On a typically warm morning in Vaitahu, Tehei and I set off from the house in search of a grassy plant called the kakaho, the expedition spurred forth by a conversation with Papa’u Ani held weeks ago. We find patches of kakaho sprouting alongside the single road leading down into the town center. Tehei reaches up the small embankment, and with his machete chops around fifteen stalks of the tall grass. We bundle the grasses in our arms and then walk to Papa’u Ani’s home, just up the hill.
Fatieua Barsinas, who goes by the nickname Ani, is my oldest informant at the age of 84. He has a beautiful view of Vaitahu Bay, where sailboats often mix with small local fishing boats. When we arrive at Ani’s house he is filleting fish for an afternoon meal. Tehei asks him in Marquesan if he could show us how to construct the traditional fishing torch we had discussed a few weeks before, and so he pushes aside the pink fish flesh and takes the leafy kakaho into his arms.
Ani ties the stalks together using the bark of a hibiscus tree (tumu fau). While matting down the leaves, he explains that ideally one would strip off the leaves and use only the thick stems of the grass. To prepare for a night fishing trip, he says they might construct five or six of these six to eight foot bundles, attaching dried coconut leaves to the top. Once out in the ocean they would stand the bundles up in the pirogue and light the coconut leaves. The fire burning in the darkness of the night would attract fish. The kakaho, being a very flammable grass, will spatter small sparks and flames on those sitting in the boat, Ani explains. “It’s dangerous,” he says, laughing and swatting at his clothes, imitating what it was like when the flames jumped out.
On July 2nd, 2019 Fatieua Barsinas, known lovingly has Papa’u Ani, passed away. My oldest friend, he had so many fishing stories stored in his memory, most of which I will never have the chance to hear. I am, however, so fortunate and so grateful to have met this wonderful man, a true fisherman, who had a great sense of humor. You will forever be remembered and forever missed, Ani.
It is an anthropologists job to get close to people, and often – especially for somebody studying tradition and changing cultures – elders become significant friends and knowledge-givers. In their old age they have many stories to share. In ethnographies I have often read anthropologists’ sadness at the loss of an important person who informed much of their research, but this is the first time I have experienced it. Anthropology is an emotional field of study; our hearts swell to the brink with incredible relationships, which makes us all the more breakable when these same relationships are inevitably ruptured, whether through leaving a field site, or through leaving this world.
The quote at the top is from my dissertation, titled “Change and Continuity of Fishing Practices in the Marquesas Islands.”
The Edited Jottings of an Amateur Anthropologist 