Salalas

Merry Moments on a Fijian Isle

By E. Hennings

OUR own particular little South Sea island has been of late anything but that perfect bit of dolce far niente which its very name is apt to conjure up in the minds of most people— except of those who live here!

The even tenor of our lives has been rudely disturbed. The day is full of alarums and excursions. Meals are cooked and dished anyhow—and all on account of some fish.

Not one, but thousands; a whole shoal of soldierfish; and, since they have come, I sing with Goethe’s Gretchen: “Restless I am and heavy my heart”. In fact, I have come to consider them my personal enemies.

Our lagoon swarms with fish— which, of course, lagoons are sup posed to do—but here in Fiji mostly don’t. But this magiti vaka turaga, this lordly feast, lavish, wanton, al most contemptuous in its careless profusion, stirs even our well-fed plantation hands to the depth of their tummies.

It is a magnificent sight. An im mense mass of fish, moving solidly with the precision of a well-trained army, clearly defined in the waters by agitated little wavelets; until, driven bv the large fish incessantly worrying their flanks, they rise in a

succession of huge crested waves.

Churning, writhing, jumping, rank and file break up under the onslaught of their enemies—but invariably fall into formation again behind the battle.

Sometimes they are driven on to a coral patch. “Look, they have ‘planted’ one!” The onlookers on the wharf point to a ludicrous row of tails, sticking halfway out of the water, waving frantically to keep balance. Some large saqas have im paled a poor fellow on the prongs of the coral and. standing upright on their heads, are tearing him to bits.

There is no peace. At any time of the day the cry rings out: “Salalas! salalas!, and an incredible com motion ensues.

A crowd surges up the beach, women, children, dogs and chickens.

There is the net: off with surplus garments; everybody lends a hand, cook, housemaid, even to-day’s halt and lame, doing light work around the homestead, suddenly recover the use of their limbs.

Noiselessly, the attackers creep into the water, surrounding and quietly edging the school towards the wide open sweep of the net. Suddenly, everybody shouts and jumps and beats the water with sticks and spears, until the ends have been drawn together.

Have they got them? A bad sign, if now the fish are picked singly from the meshes, to be despatched by a

quick bite in the neck; for a good catch is mostly dragged bodily up in the net to a dry spot. Our biggest one, so far, was 600 in one closing, though we are content with sufficient for a day’s rations.

The single fish weigh up to 3 lb., and are rather coarse and dry; but they are a welcome change for the men, from the usual beef or pork.

WATCHING the manoeuvre from the top of the wharf, it seems such a puny attempt, compared with the size of the school. Only stragglers, or a detached flank, get into the net, for to meet the full force of this compact mass of fish would be posi tively dangerous, I think.

Ridiculous too, when, all going strong, the net closes just after the rearguard has slipped through the last open space. To manipulate a net, 6 feet by 54 feet, with lead weights along the bottom, requires strength, skill and co-operation.

The wrathful women mostly deal with the matter on the spot. Squat ting right down in the shallow water, they volubly discuss the failure.* Once it happened that the salalas behaved in quite an extraordinary way, practically turning right before the net on their—well, not heels, but tails—for no apparent reason. The women came ashore in an ominous silence: with nobody at fault, their next thought was that someone had cast a spell. And so it was. but not

the kind they thought. For a lady of riper age and corresponding pro portions lifted an accusing finger:— “Do I know that spell? Of course!

One of you is with child, and has not told, and the salalas turned away their eyes in shame!” And, true enough, one dropped her head in con fusion.

Another time, the women netted, not the salalas, but a section of the pursuing saqas. Now a 40-50 lb. saqa can’t be held long by a net, so each woman just grabbed a huge fellow, net and all. Clasping them tightly to their bosoms, they sat down in the water with the struggling fish, yell ing desperately: “A man! A man with a spear!” In the end, the worst sufferer was our net.

Downright comic, too, is the exas peration of the crowd on a Sunday morning, when our salalas generally stage a really first-rate performance, and we may not go after them. Such clacking of tongues, such slapping of posteriors, and loud regrets that none is of the “Lotu ai ka vitu” (Seventh Day Adventists), whose Sunday is on Saturday. “Oi au-eee! what a haul they could make!”

Just now, all is quiet on the lagoon front. Our enemies have retired to their winter quarters, a peace reigns once more. According to Fijian fish lore, the salalas disappear during the cool season; and, true enough, except for an occasional disturbance- in the

water, a glimpse of the silvery bodies we have not seen. Perhaps it’s warmer at the bottom of the sea. We are not eager, either, to gambol around in the water, with the wind blowing so cold from the South. Our little war, waged fairly on both sides has been great fun and I think we really owe the salalas a debt of grati tude. The hot season is an anxious time but, thanks to the salalas, one can forget for a while that there are such things as Hitler, hurricanes and copra prices.