February 14 – Samedi – Tiputa, Rangiroa and Manihi

You hear this often: We can’t starve here. This claim refers to the condition of these islands where food really does seem to be for the taking in the form of fish, fruit and coconuts. You also hear the opposite interpretation, particularly of the Tuamotus, as a hostile place with scarce resources and poor water supplies. It is difficult to reconcile these two views in light of what I’ve seen traveling through the islands so far. Baguette, corned beef and rice being integral parts of the local diet, it is hard for a casual observer to filter out how the dinner table would look long-term without those staples.

Then again, changes in diet have accompanied huge changes in the social fabric of the Polynesian culture as well. By all accounts, village life was once much more a communal affair, and a large part of the getting of food was done together. In the Tuamotus this involved digging large pits down to the fresh (actually brackish) water table, to be filled with compost and used for communal gardens. But it was fishing that really expressed this cooperative nature of living of the Paumotu. The best example of this was the use of communally constructed and maintained fish weirs (or ahua huiraatira), of which there were one or two per village.

Notice the past tense. In interviews with the elder fishermen, the communal weirs vanished in the 60’s or 70’s, depending on the island and the village. The immediate reason seems to have been that the copra boats plying the waters between the islands and Papeete started buying fish as well, and the sharing of cash proved less easily done than sharing the fish. All this, by the way, coincided with the vast economic pressures brought to the archipelago by an army of technicians, administrators and soldiers involved in the French nuclear testing program in 1964.

Ok, so there are no more communal weirs in the Northern Tuamotus, but some private weirs still exist, and with Hérvé’s help I managed to visit one in the neighboring village of Avatoru. I should add that Hérvé’s family used to keep a weir right in the Tiputa pass, but it was destroyed some years ago by a storm. Hérvé shared with me an old family photo from the late 70’s showing family members tending the weir, and though much of the structure is still there, they have yet to put it back into service for reasons that are still not quite clear to me.

[Hérvé's family weir]

With all this playing in my head I find myself in an old, leaky, fiberglass skiff heading west from the village of Avatoru and across the pass. The pass itself is smaller than the one in Tiputa, but a motu on the lagoon side splits it into two channels, and we are headed to the farther channel and around the motu. Flying out of Rangiroa to Manihi today I managed to get a good picture out of the plane window: the motu is on the left and you can see the weir as a faint dark line in the shape of the letter N against the light reef (follow the edge of the channel from the motu up and torward the right).

Driving the boat is Punua who is, yes, another uncle of Hérvé’s. We are accompanied by another fisherman who works for the commune and who, given Hérvé’s position in the municipal council, has taken a council van to drive us to Avatoru. Before embarking on the boat, I interview Punua on camera at his house on the lagoon with Hérvé translating. During the interview Punua holds in the crook of a big arm a perfectly tranquil grandson who examines me intensely. I have a strong impulse to start trading expressions with him. Since this would completely blow my cover as a serious investigator, I stifle the urge and keep my face in the viewfinder.

Back in the boat, the drive is a short 10-minute affair in the pass. The current is flowing out, and the old outboard is making a loud racket inching us along the edge of the swiftly moving water. Our destination appears as a collection of poles sticking out of the water on the edge of the pass in what I estimate to be about 2.5 meters of water. We slide along the aggregation, and what from the distance looked like a pretty random gathering now resolves into three organized rows of poles. We tie up to four of them, Punua and I don masks, and I follow him in the water outside the weir. He scoots inside the enclosure over chicken wire tied to 5cm metal poles forming the frame of the structure. Inside there are fish. Oh my, are there fish. A huge school of ature (a small jack) swims in a lazy circle in the inner chamber of the weir with a couple of stingrays and a large green moray getting fatter by the minute. As the curtain of fish splits here and there, I catch glimpses of small sharks, triggerfish, trevally and goodness knows what else!

Yes, you could feed a village this way! And the weir is not just a way to catch fish, but also a way to keep them really, really fresh for a long time. Just go to the ahua and collect what you need for the day and then come back the next day for some more. Ok, so it is not quite as simple as that, there is strong seasonality among the most abundant species like ature and oeo, but Punua tells me he gets a mix of different species in smaller numbers all through the year.




The weir incorporates two large chambers shaped like inverted V’s, aimed at the pass. At the apex of each V is an enclosure that opens to the main chamber via a mesh funnel with an opening some 50 cm in diameter. It is this funnel that allows the fish in, but poses too large a puzzle for them to figure out how to use it as an exit. And here they are, providing a steady flow of fish for Punua’s roadside fish stand, as well as local schools and restaurants.

So there it is staring one in the face: the irony of our modern condition. Is it preferable to go to work for money with which to buy fish or to not work (so much) and just go get your own fish? Or work with your neighbors to secure fish for all, as the weir does represent an investment in material and labor that is too big for any individual or small family unit. Contemplating such things, it is difficult to steer away from notions of South Seas idyllic village life, of a life with few cares and simple pleasures. Funny enough, reading through the works of Kenneth Emory and Frank Stimson, two ethnographers who traveled extensively through the Tuamotus in the 1920’s and 30’s, this is an image that emerges. Both gents, employed by the Bishop Museum of Honolulu, at times went completely native replete with their own houses and wahines and stayed on islands for months at a time.

It also difficult not to worry about the future of these islands. Though families and communities are still very important in the Tuamotu life, an intensifying cash economy brings with it the pressure to exploit marine resources. Earlier, I visited an enclosure where poisson sale, or salt fish, is being dried for market. The species used for salting is the oeo, a species of snapper that, during the new moons in November through February, is fished in large numbers by jigging in the lagoon. I interviewed two of the five fishermen who run the salt fish business and obtained a rough estimate of some seven to ten tons of salted, dried oeo being shipped to Tahiti every year in those four months. The salt fish business goes back at least to the 1940’s, but today there are more people involved and the fishermen complain of a dearth of fish.



Swimming in the weir, though, abundance is really the only fitting image. I reluctantly follow Punua over the mesh and back into the boat. In the distance there are the remains of many other weirs, disused and in disrepair for reasons that, despite my questioning, still remain somewhat of a mystery. The Paumotu have a reputation in Tahiti as being lazy, not wanting to do much for tomorrow today. If there is something to that reputation, it is hard for me to sit in judgment. I suppose you can go and fish intensively for a few days, freeze the catch and eat frozen fish for a few weeks – and pay for a freezer and expensive electricity. Or you can go get your fish fresh by extending some effort every day. Which way would you pick?




With these thoughts I get ready to leave Rangiroa. I will miss this place, the village of Tiputa and Hérvé and his family in particular. I’ve eaten many meals at his parents outdoor dining table, paddled a va’a (outrigger canoe) with his brother Mamia, drank some beers with his pals at the local magazin – I have had a fantastic time here and am loath to leave. Hérvé departs on a flight after mine for Papeete, and his father drives us to the airport in his 15’ aluminum skiff. We say our reluctant goodbyes at the airport, but I know I’ll be back here before long! Thank you, my friend!