by Louis Becke
POISONOUS FISH OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
Many years ago I was sent with a wrecking party of native seamen to takepossession of a Swedish barque which had gone ashore on the reef of oneof the Marshall Islands, in the North Pacific. My employers, who hadbought the vessel for L100, were in hopes that she might possibly befloated, patched up, and brought to Sydney. However, on arriving at theisland I found that she was hopelessly bilged, so we at once set to workto strip her of everything of value, especially her copper, which wasnew. It was during these operations that I made acquaintance with bothpoisonous and stinging fish. There were not more than sixty or seventynatives living on the island, and some of these, as soon as we anchoredin the lagoon, asked me to caution my own natives--who came from variousother Pacific islands--not to eat any fish they might catch in thelagoon until each one had been examined by a local man. I followed theirinjunction, and for two or three weeks all went well; then came trouble.
I had brought down with me from Sydney a white carpenter--one of themost obstinate, cross-grained old fellows that ever trod a deck, but anexcellent workman if humoured a little. At his own request he lived onboard the wrecked barque, instead of taking up his quarters on shore inthe native village with the rest of the wrecking party. One evening as Iwas returning from the shore to the schooner--I always slept on board--Isaw the old man fishing from the waist of the wreck, for it was hightide, and there was ten feet of water around the ship. I saw himexcitedly haul in a good-sized fish, and, hailing him, inquired how manyhe had caught, and if he were sure they were not poisonous? He repliedthat he had caught five, and that "there was nothin' the matter withthem." Knowing what a self-willed, ignorant man he was, I thought Ishould have a look at the fish and satisfy myself; so I ran the boatalongside and clambered on board, followed by two of my native crew. Themoment we opened the fishes' mouths and looked down their throats we sawthe infallible sign which denoted their highly poisonous condition--acolouring of bright orange with thin reddish-brown streaks. The oldfellow grumbled excessively when I told him to throw them overboard, andthen somewhat annoyed me by saying that all the talk about them beingunsafe was bunkum. He had, he said, caught and eaten just the same kindof fish at Vavau, in the Tonga Islands, time and time again. It was nouse arguing with such a creature, so, after again warning him not to eatany fish of any kind unless the natives "passed" them as non-poisonous,I left him and went on board my own vessel.
We had supper rather later than usual that evening, and, as the mate andmyself were smoking on deck about nine o'clock, we heard four shots inrapid succession fired from the wreck. Knowing that something was wrong,I called a couple of hands, and in a few minutes was pulled on board,where I found the old carpenter lying writhing in agony, his featurespresenting a truly shocking and terrifying appearance. His revolver layon the deck near him--he had fired it to bring assistance. I need nothere describe the peculiarly drastic remedies adopted by the natives tosave the man's life. They at first thought the case was a hopeless one,but by daylight the patient was out of danger. He was never able to turnto again as long as we were on the island, and suffered from the effectsof the fish for quite two or three years. He had, he afterwards told me,made up his mind to eat some of the fish that evening to show me that hewas right and I was wrong.
A few weeks after this incident myself and a native lad named Viri,who was one of our crew and always my companion in fishing or shootingexcursions, went across the lagoon to some low sandy islets, where wewere pretty sure of getting a turtle or two. Viri's father and motherwere Samoans, but he had been born on Nassau Island, a lonely spot inthe South Pacific, where he had lived till he was thirteen years ofage. He was now fifteen, and a smarter, more cheerful, more intelligentnative boy I had never met.
His knowledge of bird and fish life was a never-ending source ofpleasure and instruction to me, and the late Earl of Pembroke and SirWilliam Flower would have delighted in him.
It was dead low tide when we reached the islets, so taking our spearswith us we set out along the reef to look for turtle in the manydeep and winding pools which broke up the surface of the reef. Aftersearching for some time together without success, Viri left me andwent off towards the sea, I keeping to the inner side of the lagoon.Presently in a shallow pool about ten feet in circumference I espieda small but exceedingly beautiful fish. It was about four inches inlength, and two and a half inches in depth, and as it kept perfectlystill I had time to admire its brilliant hues--blue and yellow-bandedsides with fins and tail tipped with vivid crimson spots. Around theeyes were a number of dark yellowish or orange-coloured rings, and theeyes themselves were large, bright, and staring. It displayed no alarmat my presence, but presently swam slowly to the side of the pool anddisappeared under the coral ledge. I determined to catch and examinethe creature, and in a few minutes I discovered it resting in such aposition that I could grasp it with my hand. I did so, and seizing itfirmly by the back and belly, whipped it up out of the water, but notbefore I felt several sharp pricks from its fins. Holding it so as tostudy it closely, I suddenly dropped it in disgust, as strange violentpains shot through my hand. In another two minutes they had so increasedin their intensity that I became alarmed and shouted to Viri to comeback. Certainly not more than five or ten minutes elapsed before hewas with me; to me it seemed ages, for by this time the pain wasexcruciating. A look at the fish told him nothing; he had never seenone like it before. How I managed to get back to the schooner and livethrough the next five or six hours of agony I cannot tell. Twice Ifainted, and at times became delirious. The natives could do nothing forme, but said that the pain would moderate before morning, especially ifthe fish was dead. Had its fins struck into my foot instead of my hand Ishould have died, they asserted; and then they told the mate and myselfthat one day a mischievous boy who had speared one of these abominablefish threw it at a young woman who was standing some distance away. Itstruck her on the foot, the spines penetrating a vein, and the poor girldied in terrible agony on the following day. By midnight the pain Iwas enduring began to moderate, though my hand and arm were swollento double the proper size, and a splitting headache kept me awaketill daylight. The shock to the system affected me for quite a weekafterward.
During many subsequent visits to the Marshall Group our crews werealways cautioned by the people of the various islands about eatingfish or shell-fish without submitting them to local examination. In theRadack chain of this widely spread out archipelago we found that thelagoons were comparatively free from poisonous fish, while the Ralicklagoons were infested with them, quite 30 per cent, being highlydangerous at all times of the year, and nearly 50 per cent at otherseasons. Jaluit Lagoon was, and is now, notorious for its poisonousfish. It is a curious fact that fish of a species which you may eat withperfect safety, say, in the middle of the month, will be pronounced bythe expert natives to be dangerous a couple of weeks later, and thatin a "school" of pink rock bream numbering many hundreds some may havetheir poison highly developed, others in but a minor degree, whilst manymay be absolutely free from the taint. In the year 1889 the crew of alarge German ship anchored in one of the Marshall Islands caught somevery large and handsome fish of the bream kind, and the resident nativespronounced them "good." Three or four days later some more were taken,and the cook did not trouble to ask native opinion. The result was thateight or nine men were taken seriously ill, and for some time the livesof several were despaired of. Two of them had not recovered the useof their hands and feet at the end of ten weeks, and their faces,especially the eyes and mouth, seemed to be permanently, though slightlydistorted. All the men agreed in one particular, that at midday theysuffered most--agonising cramps, accompanied by shooting pains in thehead and continuous vomiting to the point of exhaustion, these symptomsbeing very pronounced during the first week or eight days after the fishhad been eaten.
That kind-hearted and unfortunate officer, Commodore J. G. Goodenough,took an interest in the poisonous and stinging fish of the PacificIslands, and one day sho
wed me, preserved in spirits of wine, aspecimen of the dreaded _no'u_ fish of the Hervey Group--one of the mostrepulsive-looking creatures it is possible to imagine out of a child'sfairy book. The deadly poison which this fish ejects is contained in aseries of sacs at the base of the spines, and the commodore intended tosubmit it to an analyist. By a strange coincidence this gallant seamana few months afterwards died from the effects of a poisoned arrow shotinto his side by the natives of Nukapu, one of the Santa Cruz group ofislands.
This _no'u_ however, which is the _nofu_ of the Samoans, and is widelyknown throughout Polynesia, and Melanesia under different names, doesnot disguise its deadly character under a beautiful exterior like thestinging fish of Micronesia, which I have described above. The_nofu_ which is also met with on the coasts of Australia, is a devilundisguised, and belongs to the angler family. Like the octopus or thedeath-adder (_Acanthopis antarctica_) of Australia, he can assimilatehis colour to his environment. His hideous wrinkled head, with hisstaring goggle eyes, are often covered with fine wavy seaweed, which infull-grown specimens sometimes extends right down the back to the tail.From the top of the upper jaw, along the back and sides, are scores ofneedle-pointed spines, every one of which is a machine for the ejectionof the venom contained at the root. As the creature lies hidden in aniche of coral awaiting its prey--it is a voracious feeder--it cannot bedistinguished except by the most careful scrutiny; then you may see thatunder the softly waving and suspended piece of seaweed (as you imagineit to be) there are fins and a tail. And, as the _nofu_ has a hugemouth, which is carefully concealed by a fringe of apparently harmlessseaweed or other marine growth, he snaps up every unfortunate small fishwhich comes near him. In the Pacific Islands the _nofu_ (_i.e._, "thewaiting one ") is generally a dark brown, inclining to black, withsplashes or blotches of orange, or marbled red and grey. In Australianwaters--I have caught them in the Parramatta river, Port Jackson--theyare invariably either a dark brown or a horrid, dulled yellow.
Despite its poison-injecting apparatus this fish is eaten by the nativesof the Society, Hervey, and Paumotu groups of islands, in the SouthPacific, where its flesh is considered a delicacy. It is prepared forcookery by being skinned, in which operation the venomous sacks areremoved. In 1882, when I was living on the island of Peru in the GilbertGroup (the Francis Island of the Admiralty charts), a Chinese traderthere constantly caught them in the lagoon and ate them in preferenceto any other fish. Here in Peru the _nofu_ would bury itself in the softsand and watch for its prey, and could always be taken with a hook. Andyet in Eastern Polynesia and in the Equatorial Islands of the Pacificmany deaths have occurred through the sting of this fish, childreninvariably succumbing to tetanus within twenty-four hours of beingstung.
A little more about poisonous fish, _i.e._, fish which at one time ofthe year are good and palatable food and at others deadly. In the lagoonisland of Nukufetau (the "De Peyster Island" of the charts), where thewriter lived for twelve months, the fish both within the lagoon andoutside the barrier reef became highly poisonous at certain times of theyear. Flying-fish (which were never caught inside the lagoon) would besafe to eat if taken on the lee side of the island, dangerous, or atleast doubtful, if taken on the weather side; _manini_, a small stripedfish much relished by the natives, would be safe to eat if caught on thereef on the western side of the island, slightly poisonous if taken fourmiles away on the inside shore of the eastern islets encompassingthe lagoon. Sharks captured outside the reef, if eaten, would producesymptoms of poisoning--vomiting, excessive purging, and tetanus in amodified form; if caught inside the reef and eaten no ill effects wouldfollow. Crayfish on one side of the lagoon were safe; three miles awaythey were highly impregnated with this mysterious poison, the origin ofwhich has not yet been well defined by scientists.