chapter 6 



Shark Devils 

 —and Gods 



As the Greeks wrote their myths in the 

 constellations, Orion, the mighty hunter, 

 wheeled across the winter sky in eternal, futile pursuit of Taurus, the 

 great bull, and Leo, the couchant lion. But long before the Greeks 

 looked skyward and evolved their myths, primitive men discerned in 

 the flickering patterns of the stars cosmic enactments of their fearsome 

 struggles with their own devil-god— the shark. 



The stars the Greeks saw as Orion's Belt were to the Warrau Indians 

 of South America the missing leg of Nohi-Abassi, a man who had got 

 rid of his mother-in-law by inducing a murderous shark to devour her. 

 As legions of men were to learn in the ages to come, Nohi-Abassi learned 

 that it does not pay to provoke a shark— or a mother-in-law. His leg 

 was cut off by his sister-in-law, apparently playing the role of a shark, 

 and Nohi-Abassi died. His leg wound up in one part of the heavens; 

 the rest of him in another. 



To some primitive men, the shark was a vengeful god; to others, the 

 shark was a cunning devil. In many primitive religions, the worship of 

 the shark grew so complex that the shark had several roles: sharks be- 

 came men, men became sharks. On many a Pacific island, the awesome 

 deity could not be satiated by the occasional man, woman, or child he 

 snatched from the sea in his inscrutable forays. The shark-gods then 

 demanded the ultimate homage: human sacrifice. The chief or the high 

 priest of some islands went among the people at this fateful time. An 

 acolyte accompanied him, carrying a noose similar to a shark snare. At 

 a signal from his leader, the acolyte hurled the noose at a crowd. The 

 person— whether man, woman, or child— around whom the noose fell 

 was immediately seized and strangled. The body was ritualistically cut 

 into pieces and flung into the sea for the ravenous shark-gods. 



In the Solomon Islands, deified sharks lived in sacred caverns built for 

 them near shore. In front of these caverns were erected great stone altars 

 upon which were placed the bodies of chosen victims. After mystical 

 ceremonies, the bodies were then given to the sharks. Some sharks in the 



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