Figuration and symbolism
in Tikopia fishing and fish use
by
Raymond FIRTH*
With fish so important in the diet of many Oceanic island peoples it is not surprising to find that fish are also involved conceptually in imaginative figurative constructs, at times only distantly related to economic concerns. In previous publications (1959 : 132-34; 1965 : 61-63, 174-81, 279-87, 367-70; 1967a; 1967b : 92-95; 1967c : 200-09, 250-58) I have given some description of the technology and economics of Tikopia fishing, and of ritual performances and beliefs concerning fish. Now, for this welcome issue of the Journal on fishing, I offer a contribution which reorients my data towards the question of how far concepts of Jish transcend the material sphere and stand for Tikopia ideas of a less concrete kind1.
In writing of fish I am using a gloss broadly corresponding to the Tikopia term ika, a category of which more than 200 kinds have traditionally been recognised. But neither the precise boundaries nor the systematic breakdown of this category correspond to the western scientific or even popular notions. The Tikopia have traditionally included cetaceans and even in part turtles in the ika category, because of their marine habit. (I have excluded them almost completely from this discussion, but have considered them in 1967a). And while the Tikopia have distinguished
many types offish along lines similar to those of western classification of a popular order, as one might expect they often merge under a single name different species and even genera, or differentiate by separate names young and adult members of what western scientists consider as one species of fish. In the analysis of this paper I am concerned only with broad types of fish clearly differentiated by appearance and behaviour, by Tikopia and external observers alike.
For Tikopia, fish were traditionally involved figuratively in four main ways. Firstly, before capture, fish are highly mobile, appear and disappear rapidly, and while the majority of types are timorous and avoid man, a few can be aggressive and dangerous to him. So understandably, fish have been endowed to some degree with the qualities of sentient creatures, conceptualised as not necessarily but probably hearing and comprehending basic human speech and responding to simple inducements of greed and pride. Secondly, some types of fish, or individuals from some types, have been regarded as incarnations or at least representations of spiritual beings, and their behaviour interpreted accordingly as a symbolic indicator. Thirdly, after capture, fish could be treated as indices to status and pro-
* Professeur Emeritus, London School of Economics, University of London.
1. This essay deals mainly with traditional Tikopia belief and practice as I recorded them in 1928-29 and 1952, but incorporates some details from subsequent relations with Tikopia, until 1978. Among Tikopia on the island and in their colonies elsewhere in the Solomons, in 1966 and 1973, I could observe much modification of earlier behaviour, especially in abandonment of conventional offerings to spirits in temples and canoe yards. In 1973 I was told (rather unwillingly) that a few Tikopia in the new colonies had even eaten eels, putting them in soup, in a new food style and in breach of custom. This was strongly disapproved by many Tikopia, who were still afraid of eels. I have now learned from Judith Macdonald, recently returned (1980) from a very fruitful research expedition to Tikopia, that she found in the island community the same expressions of disgust and fear about eels, and saw the same behaviour, as I recorded.
