Call of nature

Landing on the tiny island of Malaita, Patrick Richardson trails a south Pacific archipelago in search of an ancient shark legend The very idea seems preposterous. Until 1972, on Malaita (the Solomons' second largest island), animist priests were able to summon sharks that carried boys round the lagoons on their backs. Legend also went that fishermen whose boats had capsized could conjure them up and be safely carried ashore.

"Of course it true!" says a man in broken English - the archipelago, where the language is Pijin, was formerly British - standing on the jetty at tiny Auki, Malaita's main town, where I've arrived to investigate this extraordinary phenomenon. "It dying out now, but some old people still believe in it, especially on Laulasi in Langa Langa lagoon, where shark calling ceremonies used to be held. You should take canoe there."

Though only 20km south, that is easier said than done, given the only access is by boat. Dreamy Auki (population 4000), which is situated on a protected, half-enclosed bay overlooked by jungle- lined ridges, is no place for impatience.

On the quay, in the shade of a small, blue and white wooden steamer called Sa Alia, chocolate-skinned boys with astonishingly blond curly hair dangle fishing lines, or splash naked in the green shallows. Yellow and red wooden canoes drift across to Ambu and Lilisiana, two thatched villages on stilts at opposite ends of the bay.

In Auki market, next to the jetty, ragged men with orange, betel- nut stained teeth laze in shady stalls selling home-made cigarettes and women squat beside piles of taro, coconut and cassava. It is baking hot, and towering clouds mushroom over the limitless ocean, where Guadalcanal's jagged mountains lie faintly sketched on the horizon.

The next day I meet former islander Joseph who now lives in Denmark with his Danish wife. He's just returned to visit his family on the island. "I love coming home, but I'm so used to Western comforts I couldn't live here again," he says in almost flawless English over a lime juice in Cynthia's Cafe, a dilapidated wooden shack next to the wharf. He tells me his brother has a canoe with an outboard motor. "I'm sure he'll hire it out cheaply. I know Laulasi very well. Meet me on Thursday, and I'll take you there."

That is three days away, so next morning, I decide to visit a nearby village ten kilometres away. I jump on to one of the passenger trucks which, packed with young women and babies, disappear after market into the interior. Within minutes the paved road - only the second in the Solomons - has deteriorated into a pot-holed track which crosses a bridge over a curving, pebbly river before entering cool rainforest full of 20-metre palms and giant, hanging creepers.

Tired of incessant jolting, and with the village nowhere in sight, I get off an hour later and start walking back. I am sitting on a shady bank, watching children in a thatched hamlet tucked away in a clearing below, when a truck stops. The only passenger is a man called Norman who is taking taro sacks to Auki. He is very talkative, but his eyes glaze at the mention of shark calling.

"I live 60km up coast, near Mbita'ama Cave," he says. "It famous for sharks that sleep there. A few years ago an American come. He stay long time and manage to learn priest's magic. Then he go to Hawaii, where he make lot of money calling sharks for tourists." There is a resentful silence. "He very bad. He steal from us, and our sharks not come back."

Hot and humid Malaita (population 96,000), a narrow, mountainous, 120km-long island indented by crocodile-ridden creeks and mangrove swamps, has a history of exploitation. First came the British and the Australians in the late 19th century and then European plantation owners in the early part 20th century. Not surprisingly, a series of brutal and murderous events left islanders deeply distrustful of outsiders. Even after independence in 1978, the Kwaio, Malaita's most traditional tribe in the jungle-clad south-eastern mountains, refused to have any contact with Westerners at all.

Two days later, Joseph glides up to the wharf in his brother's canoe, and we set off for Laulasi. First, we stop for petrol at Auki Island, a 20 metre-long atoll in the middle of the bay where a few thatched huts on stilts protrude over the water. "My grandfather was chief here until it became too crowded," Joseph says as his brother- in-law fills the spare tank. "Of course, in those days everyone believed in shark worship. They were very fast, faster even than this canoe, which is 25hp. And they often came from far away - sometimes even Western Province.

"When I was a child, my grandfather told me his fishing boat was attacked by a shark off Honiara. He was sure it was sent by an enemy on Malaita, so he called on his shark for revenge, and the next week his enemy and his fishing boat disappeared and were never seen again."

We round the headland, and find ourselves in the 30km-long Langa Langa lagoon. Formed by an almost continuous line of islands cutting off the ocean, it is full of circular islets covered with mangrove swamps and coconut palms. As the powerful canoe speeds south, Joseph explains the origins of shark calling. "Malaitans always lived by the sea," he shouts above the engine's roar. "We needed gods which helped us in times of trouble, for example if our boats sank, or there weren't enough fish in lagoon. So we started to worship sharks. We believed that our spirits entered them when we died, and that through priests' magic words we could speak to our ancestors."

Halfway down the emerald lagoon we glide to the white beach of a deserted atoll, where a large, beautifully carved wooden hull lies on stocks. "Langa Langa was famous for building passenger boats like Sa Alia, but now we've no money to finish them," Joseph laments as we wade ashore through crystal-clear water.

He points to a break in the islands to the west, near which, on the other side of the half-submerged reef, the deep-blue ocean begins. "Over there was one of the lagoon's man-made coral islands, until it was destroyed by a cyclone in 1972," he says. "But there're still others, including Laulasi."

Although some of these go back to the 1550s, most were built in the 19th century as a means of escaping the endemic tribal warfare plaguing Malaita. As all land was already owned, there was no room for an expanding population, so new islands were established on sandbars a short distance offshore, where the air was cool and mosquito-free. There, coral from the reef was piled two or three metres above sea-level, and thatched houses of bamboo, palm and pandanus leaves were constructed on stilts (to allow air and tidal surges to circulate). Finally coconut trees were planted and protective coral walls built, giving the appearance of fortified islands.

Soon we reach Laulasi, a beautiful, coral island, not more than 100 metres long. The chief, a stunted man in his fifties with no front teeth, welcomes us as the canoe draws up in front of thatched huts on stilts. After agreeing a landing fee, we follow him to the huts where an emaciated old man with matchstick legs, gaunt cheeks and saliva dribbling from his toothless mouth is pottering about. The chief yells harshly into his ear, before turning round. "This the priest," he explains. "He almost deaf, and not speak, but you pay him another $4, he show you House of Skulls."

They lead us to the other side of the huts, near which ghoulish- looking skulls are laid out in shady undergrowth. "House here until cyclone in 1988," the chief says sadly, pointing to rotting timber. "Here, six generations of his ancestors. They all priests, as it pass from father to son. It his father who do shark calling ceremony in 1972. Now he the last in Langa Langa, though perhaps others in Lau lagoon. When he die, part our tradition gone for ever."

"Why is it dying out?" I ask.

"After priests see everyone become Christian, they not pass on magic words," says the chief. "People still believe, but only as way of keep tradition alive." A few metres away is the island's thick, two metre-high coral wall. "Ceremony held here," the chief says. "I remember well. His father call out young shark's name which swim to boy called William who stand on that rock there.

"During ceremony, boy feed several sharks until the oldest and largest finish eating. Then he climb on its back, and it carry him round lagoon before it return him to rock." He shoots a glance at me. "And two brothers called John and Walter Fairfax from Australia make video," he adds. "They live with us for six months, here and on yacht." His face clouds over. "They promised send money and copy of video, but they lie. They use us. We not forget, and that why we charge big landing fee."

"What happened to the boy?"

"The brothers show video in Australia and people so surprised, some years later boy invited over and challenged to swim off beach famous for sharks. It like circus. Radio and television there, people make bets, sirens sound to warn swimmers before safety nets taken away and fresh meat dropped into water. But though he surround by sharks, he swim for two hours and come out safe."

"Where is he now?"

"In Auki, where he work on Sa Alia."

By 4pm, as rain advances across mist-shrouded ridges, it is time to leave. Drenched but exhilarated, I stand at the prow as we race up the lagoon, the surface splattered by drops as big as waterlilies.

Days later, instead of returning on Ocean Express, the hydrofoil on which I'd come, I board the Guadalcanal-bound Sa Alia, where I hope to meet William, the boy at the 1972 shark calling ceremony. Sadly, he is off sick.

As Auki recedes, a lump comes into my throat. In less than a week I have grown to love Malaita with its jade Langa Langa lagoon, astonishingly blonde-haired children and magical coral islands. Somehow, even shark calling doesn't seem preposterous any more

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