tions: kukiau gi iabagar is a northwest 
season, daytime, big high tide; mugi 
batainga ura is an early morning, 
strong, clear-water, west to east tide; 
kadigad is a long, clear-water, slack 
tide between two neap tides; and 
kutau usalai is an afternoon, strong, 
dirty-water, west to east tide that oc- 
curs two to three days after new and 
full moons. There are good and bad 
tides for hunting turtle and dugong. 
Even if the villagers “feel to eat 
dugong,” the hunters won’t go out if 
the tidal conditions are wrong. 
Of all the marine fauna, dugongs 
and green turtles are the most pre- 
cisely described. There are terms for 
different ages, sexes, sizes, ranks, col- 
ors, social groupings, and taste qual- 
ities: a total of twenty-seven different 
terms to distinguish dugongs and thir- 
teen for turtles. Taxonomy for du- 
gongs corresponds closely to Islander 
categories for age, sex, and social rank 
(for example, female child, female 
teen-ager, single adult female, preg- 
nant female, nursing mother, grand- 
mother). 
In dirty-water conditions, the hunt- 
ers can often tell the size and sex 
of a dugong from its wake and position 
in a small or large herd. The most 
sought after and esteemed dugongs 
are the fatter females, particularly 
pregnant ones and those seen mating 
or feeding and traveling with a male. 
Wakes, heads, surfacing and diving 
postures, and herd position are dif- 
ficult to discern at night. To distin- 
guish age and sex, the Islanders often 
rely on the exhalation sounds dugongs 
make when they surface to breathe. 
Surfacing turtles and porpoises are of- 
ten found on the reefs and add their 
own noises. When one of us, Bernard, 
first went with the hunters at night, 
turtle, porpoise, and dugong exhala- 
tions all sounded similar to him. After 
several hunts, he could tell the dif- 
ference among them, but all dugongs 
continued to sound alike. Eventually, 
he began to volunteer guesses on 
whether a dugong w r as female or male. 
This was not a great breakthrough 
in perception as he had a 50-50 
chance of being right. The hunters, 
however, seldom made a mistake. 
Ipika dangal (“female adult dugong”) 
they’d decide and go after it. If they 
could not hear or approach a female 
closely enough, they would go for a 
male. 
A hunter cannot bring just any 
dugong or turtle back to the village. 
The animal must be fat, and it must 
have the right kind of fat. The Is- 
landers have a very refined taste for 
meat and fat, which are inspected and 
savored to the extent that wines, 
cheeses, or cigars might be in another 
society. A wati dangal is a “bad 
dugong” and has a thin and “silky” 
layer of fat. It is considered almost 
inedible. The Islanders say that if you 
were to eat the meat of a wati dangal , 
it would have a bad taste and make 
your belly ache. Similarly, a gatau 
waru (“reef-dwelling green turtle”) 
has bad fat — thin and black in color, 
not the thick and green fat of a really 
good turtle, or mina kapu waru. Both 
wati dangal and gatau waru are quite 
common around the islands and reefs. 
A hunter must be able to recognize 
their physical and behavioral charac- 
teristics so as not to harpoon one by 
mistake. The Islanders also say that 
the meat and fat from most male green 
turtles are poor tasting. When dugong 
and turtle meat are “proper fat,” ev- 
eryone is thankful. “When we eat good 
fat dugong we feel happy,” one hunter 
told us. 
Islander hunting strategies reflect 
their discriminating tastes. Small tur- 
tles and dugongs are not as fat as 
large ones and so are hunted infre- 
quently. Wati dangal and gatau waru 
are generally left alone. Male green 
turtles are less fat than females and 
are seldom hunted. Huge turtles and 
dugongs are rarely sought because the 
small size of the dinghies makes it 
difficult to get back home with so 
much added weight. The hunting pres- 
sure focuses on the middle age-grades 
of malu dangal — the hardest to catch 
Bernard Nietschmann 
59 
