Good Dugong, Bad Dugong; 
Bad Turtle, Good Turtle 
The sea provides, and Torres Strait Islanders 
have a highly discriminating sense of what in 
the marine larder is good to eat 
by Bernard Nietschmann and Judith Nietschmann 
Bernard Nietschmann 
Jumping to add heft to his thrust, 
this Torres Strait Islander, 
is about to harpoon a fat dugong. 
He is aiming for the mid-back of 
the animal, and strength is needed 
to penetrate the inch-thick skin. 
Paul K. Anderson 
The persistence of a marine hunting 
society — based on large numbers of 
dugongs and green sea turtles — in the 
Torres Strait, between Australia and 
New Guinea, represents an intriguing 
case of survival. It involves isolation and 
acculturation, natural and cultural his- 
tory, legislation and economics, and 
a set of adaptations by a seafaring 
people to two elsewhere-threatened 
marine animals. 
Dugongs and green turtles are 
unique in the sea because they are 
the only large, economically impor- 
tant, exclusively marine animals that 
graze on the world’s underwater 
“grasslands” — the sea-grass commu- 
nities. One link removed from the sun, 
these two herbivores convert the pri- 
mary production of vast beds of sea 
grasses that flourish in shallow, clear 
tropical waters into abundant, flavor- 
ful, high-quality meat and fat. Held 
in high esteem by many seaside folk, 
in the past these animals have fre- 
quently been among the most sought 
after sources of subsistence. Many so- 
cieties in the maritime tropics were 
once highly adapted to, and greatly 
dependent upon, these species. Today, 
however, they are rare, endangered, 
threatened, or gone over much of their 
former ranges. Probably the most im- 
portant major refuge of these animals 
in the Indo-Pacific occurs along the 
marine fringes of northern Australia, 
including the Torres Strait. 
The continuing presence of dugongs 
and green turtles has meant the sur- 
vival of the Torres Strait Islanders’ 
hunting activities and much of their 
culture. Most other tropical marine 
hunting societies have disappeared. 
overwhelmed by the spread of foreign 
colonization, cash market systems, and 
the loss or depletion of their faunal 
mainstays. These societies ceased to 
exist or were altered radically before 
much could be learned about their 
specialized cultural adaptations or 
about their knowledge of animal be- 
havior, accumulated through genera- 
tions of practical experience. Yet, the 
Torres Strait Islanders continue to fol- 
low old hunting patterns and tradi- 
tional social customs even though they 
long have been in contact with out- 
siders and have adapted to many mod- 
ern ways. They have adapted new in- 
fluences in order to continue old life 
styles. The hunters are dependent on 
expensive gasoline, motors, and din- 
ghies, but despite the economic costs 
and the hours at sea in cramped din- 
ghies, they still follow tradition and 
freely give away meat. 
For Torres Strait Islanders, hunting 
is more than a subsistence trait, a 
means to acquire meat, or an aberrant 
relic of past times; it is a way of life. 
Around marine hunting and the pur- 
suit and capture of large herbivores 
revolves a complex system of logic 
and knowledge, environmental percep- 
tion, social expectations and respon- 
sibilities, and the resilient roots of Is- 
lander myths and legends. The result 
is cultural adaptation to the coming 
of modern times to a once sequestered 
group of islands and people. 
The Torres Strait area is Australia’s 
“marine outback.” Isolated and fre- 
quently cut off from the mainland by 
difficult environmental conditions and 
poor local transportation, it is a thinly 
populated and little developed region. 
55 
