The Shark Sent to Kill a Man

To send a shark after a man, the first thing they needed was his footprint.

A 1915 account from San Cristoval, now Makira, and nearby Ulawa describes a ritual specialist scraping up earth from a footprint. Earth from a place where the intended victim had spat could also be used.

Once he had something connected to the man, he called Huaahu.

Huaahu was a shark.

The old account says many sharks were believed to carry ghosts, and some were known individually. Huaahu came first.

Then other ghost sharks arrived.

They lined up.

One was chosen.

The ritual specialist gave that shark the earth taken from the victim's footprint.

A ghost skate went with it.

If the man was travelling by canoe, the skate reached him first. It struck the canoe and overturned it, leaving him in the water.

Then the shark took him.

It did not eat him.

The account says it carried him back alive to the people who had sent it.

The man arrived weak and crying.

They killed him there.