TAHITIAN BONITO FISHING Eugene Anderson Graduate Student, Anthropology University of California Fish is the chief source of protein for most of the people of French Polynesia; fishing has been one of the principal occupations of the Polynesians since Europeans first met them, and judging from the archaeological evidence of hooks and lures it was important long before that. Tahiti, and to some extent the rest of the Society Islands, has developed fishing into a major local indus- try, the fish being consumed fresh by the inhabitants of the islands. A large proportion of these fish, up to fifty percent in the peak season, is contributed by the deep-sea (moana) fishing, carried out by small groups of men working in loose association. Deep-line and other formp of va'a (outrigger canoe) fishing contribute the big fish, but the bulk of the crop is smaller surface fish, caught from the pti auhopu (small-bonito boats), 25 to 40 foot diesel-motor launches that haveT ?nthisVield replaced the old-style canoes. The mainstay of the in- dustry is the oceanic bonito or skipjack, Katsuwonus pelamis; the fishermen, the boats, and the industry are called after this fish. Also important are the yellowfin tuna, Neothunnus macropterus, and the mahimahi, Co ena hiprus, Tahitian fishing in general, and deep-sea fishing in particular, have received little attention. Baessler (1905) and other observers have tended to stay within the reef in their observations. There is one brilliant monograph on the subject of off-reef fishing, however: "Notes on the off-shore fishing of the Society Islands," by Charles Nordhoff (1930). Nordhoff was an exception- al observer with great experience in and knowledge of his subject, and his work remains the standard one on Tahitian fishing. Except for it, almost no refer- ences to bonito fishing exist, though as early as the late 1700's Joseph Banks (1896) figured a bonito lure of the arau type was still used. A general introduction to bonito fishing may be useful here. The demand for fish is great in Tahiti; fish are easy to catch, and inexpensive, while meat is harder to get. Also, fish serve to set off the Tahitians from the Europeans and Chinese--who are meat-eaters--and thus serve the cause of nationalism, or, at least, resistance to acculturation. In February 1961, about 120 tons of fish were sold in the march; central alpne. The poti aihopu bring in 10 to 40 per- cent of the total fr fish, the variation being seasonal, from a low in late winter (August to September) to a high in summer (January to February). Demand and supply are enough to keep some 25 boats operating out of the Papeete harbor, and about 20 more out of other Society Island locations on Tahiti and elsewhere. Since there are normally three men to a boat--two fishermen and one young (or, sometimes, especially old) "ship's boy"--and also boat owners and others asso- ciated, this means that perhaps 130 men on Tahiti are involved in the industry, out of the Tahitian population of 30,000. The business focuses around certain nerve centers--the ship docks (one special section of the Papeete quai; Ludwig Ellacott's Taunoa dock; Tautira and Vairato at the east end of the island, opposite from Papeete; and a few other minor spots) and the fish part of the marche central, two blocks inland from the poti auhopu docks. The bonito indus- try is not big business; no one, certainly not the fishermen, makes big money 87 or,becomes powerfulO Personal ties and obligations are the core of the system, and formal organization means little. Most of the techniques and many of the underlying attitudes are the same as they were before the whites came. But mar- keting, and much of the overt social behavior, are very different now from what they were; the changes will be discussed in later sections of this paper. My primary purpose here is to report all data gathered. I make no attempt to summnarize the prevrious literature (consisting as it does of only one important piece, easily accessible and more or less complementary to the present work) or to relate my work to other aspects of Tahitian life (except when.necessary). I have tried to analyze change and development, working on the idea that an accu- rate description is and has to be a description of a process rather than of a static situation, and that to be useful a report must deal in these terms. From June 24 to August 17, 1961, in the dead of (southern hemisphere) winter, I lived in Tahiti studying the fish narket and the deep-sea fishing on the poti auhopu. I spent 27 days on the water, accompanying the fishermen; the other days I took fish-names and recorded statistics at the marche central in Papeete, the capital and only large town of the Society Islands. The principal research related to the bonito industry, and is presented in this paper. Furth- er ethnoscientific and economic notes have been written up separately, and de- posited with Peabody Museum Library (Cambridge, Mass.) and Dr. Bengt Danielsson in Tahiti. In my work I was always dependent on the cooperation and assistance of the fishermen, flsh sellers, market police, and many other Tahitians. They were infinitely helpful, friendly, and interested. My first acknowlefdgments are to them, and particularly to Ka Leon Tcheou and his family; Taui, Emile, and Tani, and their crews; and Ludwig Ellacott. This work was done under the direction of Dr. Douglas Oliver., who has also been of great assistance in writing up this re- port, and Dr. Bengt Danielsson. I wish to thank them most deeply here. Technical Description of Fish Taken The skipjack or oceanic bonito, Katsuwonus pelamis, is a stocky powerful fish of the family Scombridae, the family to which all tunas, bonitos and wahoos belong. Like its relatives, the skipjack--the bonito of this monograph, follow- ing the usage of Nordhoff (1930) and others--is marked by great speed and power, predatory habits (its food in Tahitian waters consists of ca. 75 percent fish, ranging from one inch (for small bonito) to about five inches, and 25 percent of four to six inch squid), a small mouth with reduced teeth (the prey is swallowed whole without use of these teeth), and several (6 to 8) small finlets between the rear dorsal fin and the tail above and between anal and tail fins below. These finlets, controlled by a single muscle-unit for the dorsal and another for the anal, assist the fish in making rapid sudden turns. The bonito spawns in winter (June-July, and to some extent in the other cool months) far out at sea; the fry scatter widely, many returnin to shore areas, others remaining at sea. According to Murphy and Ikehara (1955) the skipjack is one of the most pelagic of-the Scombridae. The young fish grow rapidly, "an average length of 45 centi- meters being attained by the end of the first year, 70 centimeters by the end of the second, and 80 centimeters by the end of the third. Seemingly very few . . live longer than this" (Gosline and Brock, 1960:257; Hawaiian data). The bonito is one of the most tropical of fish, not straying as the tunas do into warm tem- perate waters far north of the tropics. 88 Great flocks of birds--sometimes six hundred or more birds in a flock-- congregate over schools of fingerlings beyond the reef. The fingerlings con- gregate at special points where food is available: the roiling eddies just off the southeast tip of Moorea, the currents off Papenoo, etc. In general, areas of upwelling and activity are the good feeding places. Here fingerlings come, squid come to eat them, and the big birds and fish eat both. The Tahitians--and, reportedly, the fish (Nordhoff, 1930), and certainly the birds--find fish schools by watching the overhead flocks. The central fig- ure in this search is the ua'aol--the Red-footed Booby, Sula sula, a large brown or white bird much like the gannet of the North Atlantic. -The ua'ao is the largest common seabird of Tahiti and the highest-flying; thus-it is the first seen, in nearly all cases. Tahitian fishermen, trained and alert, can see it for at least two miles, at which distance it Is invisible unless it wheels, in which case it appears as a barely perceptible speck. It flies ten to seventy feet above water, depending on how far under surface the food fish are; diving and coming up from beneath to seize its prey, it often hits bonito and tuna, causing--according to the fishermen--the gaping wounds so often seen raw or healing on the sides of the big fish. A few other seabirds are inportant in fish-lQcating: the Black or Lesser Noddy, Anous mninutus, called 'oio; its larger relative the oa (Brown Noddy, Anous sto'.idus); a more distanF-elative, the White Tern or 'tata'e (ygis alba); and, to sone extent, the two species of frigate-bird, Fregata minor and F. ariel, both called otaha and occupying an important place in Tahitian consciousness--being often pointed out with excitement.2 Not only do the birds locate fish-schools, but they tell the fishermen exactly what type of school to expect. Nordhoff (1930) has described at length the position of birds as markers. I can add little except a loose arrangement of the types of schools (iria in Tahitian) and their accomparnying bird flocks: (1) deep schools of fairly large fingerlings, followed by toheveri , bonito over 30 inches long, and marked by a large flock of ua'ao circling in one direction at ca. 60 feet, and rarely diving; few other birds attend these flocks; (2) huge schools of small f ingerlings attended by small tuna and bonito, by sharks, and by hundreds of 'oio as well as large ntumbers of oa, itata'e, ua'ao, and other terns, and by Audubon's shearwaters (Puff inus l'herminieri, conspicuous in all flocks), the birds flying low and diving much; (3) a variant of (2)-- schools in which "patch rises" occur, the small fish suddenly banding into knots and surfacing at once, causing a boiling mass of birds, bonito, fishermen, and other predators to pack into a tiny area where each bird may have only a cubic yard of air to move in and where bonito lash the water white--these give the best fishing, especially near but not in the patch-rises (the bonito in such marginals will be biting, but have?rew"ish to bite at); (4) small schools of small fish that will rarely bite, and are followed ty 'oto and itatale, very few of the larger oa and ua'ao. Many variants and minor notes can be added; no two schools are alike, and watching the birds tells the competent observer far more than I have described. Moreover, a school changes with time; it may sink deep, leaving the birds and fishermen to scatter out and quarter back and forth, prepared to rush in when one bird finds fish; or the birds may sit on the water, thrusting their heads below surface to watch underwater movement. Birdlore is perhaps the most important part of the bonito fisherman's knowledge, as important, I think, as knowing the equipment well. Every fisher- 89 man knows the important birds and flocking behavior perfectly. A Type 1 flock will always call out the big double-pole for toheveri, motions of itata'e lead to trolling; and so forth0 The day is literally one long observation of birds. To return to the bonitoO In the schools, these fish operate with great speed and preclsiono They feed in a manner most important for fishing tech- niques: many bonito9 often dozens, band together Into a long line like a caval- ry charge, and sweep through the water on a broad front that may be many fish broad but only two or three deep. In packed schools they may break formation and mill about considerably. The lines charge forward with great speed, cutting back and forth through the school. It is this feeding method that determines much of Thitian bonito fishing technique0 The fisherman cruises around a school, waiting for a line to pass underneath; when it does he catches what he can, and waits again. The typical bonito hook is barbless, short-pointed, and not too sharp; if time had to be spent disengaging the hook from the bonito's mouth, the line of fish would be past before more than one fish could be taken from it. In actual fishing, a typical record of catches in a good school would be as follows: three fish caught in twenty seconds--no fish for ten minutes--then four in less than a min- ute--nothing for fifteen minutes--two in ten seconds--nothing for fifteen min- utes etc0 The bonito is the big fish' excellence in Tahiti. It is the most often caught, and it looms largest in eveyonefs mind. The fishermen's boats are the poti auhopu, "'boats for smaall bonito,"t though many species of fish are taken from these boats. Formerly, much ritual and magic surrounded the bonito fishing (Nordhoff, 1930); all this religion is gone, and the modern bonito- fisher is the most practical and unsuperstitious of men. Any magic beliefs that exist are unimportant (and/or secret) enough to escape completely my observation and carefully indirect questioning. But the bonito is still a subject of much thought and of endless observation and discussion. Three names are current for the bonito; there is no one name for the spe- cies9 as there is for tuna.3 The three, as used in 1961, are: auhopu, for a fish under 20 inches and about 10 pounds; tore, for 20-30 inch fish of about 15 pounds; toheveri, fish over 30 inches, weight 20 pounds or more. The fish in Tahitian waters may reach about 50 inches and 30-35 pounds. There is no general name for bonito, nor has there ever been cne, apparently. Nordhoff (1930, p. 236) cites the following names (data through the 1920's): Pirara (obsolete-the young bonito up to about four pounds weightO Auhopu (formerly atu)--four to about eight pounds. Auhopu tore--eight to about twelve pounds. Paamea, paamoa--twelve to about sixteen pounds. Poarahi--sixteen to about twenty pounds. Toheveri--from twenty pounds up. The auaeroa is defined as a "long, thin, pointed bonito," and toheoo is the short, enormously-bulky fish, with a very small tail. The latter is said to reach a weight of a hundred pounds. Forster (1778) records "peerara" (pirara) as the current name in his time,h A not-very-close second to the bonito in amount caught by the bonito fishermen is the yellowfin or Allison tuna, Neothunnus macropterus. Di,stinguished 90 from the bonito (to which it is closely related) by its thinner body, bluer back, lack of stripes on the abdomen, and yellow-tipped dorsal and anal fins and finlets, it is also a fiercer fish, preying on larger game (in relation to body size), and a much harder fighter. The tuna feed with the bonito, and sometimes on them, but in a bigger school will tend to be off by themselves eating bigcer fish and under fewer 'o0o and more oa and ua'ao ("bigger fish, bigger birds," the Tahitians told me). Ttna tend to be accompanied by sharks, which fact can be used in locating the former. Sharks are neither caught nor eaten by Tahitians. The general name for all tuna is 'a'ahi, a pan-Pqlynisian word meaning "ball of fire" (Farrington, 1942), an exceedingly apt description. The yellow- fin--'a'ahi uteute, "yellow-red fireball"--is the one normally taken from the poti auhopu, and then usually only small fish are caught, mostly in Type 3 schools. The other two Tahitian tuna, the 'a'ahi taria (apparently albacore) and 'a'ahi ("black tuna"--possibly theF Oiental tuna), as well as most large 'a'ahi uteute, are taken by deep-line outrigger-canoe fishing. Tuna, like bonito, have three sizes: papahi, under 2 feet, about 15 pounds; 'a'ahai, 2-5 feet, to 100 pounds; aue, the rarely caught giants. Third in numbers taken, but often second in value, of the i'a poti ("boat fish," i.e. fish taken from a motor-powered boat, opposed to i'a va'a ("canoe fish"), i'a upea ("netted fish"), etc.) Is the mahimahi, Coryphaena hippurus (family Coryphaenidae). This is the "dolphin" (fish, not the mammal famous In sciehce and art) of the Atlantic, the "dorade" of French-speakers. Nordhoff (1930) describes the now-lost special canoes for catching mahimahi; he also describes the fishing techniques, which still flourish in the Pacific, having been more or less adopted by white fishermen and retained by native ones. The fish are taken by trolling; the method and equipment will be described later. Mahimahi travel in small schools, following their chief food, the marara (fly- ing fish). The mahimahi are large--3-5 feet, to perhaps 25 pounds--and lateral- ly compressed, with huge heads, tapering bodies, thin powerful tails. Brilliant- ly and garishly colored blue and green and gold, they can be seen swinming under water from some distance. They go though a whole gamut of colors in the dying process (they die very slowly). The sure mark of mahimahi is a small flock of itata'e, or a lone one, swooping and dipping crazily, beginning to dive and then stopping, hovering close to the water, and generally acting in a strikingly erratic manner contrasting with the bird's normal feeding manner of slow even patrolling at fairly high altitudes. The swooping action is seen and identified from great distances, and the fishermen close rapidly on such flocks. There are never more than about ten birds of all species hovering around mahimahi. Frigate-birds are often attracted to the fish--perhaps because they scare flying fish into the air where the otaha can grab them--and follow the mahinahi, some- times even tracking a caught fish until it is landed and the huge bird is hover- ing five feet from the fishing boat. The Tahitian fisherman must understand not only fish and birds, but also weather and currents. While I was in Tahiti the weather held steady, a con- stant east or northeast wind with cool mornings and warm days that often clouded up in the afternoon (bringing some rain) but were otherwise clear. This is Ideal fishing weather, and I had no opportunity to observe limiting effects of weather on fishing. Nordhoff's article (1930) contains pertinent information and should be consulted. Currents are important fQr two reasons: the fish 91 congregate in upwellings and current-meeting zones, and the fishermen must lay course according to lay of current (e.g. south along Moorea but north along the facing Tahiti shore, never in the middle, when running the strait between the islands). The currents give the overall routes for voyages; the birds point out the fish. The fishermen are deeply committed to their life, and their attitude toward fish and sea are important in their work. They do not see the fish and birds as creatures to be loved and/or pitied. This sort of attitude is general- ly foreign to Tahitian reaction to animals. Animals are seen as powers to be respected but not feared. The excitement when someone hooks a nahimahi is in- tense and startling; it is one of joy, pleasure that a good opponent has been captured. A really large tuna electrifies the whole crew. The fish are i or- tant; they are not only part of the enviromnent, but a significant part of the environment--landmarks, living focal points, to be regarded with interest and an analyzing eye. The mahimahi is valuable and tough, the tuna fierce and hard to catch, the bonito is the bread-and-butter mainstay, the shark is a potential- ly dangerous pest--to each fish there is a strong reaction, as there is--In less degree--to each bird and current. These affective feelings have obviously suffered change in Tahitian his- tory. In the absence of pre-1930 comparative material it is difficult to des- cribe this. The chief difference betw?en the fishermen described by Nordhoff and those of today lies in the more spontaneous and emotional reactions of the 1930 crews. The 1961 fisherman is quiet, reserved, and overtly emotional in more silent and even ways (except when catching a big fish) than was the 1930 one; this quietness comes with ability, the young boys showing it less than the older ones, and these in turn showing less than adults; the evenness is apparent- ly a correlate of ability. Eqipment used in fishlnS The equipment of fish-catching is fairly simple. Two basic catching processes are involved, trolling and pole-fishing. The less complicated of these is trolling, used chiefly in catching mahimahi. The mahimahi equipment is about 100 feet of nylon line with a wire leader and a commercial iron hook about 3 inches along the shank. The original Tahitian dolphin hook was deeply Incurved; the modern iron hook, a simple one-barbed one, is hammered by the fishermen until it is incurved, but less than the handmade hooks were. Fig. 1. Ancient and modern mahimahi hooks The bait is the mahimahi's normal food, the marara--flying fish. These are caught at night, brought into the Papeete fish market in the early morning, and bought there by the fishermen. On the water, the first activity beyond the reef is baiting the trolling hooks. The hook is removed from the line, a six- 92 inch iron threader takes the line through the fish's body from mouth to belly, and the hook is replaced; the flying fish is tied in place thereon. About three hooks are normally prepared this way, sometimes five or six; a fish once thus used is wasted unless soon activated, so making too few is better than making too many. If the fisherman runs out of flying fish, he will take a bonito or tuna stomach and cut it carefully into an excellent copy of a six- or seven- inch squid; this bait is almost as effective as marara. 'When no flying fish are to be had in the Papeete market, the rather similar ature (Trachurops c eoh thalmus) is substituted. The short wire leader and connected hook is the unit baited; this unit is easily attached to more leader on the end of the line, so a rapid change can be made from bait to bait, and only one line is needed (or used). In fishing for mhimahi, the fisherman first locates the fish by the crazy swooping of the itatate; he then passes close alongside the school and pays out the line. A mahimahi usually bites soon, and one sudden powerful jerk hooks it; then a quick snapped series of commnds to whomever is working the engine keeps the boat more or less matching speeds with the fish, which fights for a while but soon becomes quiet. The boat is taken in a slow, ever-narrowing spiral around the fish, which usually tries to ma1e one mad break when it sees the boat come close; the fish is finally gaffed in. 'xcitement during this process runs very high. Killing a mahimahi is a long process; once landed, the fish is usually stabbed repeatedly through the head with the sharp handle of a file, and then placed under the rack in which bonito are kept when cleaned. After a while the mahizi,hi quiets down, drowned in air, and is cleaned and placed under the banana fronds that provide a soft, friction-affording pad on the boat roof--until they are wet with peawiater and put over fish to keep them fresh. Trolling is also employed for huge tuna and for ha'ura (marlin). Here a quarter-inch rope, thick wire leader, and huge rusty hook that may be baited with a whole auhopu are used. If a huge fish is sighted, chum of all kinds is thrown over until the fish is following the boat, then the captain may stand on the roof with a pole attached to the trolling line. When the fish bites, a great upward jerk with the pole hooks it, and then the pole is dropped--the line paying out takes the pole along4with It into the water (where it can be recov- ered). Often poles get broken in this process and the fish escapes. It appears that most of the really big fish are not taken by this method, however, but by fishing from outrigger canoes; how a man in such a canoe handles a thirteen- foot marlin is rather hard to imagine. Apparently the fisherman lets the fish tow him until it is exhausted. Most of the fishing from the poti auhopu is done with bamboo poles, of which there are two kinds. These are made with a special bamboo (cf. Nordhoff 1930, p. 247), thick, tough, and three times as expensive as the ordinary kind. The first type of pole is some 10 to 15 feet long, 2-1/2 inches or so thick at the proximal end, tapering to l inch or less. A line almost of the same length as the pole is attached, so that when the lure is on the line It can be hooked neatly to the pole's proximal end for storage. Every boat carries about half a dozen such poles, and one double-pole--two of these poles linked together by a 2 foot line at the tip--used for toheveri (it takes two men to do a good job of landing a toheveri). The second type is shorter (ca. 7-8 feet) and thinner and shoddier, and used in really big schools when speed is even more essential than 93 usual; the shorter, lighter pole permits faster action. The boats have about six to ten or more of these. No hooks are used except for trolling. In fishing with poles, lures are used; these are of two types, the manu and the prau. The manu (see Fig. 2) is an outcome of Tahitian ingenuity applied to new materials. It involves a piece of wire, fied to a point at one end and bent into a suitable hook shape; a piece of flashlight casing (according to the fishermen, the tin casing of a flashlight makes the best manu, but other similar things-are used); and some solder, Fig. 2. Manu (about natural size) This lure, silvery and shining, is meant to imitate a small fish (in spite of its name, which means "bird"), and is a recent invention, probably having -come in about the same time as the mechanized boats. The other lure, the parau (see Fig. 3), is the classic bonito hook of the Pacific, found all over that ocean, as far back as archaeology can trace, very similar in shape and construction from New Guinea to Hawaii and New Zealand (see Nordhoff, 1930; Burrows, 1938; etc.). Despite the wide distribution and great abundance of this most famous and perhaps most specialized of "hooks," I know of no one who has ever recorded what it imitates. The common supposition that it represents a small fish is without foundation and in the Society Islands, at least, is incorrect. Both observation and report (of the fishermen) agree that the parau lure is modeled after the squid, the fete chinois ("Chinese octopusit). It is the wrong color for a fish; it is too large to be a fish (bonito take only small fish, only fair-sized squid; there is little size overlap); it is not shaped like a fish. The streaming tufts of hair behind do not resemble a fish's tail; they represent the trailing tentacles of the squid. In modern Tahiti the base of the parau is a straightened-out, filed-sharp piece of thick wire about 4 to 6 inches long (size of rig depending on size of fish to be caught), and bent to the proper angle. This wire is lashed at the bend point to a piece of pearl shell; tufts of cowhair bristle out on each side of the distal end of the lure. A hole, bored with a metal-tipped improvised pump-drill, is made in the proximal end of the shell, and the line attached there. Fig. 3. Parau (about 1/2 size) 94 N. /\ ,/9TWT < --- \ T"J06 ATAVNO A J TE'r I A koA \PA$$ -; \XAEW ,~~~~~A -S I , 100,~~~~~1 I II 100, I~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~NT i , \ ,, TAUoOAto } ~~~~~~~~~Map Showing Locat;ons / ~~~~~~~~~~and Typilcal Routes Fo Pue i cGt S *A vG PAy A c^ 0 0 0 POTI A uwo v AP E A Po0 NI 0 l RotB TE - UP R%NG s 0 0 A NCH- 0o UC 0 0 M Ip,CHE 0 0 THE PAPEETE QUAI PAy APCtc 97 CQ The shape, size, color, form,n and overall appearance of these lures are subject to infinite variation, from the long lean toheveri lures to short blocky ones for small auhopu, and each fisherman carries several types with him and has many more at home; each lure is specially adapted to season, weather, type of fish, conditions of food, etc. (see Nordhoff, 1930, for discussion). The parau lure is as important as a work of art as it is as a lure. It is the only piece of native art now frequently made in Tahiti, European-inspired "souvenirs" aside. A well-made parau is a thing of beauty and a matter of pride to its owner, who has spent many hours making it. The process of making a parau is as follows. Pearl shell (special type, purchased and often specially ordered from far islands for the required color, lustre and thickness) from the Tuamotu is marked off with pencil, thus: and the blank for the lure is sawed out along the marks. The result is carefully filed down, When it finally reaches the correct proportions *LILS and size, and what to an outside observer would appear to be the correct finish, the real work begins. The owner takes it with him to the waterfront, where there is a fresh-water tap equipped with a four-foot-long basin made of a spe- cial type of stone. This stone is the ideal grinding surface for parau, and every morning many fishermen spend minutes (sometimes the entire day) working with their shell blanks, sanding off inappropriate patches of color, rubbing the blank with their thumbs to see if it is smooth, and sanding again. Hours of this work go into each parau. Many deep grooves have been worn in the stone basin by years of parau-making. Finally a pump-drill is improvised from two sticks, a string, and a metal point, and a hole is drilled for the line. Then the metal (formerly bone) hook and the cow-hair tufts are attached, and the new lure is added to the large supply that along with a couple of manu and a couple of mahimahi hooks are stuck into the plaited frond carrying-basket of the fish- erman. In actual use, the parau correct for season and weather is attached to the line before fishing starts. Three or four different poles each carry a dif- ferent parau, and substitution is common during fishing. On rare occasions the manu is used, apparently more for variety than arqthing else; although almost as effective as the parau, the manu is not favored. The reason for the special shape of the bonito-hook--b4rbless, short, not incurved, and often slightly blunt--has been given before. A more complete description of the process of landing a fish is now in order. Two men (some- times one or three) stand in the stern of the boat, holding the ten-foot bam- boos between their legs. The poles stand out at gn angle of about 45h, so that the lure skitters along the surface of the water. The fish comes up from be- hind, seizes the lure without stopping, and is pulled in by a sharp, strong jerk. The fish's momentum carries it into the boat. The barbless hook dislod- ges itself immediately, either in the air or as the fish hits the boat. The hook is thus ready to catch another fish, often before the first is in the boat. Frequently the fisherman jerks the fish in against his body, so that the hook dislodges as the fish strikes the man. Emile, captain of the Hei Fara and an excellent fisherman, affects a theatrical variant: he swings the fish high into the air, at the full vertical stretch of pole and line, and makes it des- cribe a circle; it falls off the hook there, and plummets twenty feet down to land at Emile's feet. This is more difficult and less efficient than the nor- mal way, but is a most effective bit of shownanship. The jerk when the fish 99 seizes the lure requires more skill than strength; if it is too weak, the fish will slide off the hook; if too strong or sudden, the pole may break (with at best the loss of a valuable pole, at worst the -?njury coming from splintering bamboo). If the jerk is not in line with the fish's motion, the fish simply falls off. Even more skill is required in taking tuna, which unlLke the bonito will fight the hook. The double pole for toheverl is used by two men; toheveri are heavy, and lifting them out of the water is hard-work. On landing, the fish are clubbed to death by the ship' s boy with the ra'au tairi e ia, a foot-long t"potato-mashert.-type club, and immediately cleaned. The superstition noted by Nordhoff that fish-blood and cleanings drive other fish away no longer holds; the blood is washed out freely through the scuppers. Guts, however, are saved; they can be used later as chum (but not for bonito; tuna are the objects of chumming, whether with guts or with small fish, usually fouma (Mulloides auriflamna)), Guts can also appear as trolling bait, and occasionally the roe (huoro) is saved and sold with food. Mahimahi run more or less all year. In winter, when I was there, about two were taken on an average day, often only one; over three was exceptional. As far as I know, this remains fairly constant through the year, but the numbers of bonito and tuna taken vary greatly. In winter (May-October) both food fish and bonito are off spawning in the deep sea; few fish remain in Tahitian waters. One might catch as many as 200 or more pounds of fish, but days when no fish were caught by at least some fishermen were common. There was a constant supply of fish, though; a few fishermen had good luck on any given day. In October the food fish return, very small, and the young bonito with them; from then till next May, the small food fish grow steadily, and the bonito fishing is good--at its best from December into Mrch. September is the worst month, and the January catch may be a dozen or more times the September one. All fish show some varia- t;on, but the bonito show by far the greatest. Formerly, when canoes were pad- dled, no one bothered to go out between May and October; now the fishermen go out every day of the year--even the 14th of July--except on Sundays ("that's the day of rest") when they sleep and eat large dinners, On any given day two or three boats will not go out simply because the crew wants a rest, but except on Sundays most of the fleet is operating; a few, but very few, boats are inac- tive in the slow months. A Working Day The fisherman's day begins about 5:30 A.M., when the f ishermen begin to congregate around the Papeete fish market; many of them have fish to sell, having kept them in icebox overnight; others come around to watch and talk. A general movement to Wa Hing's tearoom (just south of the market) occurs, and by 6:30 the market-facing end of Wa Hing's is half-filled wIth fishermen and the apprentices and ship's'boys. Usually the fishermen and the boys sit at different tables, those of the latter being locations of more anlmatior. and excitement. The groups drlnk coffee and eat French bread and e ilota taloro (raw fish marirated in lime ju1ce and served with coconut cream), and then move down to the boats, two blocks away on a specially reserved part of the waterfront. The most enterprising cap- tains, such as Eugene of the Dora, have already set out, as early as 6:00 on some days. The departures mount in number until about 7:45, by which time most of the boats have left or are readying themselves to leave. The last ones weigh anchor about 8:30, leaving a few that are not being run, either because their crews are resting or because they are in no condi'tion to run, and also leaving 100 the wreck of a bonito boat whose utility is long past but which no one bothers to remove. For the rest of the day, the fishermen who have not gone out sit or stand along the quai, talking and sanding down lures; the others are on the water. The boats leave Papeete harbor by two passes, Papeete and Taunoa, and from there proceed in three general directions (see map): straight out, to a position north of Moorea; south, through the channel between Moorea and Tahiti (keeping close to the Moorea shore because of currents), to the upwellings southeast of Moorea, one of the best fishing grounds; or east along the shore to waters off the north end of Tahiti, where again current .disturbances concen- trate food. The boats cruise around from about 10:00 to 3:00, looking for fish and working the schools they find. At about 3:00 they begin to head in, respec- tively by cutting south and then driving straight in across the head of the channel; by cutting over toward the Papeete shore and finally following it up, often coming home through Taapuna Pass (this route, again, determined by cur- rents); and by going away from shore and coming back through open water, finally in through Papeete Pass. During the day, in winter, an average of between two and three auhopu schools, one toheveri school, and two mahimahi schools will be worked, often rather desultorily (if the fish are not biting). The boats re- turn about 5:00--a few earlier, especially if they have started early, to hit the afternoon markets; some later, having hit nothing good until late in the day. On the water, only one man is normally active; he stands at the tiller (or sits at it), steering and watching for birds. The other man sleeps, or helps watch for birds; the boy sleeps or idly watches the sea. The captain usually spends less time on tiller than his fellow. On one occasion, I observed a fisherman bring a couple of comic books to read on the water. When a fish school is sighted, the men of the crew get into action, standing together in the stern where they can control the tiller; the boy's job is to clean and put in racks the fish as they come in; he rarely if ever fishes. One aspect of Tahitian fishing has to my knowledge never been previously recorded. This is the sign language. Tahitians always accompany their speech with gestures, and for purposes of communicating between widely separated, noisy boats, certain standardized gestures have been developed. It is made up mostly of directional and quantificational signs--where the fish are, how many, how large, etc. The most commonly used sign is the downward-pointed, horizontally circling index finger that means "flock of birds circling"--the unfailing mark of bonito0 Much gesturing goes on between two boats in any case--a surprising amount of friendly insults and general gossip can thus be exchanged--but the impromptu and casual nature of such signing is very different from the sharp, abstract, definite signs that are the language of the open Tahitian sea. At the end of the day, the boats are anchored along the quai, and tied with rope to rings thereon. The fishermen load the catch on poles--the fish tied in pairs, the tie-line around the tail-bases, and slung over the pole--and carry them to market or to storage for morning marketing. Then everyone dis- perses; some linger around the market till it slacks off about 6 P.M., others return to the waterfront, others go home. Small groups drift into bars in the early night, and then they go home, to get up the next morning long before first light0 In comparing the above with older accounts of the deep-sea fishing indus- try (principally, of course, with Nordhoff 1930) one sees that almost no essentbl 101 technical features have been lost. The principal changes are: (1) Substitution of motored boats, with attendant greatly increased mobil- ity. This permits much moving from school to school, activity in formerly un- usable parts of the year, and fine maneuverlng difficult in a canoe (this last applies mostly to mahinahi f ishing). (2) Introduction of new materials--wire, solder, etc. This has led to the invention of a new type of lure, the manu, and new types of hook. (3) Change in crew. The old crew included several cooperating paddlers, a master fisherman, an apprentice, and perhaps one or two others. -The present crew consists only of two master fishermen and one apprentice (or boy). (4) Disappearance of all religious observances, etc., connected with the fishing. It probably has not disappeared from the minds of all the fishermen, but it has no pragmatic value. Anything the fisherman cannot explain he will not attempt to exDlain; in notable contrast to the American fisherman, he has neither a mystic attitude toward his equipmlent nor a religion of "luck" with its attendant long explanations for everything. WpJhere an American--commercial or sport fisher--will put down his bad luck to the light or the trash-fish or the gear, and his good luck to his proper use of circumstances, the modern Tahitian assigns chance-determined things to chance: "The fish weren't biting, that's all.," or "plenty of fish today!" are the most frequent comments on luck. No beliefs or superstitions affect in any way the work on the water. Principal continuities are: (1) The parau lure with its specialized knowledge. (2) The knowledge of fish, birds, weather, etc. (3) The techniques of fi shing, for each species, and--in general--the tackle used. (4) Probably; data on this are scanty--the respect-of-forces attitude, the excitement in chasing fish. Under the circumstances, it seems likely that these four things have stabilized, and will last as long as the industry does. Change, however, con- tinues. One trend seems to be the increasing exploitation of new goods: metal and other things. Mechanical knowledge sufficient to allow the fishermen to re- pair the engines. for example, may be expected to develop soon. Larger boats-- and larger crews to man them--may come in, but this may prove to be uneconomical because the largest boats used now require too much fuel to be run economically iLn slack times, The intensely practical side of the fisherman's attitude must have existed along with ritual and magic, as the tractical data is necessary for successful fishing. The magic is now gone, leaving the practical data. 'Whether this is a stable situation or not remains to be seen. At present it seems to hold well. Change h1ras been in the direction of rejecting unnecessary knowledge while keep- ing useful data; this may be expected to continue, the npresent body of knowledge changing as new techniques come in, accommodating these techniques and blotting out data relating to processes made obsolete. 102 Economiic The Market The fish section of the Papeete marche central is the center of life for the whole island of Tahiti. From all the districts and all parts of the town of Papeete, people come in to buy fish, sell fish, or watch the whole show. Very few Tahitians buy fresh meat except for special events; most protein comes from fish, either canned or bought through the marche. This market consists of the east side of a huge open-sided roofed-in area, a block in extent, in which all kinds of food are sold. The fish market is about 180 by 60 feet. The sides are lined with stone-topped and wood-topped tables, on which fish are sold; another rank of tables runs along the long axis east of center. Down the market, between these tables, runs a series of high iron racks--two parallel head-high ones, flanked by parallel waist-high ones, At the northeast corner is the weigh-in station, where the mutoi makate (market police) weigh incoming fish for purposes of taxation. The market is strictly if informally zoned. The two areas that concern us here are the northeast corner, including the weigh-in booth and the butcher- ing tables behind it, and the section of the central iron racks just north of center. In the former, bonito are taxed, and the larger ones cut up; in the latter they are sold. At the end of the fishing day, the bonito fishermen bring their fish to the weigh-in station (or to storage for a next-morning weigh-in). The fish, on their pole, are duly weighed, and the weight recorded for taxing and statistics (all fish go through this process). The tax, extracted for the privilege of using the public market, varies according to the "qualite" of the fish. "Qual- ite," nominally dependent on the demand-fixed price of the fish, is in practice often determined partly by the mutoi makate's mood and feelings toward the fisherman. It is assigned by species, but a mixed-species haul is assigned a single qualit'e the assignment depending as much on the fisherman's ability to pay and his friendship or lack thereof with the mutoi as by the type of fish involved. The tax is collected at the marche gate after the fis1T are sold. Bonito is third qualite, being taxed at 2.25 francs on the kilo. Tuna, second qualite, is 3 fr/kg. Note that this tax holds winter and summer, despite great price fluctuations. The mutoi makate ("ma'o"--sharks--in Tahitian slang) weigh and calculate tax; the fish are then carried in, to be hung over the tall iron racks in their special section, north of center and along the east aisle. Small tuna and most bonito are hung here. The large tuna, toheveri, and ha'ura (about once every two months or less, someone catches a marlin from a bonito boat) go immediately to the butchering tables; the middle-sized tuna and bonito may go there later. The butcher--there are about four--buys the fish from the fisherman, paying the tax for him. The fish is cut in longitudinal fourths, the head cut off, and the fourths cut into convenient-sized pleces (1/2 to 1-1/2 kg), and the pieces sold, the butcher getting 10 to 20 percent profit. Not only i'a oti (fish taken by powered boats), but all large fish, such as large paaishere, are cut up thus. A seniority exists among the fish-butchers (tIcoupeurs du thon1l--cutters of tuna); Eugene, the oldest and most experienced, has prior claim to fish. The process of selling, for fishermen selling their small auhopu and papahi direct, is slmple. The men stand behind the low iron rack, surrounded by LO3 their heavy fish, and wait. Several hundred people move through the market each day; these people pass, look, and buy, after a small amount of haggling and a large amount of looking around for better buys. Watching the fish market is one of the great spectator sports of Tahiti, and many people come to the market only to look and to talk about the catches. On Sunday mornings, when the market is busiest, a true "peanut gallery" of these non-buyers forms at the northwest cor- ner of the main part of the market. Prlces rarely change through the day; occa- sionally a price will be reduced 20 francs if the sale has not been nude before the market is emptying. Unsold fish are-taken to an icebox near the market, there to be stored until the following market time. Demand, however, always keeps up with supply, and there is never a surplus of fish building up. The market has two sessions: in the morning from 5:20 to 8:000, and in the afternoon from 1:30 to 6:00. Long before the official opening at 5:20, the sellers are there, and have set up their fish on the tables and racks; often they come at 3:00 A.M., especially on Sundays, when 50 to 100 percent more busi- ness is done than on any weekday. By 7:00 most fish are sold, by 8:00 all are, except for occasional latecomers and undesirables, which nay wait through the day until the afternoon market. At 1:30 or 2:00 the first fish--usually large, canoe-caught tuna--appear for the afternoon, and by 3:00 the market is in full swing. It trails off around 5:00 to 6:00, and is deserted by 7:00. The peaks of activity are at 6:15 to 6:30 and 3:00 to 3:30, the morning one being greater. There is no afternoon market on Sunday, and--since no one fishes Sunday--effec- t?vely no market Monday morning (in winter, about six hauls will appear). The Sunday market blights marketing from Saturday through Tuesday. Thursday and Friday are busy days, sometimes rivaling Sunday. In winter, on a normal Sunday, about 180 hauls of fish pass through the market, These average perhaps 120 kg, but ranging from small three-kilo catches from a breakwater to 29500-kilo hauls of ature brought in by fleets of trucks. All these loads are sold. Fish come from Moorea, Tahiti, and the Tuamotu Archipelago to the north; the leeward Society Islands have their own market, at Taliatea. Thursday may see 100 loads, Tuesday about 20. The bonito boats contribute as much as 40 percent of the total fish by weight0 In winter, the off season, 10 percent of the weight is bonito (other fish drop in amount sold, but not nearly as much as the bonito do). Bonito ap- pear both in morning and in afternoon, the morning ones having been brought in from the districts during the night, or stored overnight. The price of bonito varies greatly throughout the year. In winter, when the supply is low, bonito are far more expensive than in summer. A normal auhopu, weighing perhaps 1-1/2 kilos, will cost 10 fr in February, 70 in June, 100 in early July. Then the fete, the three-week celebration of Bastille Day (July l4), sends prices skyrocketing; the fish goes from 100 to 150 fr in a few days0 The bonito fishermen work through the fete, even on July 14 itself, but few others fish, and everyone is in town spending money; so all fish increase in price, over and above supply and demand considerations of a long-term nature. Through August the fish slowly decline, to around 130 fr, but low supply keeps them high till October, when returning season makes prices fall. Tuna, being considered better and being somewhat rarer, is more expensive by 20 percent or more.8 Demand remains about the same for fish throughout the year, and for fresh fish demand always keeps up with or ahead of the supply. An overstock of fish is theoretically possible, but apparently does not happen. The public can lOh easily accommodate the 100,000 kilos of fish that come in during a winter month. Demand rises somewhat during the fete, but short supply has even more effect on price. Fluctuations in price correlate primarily with fluctuations in supply of bonito, secondarily with fluctuations in supplies of other fish. The demand is "inelastic," in economists' terms; I lack sufficient figures to calculate how much so. An estimated supply-demand graph can be set up; see Table 2. On the average winter weekday, about 350 kilos of bonito pass through the market; the summer average is about five times this, and almost 4,000 kg may move through the market in one (exceptional) day; there is a more-than-tenfold difference between the worst and the best months. Nearly all bonito and tuna are sold through the central market. The boat owner may take a couple of fish, or a few may be bought at the quai by friends of the fishermen, but none are sold otherwise except through the narche. The situation Is different for mahimahi, however; Aruna, a Chinese who owns a store on the Rue des Remparts, buys the fish (through a representative who spends his afternoons hanging around the bonito quai, and has an almost supernatural abil- ity to spot incoming boats with mahimahi) for 75 fr/kg, and sells them to res- taurants and hotels for 100 fr/kg. The mahimahi is the favorite fish of most whites (including the writer), but is too dry to be highly favored by the Tahi- tians (who also disvalue swordfish). Therefore mahimahi wind up almost exclu- sively in places that cater to the popa'a (whites)--hotels and the tourist-trade restaurants. Here they are served in the form of tiny steaks, each one costifig as much as 150 fr. Tahitians, already disturbed by Arupa's goodly margin, are astonished by this last markup. Fish roe and other lights are occasionally brought in, and either sold in the market or sold to Chinese merchants on the wharf. For some reason, however, this almost never is done; I saw only two or three buckets of lights in the market0 Roe is not much desired, and does not sell well. Operation of Industry Such is the selling aspect of the bot.-*o indtistry. The economics of op- erating the industry may now be di-scussed, The fishing boats are inboard motor launches, 25 to 40 feet long, 6 to 10 feet broad, with the engine in the bow under the deck, a cabin amidships, and a tiller. (Sometimes a wheel also occurs.) The boats are powered by die- sel engines of several kinds. British nakes, such as the Perkins and the power- ful noisy Parsons, predominate; the German Mercedes is perhaps the most liked by the fishermen, but is too expensive for general use. A commoner German motor Is the Renk, somewrhat less powerful than the British ones. Lister, BMC, and Enfield (perhaps the least powerful) englnes occur. Few French motors are used; they break down frequently--according to the fishermen, at least--and in any case the Tahitians have little love for the French and their products. The boats themselves are locally built, not infrequently by the owner. A boat costs from 50,000 to 150,000 francs to build; the engine costs as much as 250,000 francs or more, The little Enfields are, I believe, the cheapest en- gines, costing perhaps 150,000 francs. Total cost of the outfit is thus often over 300,000 francs--a really large amount. There are some 50 poti auhopu scattered through the Society Islands. The outer islands have one or two each; the rest are in Tahiti. Of these about 25 make up the Papeete fleet. The rest operate out of Tautira, Vaira'o, and Luc Ella- cott's shipyard in Taunoa (the north quartier of Papeete); possibly out of other coast points occasionally. Boats regularly shift from one point to another, especi- ally between nearby points. The boats are owned by demis--part-Tahitians, a category not recognized by the Tahitians themselves, who call them "French" if they are unpleasant, "Tahitians" if they are likeable--in most instances. Two boats at least are owned by Chinese: the Hel-Fara, Kai Chun's boat, and the Aroma, belonging to Swing. (Note that the fishermen are virtually all Tahitians, i.e. men minimally acculturated to French life and not too obviously white or Chinese in parentage.) The owners do not usually fish; Philip Lauglin, owner of a few boats, was the only owner whom I saw go out regularly during my stay. (See Table 3 for boats and owners.) Once the boat is made and paid for, the engine must be renewed every two or three years (according to the fishermen; actually the period is longer; but most of the engines are indeed fairly new). Breakdowns occur every so often, and the boat must be repaired occasionally. This all requires a good deal of capital; how much I do not know. Otherwise, a bonito boat is rather cheap to operate: 200 fr or so a day for fuel, another 100 for food, perhaps 50 for bait. Equipment is rarely lost. The knife-blades used for opening cans and cleaning fish are very rarely replaced, and the most important piece--the parau--is handmade at little cost. The bamboo poles cost two fr or a little more per foot. The daily operating cost is subtracted from the day's gross profit. The re- maining money is split: the owner gets half, and the crew gets half to divide equal- ly among them, the captain getting no preference, the boy no reduction. Thus it is good to have as few men as possible on a boat. On the other hand, the more men there are, the faster the fish can be pulled in, particularly in summer when more fish are there. In winter 1961, there was only one boat (the Fare Ute) with crew of four; most boats had crews of three, but several had crews of two (the boy being the one dispensed with, except on the Vtaiava, which usually ran with only the captain, Taui, and the boy, Jean) and one had a crew of one (the necessary second rman being the owner, Lauglin, who substituted for the captain on the boat Te Vihonu). Thus the overhead is met jointly by men and owner. L. Ellacott has recently begun meeting all the cost of fuel; the other owners do not do this. In an average day, about 1500 fr may be cleared. The earnings hold relati'vely constant throughout the year. Winter brings many times fewer fish than summer, but many times as much money per fish; the earnings work out at about 1200-2000 fr/day (work day) in all seasons. (When fish are caught, at least; often in winter nothing of significance is caught.) A big catch of toheveri, a few mahimahi, or a huge turn mean extra income; this tends to average out the no-catch days. But profits are not great. A 1500 franc workday means about 210 frarms per fisherman--about 21 fr (23V) per hour. In summer, when every day brings many fish, incomes are steadier and slightly better. However, more people can (and do) work, and more boats are pressed into service. The fishermen move around a good deal, particularly the crewmen; they may be working in Papeete one year, then in Tautira, then in Vaira'o, then in Papeete again, then perhaps as far off as Moorea. They work for various captains, but tend to stick to one owner for a fairly long period of time. Labor relations in the industry are normally good; personal obligations, the net of responsibilities of person to person, keep them so. There is no institution- 106 alized method for the fishermen to appeal from an owner's decision; but neither is there any institutionalized way for an owner to keep his workers. If an owner did try exploltation, no one would work for him; there are plenty of more responsible bosses. The case history of one owner indicates some facts not otherwise brought out. Ludwig (Luc) Ellacott owns more boats than anyone else. I met him early in my stay; he was one of the most helpful people I encountered. In his late forties or early fifties now, he began work over twenty years ago, as a carpenter. "I looked around," he says, "and saw that the bonito boat owners were doing well, so I thought I would get into that." He built a small boat, named after his first daughter, Caroline. The boat (like its namesake) is now around twenty years old and doing well. Since then M. Ellacott has built seven more boats, two of them named after further daugh- ters. MN Ellacott is mostly French, speaking no English; he says his name is German in origin; he is "Tahitian' to those working for him. He lives in a large house in Taunoa; a few blocks from his house is his lagoon-side carpentery and shipyard. This consists of a building whose backyard opens on the lagoon, and operates as a drydock. Two or three of M. Ellacott's boats are usually tied up in the lagoon, and several fishermen sit on benches under trees. M. Ellacott also has boats operating out of Papeete, Vairalo, and Tautira, and drives from one place to another In his gray pick-up truck, carrying fish and people and other Items. He is a relaxed, friendly person, but like the fishermen he is very alert and sharp, and he has a good head for business. He maintains good relations with the fishermen on his boats., and does not fish with them. He has several cousins who also own boats. In August, one of the fishermen operating out of Tautira on one o$ Luc Ellacott's boats caught a Giant Petrel--an Antarctic bird--with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service band. The entire L. Ellacott family, including grandchildren, went out to see it--taking me in my capacity as authority on birds and U.S. in- scriptions. I identified the bird, and held it down while we were all driven back to Papeete, some 50 miles away by the road taken. The bird died in a week; it was sick when caught, and Tahltian medlcine (force-feeding with sugar-water to "cool" it after it had eaten "hot" food, viz., a piece of stale fish) completed its destruction. M. Ellacott carefully instructed me to get the Fish and Wildlife Service to send him a report on where the bird came from, and this has been done (the bird was from South Georgia). M. Ellacott's scientific interest in the whole process was a most interesting thing to observe. It is this sort of quick inter- est and ability to pick up facts that has given him the ability to run so success- fully a fleet of bonito boats. In general, the fishing industry is characterized by a position intermedi- ate between independent effort (farming, lagoon fishing) and salary work, Coop- eration but not subservience is required; independent but not individual enter- prise (in the sense that lagoon fishing is individual, each man alone) is dominant. The cooperation stressed by Nordhoff (1930) is still found, here perhaps more than in most Tahitian occupations; not only on the boat, but also between crews and between fishermen and owners there is much cooperation, friend- ship, and webwork of personal responsibility. Because of the binding forces structured around material (e.g. pay division, boat assignment) and immaterial (authority-structure interactions, etc.) exchanges, the structure of the industry is relatively resistant to change. Though it has changed more than the techni- calities of fishing have-money has come in, the non-fishing boat-bullding owner 107 has become more important, etc.--the cooperation, even divislon of profits with half going to the dominant person (owner), and process of work have remained as they were prior to white contact. One feature which deserves special attention is the coming of the market. Before the whites, bonito catches went to the chiefs and to the families and friends of the fishermen, apparently. The chiefs could take over what posses- sions they wanted (Danielsson, 1958), and had claim to certain large fish for ceremonial occasions (Nordhoff, 1930)o Now, the fisherman keeps none (or almost none) of his catch,, nor does any significant amount go in nonmonetary transac- tions; it is sold. on the open market, almost entirely to Tahitians (very few Europeans come to the fish market, and Chinese there buy paaishere, tuna, etc. more than bonito). This altering represents a really profound change in Tahi- tian social structure, although it is not easy to trace the effects without wider knowledge of ancient Tahitian fishing than we possess. Money has a value similar to fish in the past; it can be exchanged for goods and services, and it is. But the old personal relationships have been changed for market relation- ships. The unit in which supply-demand laws operate has changed from the local Chiefdom to the open market where anyone from several islands can buy. Buylng a fish does not obligate the buyer to maintain future contacts with the fisher- rano the bargain is completed immediately; the social blnding created by direct t.ransactions, and based as much on personal power as on simple supply-demand, has been replaced by a free market. The fisherman is no longer a man flshing, btt a fisherman, a specialist, free of chiefs, responsible only to his owner and himself and his kin, It seems that in the future this society will have to be restructured along more formal lines, especially as population grows and personal relationships become more difficult to maintain. An investigator cov- ering this ground in twenty years may find price-fixing, embryonic labor unions, and many of the other social checks and balances now not needed in the bon'ito 1i.dustry. The depersonalization noted by Nordhoff (1930) seems destined to corninue and developO Social Definltion and Anlysis of the Community The Tahitian bonito fishermen form a distinct group, a sort of community, within the universe of the Society Islands; this community is defined occupa- tionally, and divided along occupational lines. Anyone fishing for bonito be- longs to it--men and boys alike. In this section the formal and informal definition of the community--the denotation and connotation, as it were--will be examined, and some attempt made to fill out the picture with further data. The focus, and practically the entire areal definition, of the community is the section of quai between the pleasure-yachts and the big freighters and passenger boats, along the Papeete waterfront. This section of quai is devoted entirely to the bonito boats, which tie up to the rusty iron rings sunk in the concrete seawall that drops off into shallow water (see chart, p. 97). Minor focuses occur at certain points along the coasts elsewhere, as at Luc Ellacott's Taunoa shipyard, the short breakwater in a bay in Vaira'o, and of course the Lish market--second only to the quai in importance. There are fishermen at the quai from six in the morning until ten at night; on Sundays mary fishermen come there even though no fishing is done. 108 TAELE 1 MARKETING OF BONITO Compiled from market statistics (not always accurate) kept by police (All figures in kilograms) Bonito by month, July 1960 Comparison of two weeks in July 1961 to June 1961 with two weeks in February 1961 July 15,512 January 41,419 June 30 151 February 1 1,857 August 5,407 February 35J,034 1 2 3,U40 ~~,ho7 3~~,O3I.~ 2 220 3 760 September 3,494 March 32h480 3 M* 4 1,020 October 9,765 April 29,370 64 355 6 M November 23,149 May 33,145 6 389 7 1,670 December 40,385 June 22,161 || 275 8 133 December ~~~~~~~~8 2109 110 9 467 10 1, 10 M* 11 2 675 11 545 12 2,140 aM f Monday when almost no fish brought in, and statistics not kept at the market. TABLE 2 GRAPHS OF TAHITIAN FISH MARKETING* Francs Weilght Price per Sold Kilo (in kg) 120 40,000 101 342?000 Supply 82 28,000 63 22,000 44 16,000 25 10,000 6 4,OOO t0 I I I Jan. Feb. r. Apr. May une July Aug. Sept.ct. ov. ec. Price in francs 120 7N