“talking bad” about the hunter, by 
wasting meat or allowing some to spoil, 
by being selfish and not giving enough 
meat to people in the village, by taking 
someone along as crew whose wife is 
pregnant, by having sexual intercourse 
the night before the hunt (this last 
belief is an old one, however, and not 
all hunters still practice sexual ab- 
stinence prior to a hunt). On the other 
hand, good luck can be encouraged 
by sprinkling salt on the harpoon line, 
by always giving meat to one’s audi 
and asking him to help butcher, and 
by making a visit to the graveyard 
to ask ancestors for luck. Certain 
plants, ashes, and charms can also be 
used to attract dugongs and turtles, 
but these are personal secrets, and 
hunters do not readily talk about them. 
Hunting is reliable, productive, and 
selective. During our research on 
Mabuiag Island, hunters returned 
with a turtle or dugong 75 percent 
of the time. Even though dugongs are 
the objects of most hunts, more green 
turtles are taken because of the com- 
parative ease with which they can be 
captured. Dugongs, however, are more 
challenging, provide more meat and 
fat, and are considered better eating 
than green turtles. Hunting pressure 
from different island villages is predi- 
cated on population size and on such 
economic and social factors as avail- 
ability of dinghies and motors, number 
and frequency of feasts (birthdays, 
baptisms, weddings, funerals, dinghy 
blessings), household purchasing 
power (for gasoline and oil), and en- 
vironmental conditions (wind, sea, 
tide, and associated dugong and turtle 
movements). There is considerable 
variability in subsistence hunting from 
island to island. 
Butchering of dugongs and green 
turtles is a formalized social event. 
Women, children, and village men 
who did not participate in the hunt 
congregate on the beach to watch and 
comment loudly on the quality of the 
fat and the size of the animal while 
they await their portion. Three or four 
men will butcher a dugong or turtle: 
the man who harpooned the animal, 
one of his mother’s brothers, and one 
or two members of the hunting crew. 
Young boys help by washing pieces 
of meat in the sea. A complicated 
system is followed for butchering a 
dugong. Lines are scratched into the 
thick hide to act as guides for cutting. 
The number, names, and placement 
of these cutting lines have not changed 
since the first ethnographic descrip- 
tions were made in the late nineteenth 
century. There are at least forty-five 
names for different cuts of dugong 
meat, and about thirty for turtle. 
An adult dugong usually weighs 
from 500 to 750 pounds, 30 percent 
of which is considered edible; a green 
turtle generally yields 45 percent of 
its average weight of 250 to 350 
pounds. Reducing these large animals 
to many small piles of specific pieces 
prior to distribution is physically de- 
manding but socially enjoyable. It is 
a time for everyone to visit, joke, and 
share the story of the hunt. 
Favorite pieces are given to the per- 
son who harpooned the animal, the 
members of the crew, the butchers, 
and the harpooner’s mother’s brothers. 
The rest of the meat is shared equally 
and freely among all households if 
there is enough. If the amount of meat 
is insufficient, the harpooner, in con- 
sultation with his audi and other el- 
ders, decides who will receive meat. 
Theoretically, households that were 
not given meat from a previous butch- 
ering are the first to receive. Waste 
is thrown into the sea where swarms 
of sharks quickly dispose of it. One 
man told us that it is an Island custom 
to feed the sharks with waste from 
a butchering: “We always give them 
something, turtle or dugong. They 
know we live from the sea just as 
they do.” 
People would eat more meat and 
fat if they could. If the annual Mabu- 
iag dugong and turtle catch were di- 
vided equally among all the members 
of the community throughout the year, 
each person would receive about one 
Bernard Nietschmann 
61 
