Saltwater Sociality

A Melanesian Island Ethnography

Katharina Schneider

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780857453020
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Antropologia culturale e sociale

The inhabitants of Pororan Island, a small group of 'saltwater people' in Papua New Guinea, are intensely interested in the movements of persons across the island and across the sea, both in their everyday lives as fishing people and on ritual occasions. From their observations of human movements, they take their cues about the current state of social relations. Based on detailed ethnography, this study engages current Melanesian anthropological theory and argues that movements are the Pororans' predominant mode of objectifying relations. Movements on Pororan Island are to its inhabitants what roads are to 'mainlanders' on the nearby larger island, and what material objects and images are to others elsewhere in Melanesia.

CHAPTER 1

Fishing People

Pororan is a fishing place, as Roselyn told me on my first visit. At Pororan Village, the proximity of the sea and the importance of fishing to the inhabitants were apparent everywhere in 2004–05. Spear guns and paddles leaned against house walls, and fishing baskets usually had to be cleared off benches and tables before meals. Large, store-bought fishing nets were hanging between trees in some hamlets. The beach and the canoes¹ on it provided the visual background to most Pororan domestic scenes, and the smell of smoked fish hung over the village in most evenings. Men and women, from early childhood to very old age, were involved in fishing and movements at sea more generally on a daily basis. Every morning and every night, all islanders except for the very smallest used to go and wash in the sea. A significant portion of children's time was spent on the reef around the island. At high tide, they paddled around the island in groups in their small canoes, collected seaweed, or caught small fish that they then roasted on the beach. At low tide, they caught mud-crabs in the mangroves or gathered shellfish on the reef. Older children went out more purposefully for gathering shellfish, spearing small reef fish, and diving for fish in the smaller passages. Young people went diving with goggles and fins in the deeper passages. Women walked along the reef gathering shells and went out line fishing, either standing on the edge of the reef or sitting in their canoes in the lagoon. Men fished during the day, and also went out with a fishing rod and a pressure lamp or with their spear, goggles and a torch at night. Even old people who were too fragile to go further than the beach remained oriented towards the sea. Old people whose houses were located inland often relocated to the house of a relative directly on the beach.² Some told me that this was for reasons of easy access to the sea for bathing and toilet.³ Others said that it was cooler, mosquitoes were fewer, and that they enjoyed sitting on the beach and watching canoes and boats come and go across the lagoon.

Anywhere, Any Time, Anybody

Pororan Islanders emphasized that they could fish anywhere they chose around their island [laik blong mi yet]. They used markers on land and at sea for orientation, as well as for describing their outings back at the village and telling others where fishing was good (see also Hviding 1996; Sharp 2002). These markers included ston [reef outcrops], pasis [passages], shallow reef areas and, for instance, a coconut palm with yellow fronds. Some of these markers had names and ancestral stories of particular pinaposa attached to them whose details were known only to members of the pinaposa. Others were personal, informal, and shared only, say, between two men who often went fishing together. These markers, however, did not constitute boundaries of clan territories (see esp. Sharp 2002). ‘Boundaries? That's a bush habit’, Tsireh explained. ‘The fish roam around freely. The mud-crabs roam around freely, popping up from holes here and there on the beach. How would we make boundaries that would keep the fish and everything else inside?’ Furthermore, the Pororans did not string the markers up into conventionalized ‘paths’ used for going to particular fishing sites, in order to fish for a certain species in a certain season (see esp. Hviding 1996). Instead, they emphasized that ‘we just try’. As Kil once said, ‘I go and think of one spot, and I try and see if there are fish there. If not, I move on to the next. My decision.’

An exception to the absence of boundaries and prescriptions of where to go at sea were the bans that the tsunon sometimes placed on a particular area of the reef, in preparation for a feast or in order to allow this area to recover just before the holiday seasons of Easter and Christmas, when many islanders working away return home. These, however, were not described as boundaries, but as ‘leaving the place alone to rest’ temporarily [lusim hap na bai malolo pastaim]. Particular species, too, were ‘left alone’, that is, protected by a ban imposed by the tsunon, usually on the advice of a Pororan Islander trained and working away from the island as a marine biologist. In 2004–05, these species were dugongs, turtles and dolphins. When a turtle or dugong did go into their net occasionally, however, people felt free to consume it, arguing that it had ‘come on its own’ [em yet em ikam, ngilanou], without being ‘called’ through the use of spells [pulpul].

People from other villages, who would not know of the bans imposed by Pororan tsunon, were expected to inform their relatives on Pororan beforehand when they intended to fish in reef areas associated with Pororan, and vice versa. Such venturing into other people's areas was rare in 2004–05, however. Villages were too far apart for making fishing journeys between them by canoe, and the high price of petrol prevented the islanders from using fibreglass boats for fishing, except for trolling on their way to Buka Town. The only location that is so close to Pororan that formal arrangements were necessary is Petats. A formal sea boundary between Pororan and Petats has been agreed upon.⁴ It is marked by a small passage called kukubei between Pororan and the uninhabited island of Yaming.⁵

The islanders claimed that they could go fishing any time they wanted to, as well as anywhere they choose to go. ‘When I want to go, I go’, they said. Of course, there are better times and worse times in the year or day for catching particular species, or for using particular methods. The Pororans distinguish two seasons, halat [October–March] and hiningal [April–September]. Halat is characterized as the season when the tide is low during the night. During hiningal, the tide is low during daytime. Therefore halat gives plenty of occasion for line-fishing in the day and gathering mud-crabs with bamboo frond torches in the mangroves at night, while during hiningal, many people go line-fishing during the night, and gather shells on the reef during the daytime. Some older couples with adult children or young couples with children below school-age might set up camp on Manuan, an uninhabited island close to Pororan during hiningal, for a few days or for more than a month, in order to make use of the rich fishing grounds there. However, fishing activities were not entirely constrained by the seasons, and this point was important to the Pororans. It was possible to go night fishing when the tide was low, too, and some people did it even though it was less convenient.

The exact timing of the tides and periods of high and low tides are determined by the moon, which the islanders observe and from which they deduce what species are likely to be plentiful at a given time. Wind, rain and a particular condition of the sea, when it is ‘dirty’ with fauna carried by the current from the Gagan River, also influence the islanders' decisions about fishing times. It will be important to my argument below, however, that the islanders do not claim expert knowledge on these matters. Several old and experienced fishermen firmly insisted, in this or similar wording: ‘We do not know what will happen at sea, if there will be many fish or perhaps no fish at all. We just try it out. Sometimes fish are plentiful, sometimes they are not. Who knows about them?’ Correspondingly, Pororan fishermen who boasted about a large catch did not praise their own foresight or skill, but dwelled at length on their own surprise at running into so many fish just when they were least expecting it.⁶

Aside from seasonal changes, Buka mainlanders’ demands for fish, too, impinged on the timing of Pororan fishing activities. Members of a particular pinaposa might gather shellfish and perhaps go spear-fishing at night in preparation for a feast that pinaposa relatives on the mainland had asked them to help with. Furthermore, many men and some married couples usually spent Tuesday and Friday nights line-fishing in the lagoon in preparation for the market the next day, where the islanders exchange fish for starch food. These markets were held at Kessa and Karoola in 2004, and at Karoola and sometimes at Kessa and Kohiso in 2005. They are said to have been an important feature of island life ever since the island was settled, briefly interrupted only during the early 1990s, when the Bougainville Crisis made sea-travel dangerous. The village schedule, a remainder from German colonial times that the tsunon continue to encourage villagers to follow, assigns fishing to entire days just before the markets.

However, this schedule, rendered to me verbally by Pororan women, is most interesting for the ways in which island life diverged from it during my fieldwork. The islanders spent more time at sea than the schedule would suggest. Moreover, they felt free to go fishing any time, on any weekday.⁷ ‘Fishing is not work. It's not like gardening, something you have to do if you want something to grow. You can go fishing any time you want, or you can leave it’, Salu's daughter Jennifer told me. Often, she wanted to go fishing when the children at the hamlet were getting too much for her. Once, for instance, we had spent half an hour trying to calm down two of her children and two of her sister's children, whose game had turned very rough. When Jennifer saw Salu returning to the hamlet after a visit to the garden, she told me: ‘You and Salu can look after them for a while. I am fed up with them, I am going to the sea.’ She quickly changed into an old laplap, picked up a basket and a paddle and walked down toward the beach. Her four year-old son Hangot followed her, tugged at her laplap and said quietly: ‘Mama, I want to go, too.’ Jennifer shook him off and shouted angrily: ‘You especially! Your crying especially I wanted not to hear for a while!’ His sobbing left her unimpressed as she pushed the canoe into the water. Salu quickly put down her basket full of sweet potatoes, went to pick Hangot up from the beach and explained to him: ‘your mother is fed up with you. Let her go now, and later she will come back, and you will eat the fish she will bring.’ Later in the evening, probably picking up on my surprised face when she had left Hangot behind, Jennifer explained to me: ‘If I could not go fishing any time I wanted to, I would go crazy here. Everybody would go crazy. You see, this island is packed with people; this hamlet is full of children. I need to leave the place behind sometimes for a rest. At sea, I can be on my own, nobody is directing my movements (nogat man ibosim wokabaut blong mi), I can go around wherever I want, and nobody can make me come back. It's all up to me. I am free.’ Other islanders expressed similar sentiments about fishing and the freedom it afforded them. They admired people who anticipated difficult situations, and especially situations where they would be on the shorter end, and left for the sea before they could get caught up in them. Some older women told me—at the same time verbally distancing themselves from such behaviour and chuckling with admiration—that some village court cases had to be postponed infinitely because the accused ‘went missing at sea’ [em igo lus long solwara] each time the case was scheduled.

Table 1 • Weekly Schedule, Pororan Village

Weekday	Activity
Monday (Manrai)	gardening
Tuesday (Hulu)	fishing
Wednesday (Hohopis)	market; chiefs' meeting
Thursday (Hanina)	‘Government day’: assembly and community work; once monthly: village court
Friday (Hatolim)	fishing
Saturday (Sararai)	market; preparing food for Sunday
Sunday (Sande)	church; soccer matches; visiting; resting (on the beach)

Finally, the Pororans claimed that anybody could go and fish any time and anywhere they liked. This included women. On the one hand, there is an association of men with fishing and women with gardening, on Pororan just as on the mainland and in many other saltwater locations in Melanesia. Providing fish is the task of men, not women. There is no better way for a Pororan woman to insult her husband than to demonstratively pick up his fishing spear and goggles, go out in the family canoe he built, return with a large fish ‘of the kind that only men catch’ in the deep passages in the lagoon and share the fish with others, excluding him. Kil's daughter Denise did this once, loosing her temper after a week of hearing rumours of her husband's latest affair. Her husband was staying with her at her brother's house at Kil's hamlet, Kobkobul. After being excluded from the consumption of her fish, he went to stay with his own relatives at Mulul, drank homebrew for several days and suddenly re-appeared at Kobkobul a week later, carrying three large fish by the tail. He casually put them down by the fire, and when Denise picked them up to clean and cook them, he quietly settled back into the hamlet.

On the other hand, many Pororan women spend a lot of time at sea and contribute a lot of fish to the family's diet without ever making a point of it. As long as they do not claim their catch as theirs but cook it along with their husband’s, this is perfectly acceptable, and some women are held in high esteem for supporting their families in this way. However, their role as fishing people, like rather than unlike men, made Pororan women suspect to mainlanders. Many young women I knew on the mainland envied me, on the one hand, for staying on Pororan, where they themselves would love to go and find a husband ‘who will catch lots of fish for me’.⁸ However, they were deeply ambivalent about Pororan women. They told me that they would never want to be like ‘those island women, who go fishing, just like the men, tsomi’. Perhaps that was why they never took me up on the offer of hosting them on Pororan, despite the strong attraction that the fish and Pororan men's reputation for cheerfulness and great joking skills held out. Mainland men, meanwhile, told me that they would never be so stupid as to marry a Pororan woman (although some do). ‘They are saltwater women. They only think of going around at sea. They don't work, and it is hard to control their movements [bosim wokabaut blong ol]. When they get tired of staying somewhere, they just take off. Who would want to marry a woman who goes around like that, wherever she wants, whenever she wants?’

Gardening and Fishing

While Pororan fishing is ‘free’ in time and space and for anybody, mainland gardening is ‘emplaced’, at least ideally regulated by schedules, and conducted with one's own people [eri, us] and in clear physical separation from others [eru, them]. On the north coast, the women and men of a ngorer planning to go to the gardens that day usually set off together in the morning, in one big group or in several small ones of close relatives. Ideally, they are the senior women of the ngorer owning the hamlet and the garden area they are going to, their sons and the sons' wives, who live at their husband's place. Numbers in the hamlets I am familiar with vary, depending on who is currently employed in Buka Town, on who may have gone to the coconut plantations to make copra for some extra cash, and who might be resting in the hamlet. Usually, there are more women than men, as more men are employed in Buka Town and as men are only responsible for the clearing of new gardens and other heavy work—although some enjoy doing planting, weeding and harvesting, too.

When they turn from the footpath in their own hamlet into the Buka main road, the women of a group walk in the middle, shielded by men (if there are any). They may greet other groups walking along the road, but usually they keep conversations within their own group. Then, they turn into the branch road that leads to their pinaposa's garden area, and from there into secondary branch roads that lead into their ngorer's area. Although everybody works their own plot, they usually try to stay close to others and maintain lively conversations. The women plant, weed and harvest mostly sweet potatoes, but some have taro gardens, too. Most grow vegetables and bananas, either along the side of the gardens or in separate plots. They work near the ground, in non-expansive, downward-oriented movements. They crouch, kneel and work with bent backs, often only with a knife and their hands up to the arms covered in soil. Every now and then, a small group stops to chew betel together and gossip. In the mid to late afternoon, the women place tubers they have dug up for dinner into large baskets made of coconut fronds, close the baskets securely with banana leaves—‘I don't want other people to look inside!’—and tie them to their backs with ropes of banana fibre. Women only are allowed to carry tubers in baskets on their backs, while the men carry hoes and bush knives. Together, they return along the road they came to their hamlet.

In the past, gardening was organized by the tsunon of the group. He assigned plots to different men and women, made decisions on fallow periods and on when the clearing of new gardens, planting and harvesting should begin. Nowadays, the tsunon still assign garden plots, but no longer control the timing of the activities. Nevertheless, day-to-day work in the gardens remains a cooperative affair of the people belonging to a ngorer, including the in-laws, and at least ideally, the appearance of the gardens should be one of co-ordination and unity. All the gardens in a ngorer's garden area together, and not just each separately should look ‘neat’ and ‘smart’.

Like gardening, hamlet life on the mainland is characterized by an ideal of inward co-operation and clear demarcation from ‘other people’. Families should eat together in the morning and evening and offer close relatives food if they come by around meal times. Men were relatively mobile during the week, as many of them worked in Buka Town. Wives, however, were expected to stay at their hamlets, with their mothers-in-law, and not ‘go around’ elsewhere. On Sundays, all ngorer members ought to relax at the hamlet, including those who were away working in Town during the w...