192 Man and Shark 



men of a village went on a fishing trip, the women were left unde- 

 fended, and warriors from neighboring villages often swooped in. The 

 women needed a weapon with which to defend themselves at close 

 quarters. They invented a Hawaiian version of the knight's mailed 

 gauntlet— a glove whose back was studded with rows of shark teeth. 

 The shark-tooth gauntlet transformed a lady-like slap into a blow that 

 could scar a man for life. 



In his monumental study of Pacific folkways, Polynesian Researches, 

 missionary William Ellis told in 1830 of the strange use shark teeth 

 were put to in funeral services among the natives of the Georgian and 

 Society Islands— the best known of which is Tahiti. The Reverend 

 Ellis observed many of these practices at first hand during his stay in 

 the islands in the early 1800s. He wrote: 



Almost every native custom connected with the death of relations or friends 

 was singular, and none perhaps more so than the otohaa, which, though not 

 confined to instances of death, was then most violent. It consisted in the most 

 frantic expressions of grief, under which individuals acted as if bereft of reason. 

 It commenced when the sick person appeared to be dying; the wailing then was 

 often most distressing, but as soon as the spirit had departed, the individuals 

 became quite ungovernable. 



They not only wailed in the loudest and most affecting tone, but tore their 

 hair, rent their garments, and cut themselves with shark's teeth or knives in a 

 most shocking manner. The instrument usually employed was a small cane, 

 about four inches long, with five or six shark's teeth fixed in, on opposite sides. 

 With one of these instruments every female provided herself after marriage, 

 and on occasions of death it was unsparingly used. 



With some this was not sufficient; they prepared a short instrument, some- 

 thing like a plumber's mallet, about five or six inches long, rounded at one end 

 for a handle, and armed with two or three rows of shark's teeth fixed in the 

 wood, at the other. With this, on the death of a relative or a friend, they cut 

 themselves unmercifully, striking the head, temples, cheek, and breast, till the 

 blood flowed profusely from the wounds. 



Otohaa, the missionary reported, was also performed as "an expression 

 of joy, as well as grief." To celebrate a homecoming or a narrow escape 

 from some danger or calamity, he wrote, "loud wailing was uttered, 

 and the instrument armed with shark's teeth applied, in proportion to 

 the joy experienced." 



A shark-tooth club, called the paeho, was also used in combat. It 

 was "more frequently drawn across the body, where it acted like a 

 saw," the missionary wrote. 



"Another weapon of the same kind resembled a short sword," he 

 further reported, "but instead of one blade it had three, four, or five. 

 It was usually made of a forked aito branch; the central and exterior 

 branches, after having been pointed and polished, were armed along 



