Shark Devils— and Gods 145 



looked upon as an emissary of Moso, the god of the land. To protect his 

 coconut or breadfruit trees, a Samoan would fashion from coconut 

 fiber an image of the shark, and suspend the idol in the tree. Similar 

 images were placed in gardens to protect them. If a thief stole from a 

 shark-guarded tree or garden, he risked being devoured by a Great 

 White the next time he went fishing. The story is told on Samoa about a 

 native, newly converted to Christianity, who showed his contempt of this 

 superstition by mockingly thrusting an arm into the mouth of one of 

 the shark idols. Shortly thereafter, so the story goes on, the native went 

 on a fishing trip and was seized by a shark which bit off both of his arms. 



India has its snake charmers, and the Pacific has its shark charmers. 

 According to newspaper reports, a Catholic priest, the Reverend A. J. 

 Laplante, witnessed shark charming in the Fiji Islands during the decade 

 he spent as a missionary there between 1928 and 1938. Father Laplante 

 said the islanders subdued sharks by kissing them. 



"It's some occult power they have which I can't define," the priest 

 reported after returning from the islands in 1938. "But once the native 

 kisses it, that shark never moves again." 



Twice a year, when the natives made a drive for food for tribal feasts, 

 or when they wanted to make their swimming areas safe from sharks, 

 shark-kissing ceremonies would be held. Father Laplante said. 



The night before the drive, the man who wants the shark fishing done goes 

 to the house of the chief, who is also the sorcerer or medicine man. There they 

 enact a ceremony which survives from their oldest superstitions and beliefs. 



This ceremony always includes the presentation of kava—2. mildly narcotic 

 beverage made from juice extracted from finely ground root— and the sacrifice 

 of an animal. The kava is drunk and some of it is sprinkled on the important 

 main post of the house, where the spirit lives, and the animal is strangled, 

 cooked and eaten. 



The next day, the natives drive the sharks into a large net, the shark-kissers 

 wade out, seize the man-eaters, kiss them on their up-turned bellies and fling 

 them on the bank. I don't know how they do it, but, among the natives, it is 

 taken for granted that once a shark is kissed— upside down— that is the end of it. 



Shark-kissing suddenly cropped up as an occult collegiate ritual in 

 1960 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when cavorting college boys on Easter 

 vacation there procured a 4-foot shark named Freddy and forced coeds 

 to kiss it. Fort Lauderdale police, long inured to college pranks, arrested 

 one of the shark's owners, but Freddy, apparently dead, was thrown into 

 the sea and was never seen again. 



Pearl divers off the coast of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean have long 

 relied upon shark charmers to protect them from sharks. Sir J. Emerson 

 Tennent, who studied the customs of Ceylon pearl divers, reported in 

 1861 that the "mystic ceremony of the shark charmer" was "an indis- 

 pensable preliminary" to every pearl hunt. Sir Tennent noted, 



