violent attacks by large sharks on boats. Oars have been ripped 

 from natives' hands, and, many times, sharks have so savagely snapped at the 

 outriggers that boats have been overturned, spilling the occupants to nearly 

 certain death. 



In the Ellice Islands, northwest of Samoa, about 40 natives, crossing in canoes 

 at night between islands several miles apart, were caught in a sudden squall. 

 One of the canoes was swamped. Instantly, the sea was seething with sharks that 

 had been trailing the canoes. The sharks devoured the natives in the first canoe, 

 and then began attacking the other canoes, which were foundering in the storm- 

 churned sea. 



The natives' two pitiless enemies— storm and shark— merged their malevo- 

 lence. Canoe after canoe was capsized, native after native was torn to pieces. 

 When the storm and the sharks disappeared with the coming dawn, only two 

 natives were alive to carry the awful tale back to their home island. 



Word of the massacre spread throughout Polynesia, and I heard the story 

 again and again on many islands. 



A similar story was told in the Fijis, where a large double sailing canoe had 

 capsized well off shore. More than 20 natives clinging to the overturned canoe 

 were attacked by sharks. Only a few escaped. 



One of the tiny atoll islands I visited was the hunting ground, the natives 

 insisted, of a single big shark that patrolled the entrance to the atoll. The natives 

 would swim and dive without fear in the lagoon, but they would not venture 

 into the entrance of the lagoon with its shark sentry. The shark, they said, 

 would not enter the lagoon. 



Solomon Islanders claimed that their sharks were fiercer and bolder than the 

 sharks around other islands. There may have been basis for their claims, I was 

 told, because the Solomon Islanders throw their dead into the sea, which is a 

 sure way to attract sharks. 



Shark teeth are not used for money in the South Pacific, despite what you 

 may have heard to the contrary. But the teeth are often used as ornaments and 

 talismans. I once met the widow of a New Zealand lawyer who had somehow 

 aided the Maoris in New Zealand. Before he died, he presented his wife with a 

 prehistoric shark tooth which had been given to him when he was initiated as 

 a member of a secret Maori society. He told her to wear the tooth when she 

 was among the Maori, for it would be honored as the sign of a friend. 



The words tooth and shark are often synonymous in Polynesian dialects. 

 Mako is the most frequently heard word for either tooth or shark. Other Poly- 

 nesian words— Tnao, mano, mago—are local names for various kinds of sharks. 



PiNDiMAR, Australia 



While we were setting up Australia's first shark station here, I took a day 

 off and went to Sydney, which was nearby, to try my hand at fishing for Aus- 

 tralian sharks. Zane Grey's adventures as a game fisherman had received wide- 

 spread publicity in Australia. Now here was another American who was going 

 to not only catch sharks, but turn them into money. The Aussies were a bit 



