Spirals of community life

I am holding onto two of the spikes of the spider shell's shell.
It is cracked open so you can see the spirals leading up to the top of the shell.

The spider shell is a marine animal whose shell has a line of 7 spikes sticking out. The shell and the animal inside spirals up to a pinnacle.

Spider shell visible at the top of frame. This
underwater photo was taken around high tide.

The animal has two long, flexible shafts that can protrude out of the shell and retract. At the end of these are eye balls. Spider shells also have one leg which they stick out of the shell and use to move, quite effectively.  On February 13, I helped our neighbours prepare this delicacy as part of long and ongoing preparations for an April wedding.

Cracking open part of the shell reveals the spirals inside.

As the trailer load of shells indicates, we were preparing the meat on bulk.  Apparently, the spider shells had been gathered at low tide, a long way out on the reef. 

Once brought back to the land, the preparation process begins with [ketuk] breaking open the shells in order to expose and extract the animal from the shell. 

 We got the spider shells out of buckets (see blue bucket full of spider shells and empty red bucket). We held them on the anvil ( Nek As is wearing a glove to hold the spider shell) and then bashed (ketuk) them with the hammer. Then we threw the shells onto the trailer in the foreground.

Extracting the meat

The shell is extremely strong. Even experienced hands like Nek Neng and Nek As required at least 2 or 3 very sharp hammer blows to break a shell open. With this number, I could crack open the small shells, but I needed generally at least 4-6 blows for the larger shells.

After cracking open the shells and taking out the animal inside, the women cleaned off (rawat [sic.]) the ‘crap’ [tahi]; and finally rinsed [bilas] the white meat.

Rawat (taking care of) the meat, involving separating entrails etc.

Rawat: the white meat is kept, while the entrails etc. are pushed
 into the hole in the middle of the table, so they fall ino the tray below.

The two women dressed in blue to the left of the frame are rinsing (bilas or cuci) the meat.
The pink and blue house in the background, Ocean Villa, is where I'm staying.

Spider shell meat has many uses.

Shell

Nek As told me they also used to get the shell of a young spider shell, clean it and polish it, and sell it to white people (orang putih) on West Island for 3 ringgit.

Gong gong just taken out of the cauldron and
 strained of the water in which they were boiled.

(“Ringgit” could refer to the currency during the Clunies Ross times, but, seeing as it sold to ‘foreigners’, as it were,  it probably refers to “pounds” or “dollars”. Indeed, people still use the term “ringgit” for dollars”.)

Food and bait

Male spider shells are not consumed but can be used for bait.My Blog “Teach a man to fish” shows how spider shell meat and entrails are  used for bait. The entrails, by themselves can be used to attract fish while angling (in Australian English this is called "burley"). 

Female spider shells we were preparing are specifically referred to as female spider shells.

The legend of gong-gong

...here's some they prepared earlier. From boiled to dried gong gong.

So how did Cocos Malays find out spider shells are edible? Nek Iwat (owner of a local store) related a local legend to Monika. Originally, he said, locals had only used spider shell for bait. An Indonesian told the locals on Home Island that humans could eat spider shell too. And that man’s name was “Gong Gong”. It didn’t sound like a common Indonesian name, so Monika asked if the man might have been ethnically Chinese (as some locals claim they were descendants from the Chinese Indonesians). No, she was told, he was an Indonesian from Banten.

Fried gong gong makes a nice, crunchy snack.
It tastes very similar to crackling.

Another version of the story comes from Haji Wahid. According to him, "Gong Gong" is the name of a Singaporean Chinese who came to Home Island. He was connected with Clunies-Ross (the last 'king' of Cocos), as Clunies-Ross shipped the coconuts to Singapore.

Finally, Nek Kaya told Monika that it was a visitor or visitors from Australia who first started eating gong-gong. Home Islanders learned from them. Whatever the origins, it happened that we were extracting the meat for food.

Ways to prepare gong-gong

As food, gong gong has many uses, people happily listed to me. You can use gong gong for soup. You can dry it for later use. You can also fry it.

A line from the Cocos School Song, recited at school assemblies, extolls spider shell soup.

Gong gong Crackers (Kerupuk gong gong)

Gong gong Crackers (Kerupuk gong gong)

We were extracting gong gong for use later as sate (little bits of meat speared on wooden stick and barbecued over a fire). The meat was then frozen to be defrosted and cooked later.

Preparation of gong gong is labour intensive. Harvesting it at low tide, hauling it back to land, cracking it open, cleaning, to washing takes a lot of time and energy. Monika heard that there is a local couple who actually specialise in doing it, and sell it for $25/bag. They go further out to get big gong gong. So why didn't the people who taught me to crack open gong gong shell just buy it?

Onions, carrots, rice, and spider shell meat. Put them
 together, and you've got gong gong soup.

I think it is because the gong gong we were preparing will be used for the wedding. This wedding often comes up when people talk to me. The wedding they refer to is the wedding of Ashari, the grandson of Nek As, in April. With preparations starting at least two months earlier, this wedding (like most first marriages apparently) will be a huge event for the community. The celebrations, I’m told, will last a week. So, everyday, close friends and family are helping out at Ashari's parents house, giving their time and energy to  prepare for the festivities. In 'return', they are given drinks and, if they happen to be around in the evening, fed. Giving and receiving is already occurring on a large scale at this house and it will increase as we get closer to the wedding.

The spirals of the spider shell might make a good metaphor for the wedding preparations. Initially involved in the preparations are family and close friends. As the wedding approaches, more people will help out. Before the wedding, many Cocos Malays who have emigrated will also return for the rituals. Eventually, the whole community will be involved.

Teach a man to fish

Haji Wahiib teaching fishing, Cocos-style 

 We know this planet as EARTH. But over 70% of the surface of our planet is water and within that water exists 90% of all living creatures. Life on this planet began in the water and the oceans of this world are vital to our existence. Our planet should be called OCEAN. (Glen Cowans, Beyond the Edge, 2009)

Sundays on Home Island are seemingly devoted to relaxing. The ferry doesn’t run and the lagoon is criss-crossed by fishing boats. The upshot of this for me is that while Saturday might have been more cement (see Blog “Laying some foundations”), Sunday was fishing. Haji Wahiib, who is also a captain on the ferry,  had taken me under his wing and invited me to accompany him fishing. This was a great privilege, as tourists pay a lot for this kind of experience. It would also be my first fishing trip on a boat. “Where will we go?” I asked. “I’ll wait and see; it depends on the wind and the tide”.

Fishing was very relaxing but eventful. Everyone knows, it appears, that you shouldn't take bananas on boats. I won't dwell on how bananas are successfully transported around  the world and accept the taboo as fact. In any case, I hadn't heard about it and transgressed the rule by taking a banana on the boat. As a result, apparently, the boat almost capsized. I stood up to cast my rod just as a 1ft wave came from nowhere to slightly upset my balance. I tumbled and the boat almost came on top of me, taking our catch, fishing gear and Haji Wahiib with it. Thankfully Haji Wahiib responded quickly and righted the balance. Then, we spotted turtles. Jumping in to photograph them, I got quite close and could see the head and shell but none of the pictures could be found when I got home. They also swam off extremely quickly. Obviously, they were hantu (ghosts).

Back to more worldy matters...As I walked home through the village, Nek Kyya called out "balek mancing" (finished from fishing)--it's a kind of idiom.We ended up with quite a bounty, most of which will be placed in the freezer for dinners during the week. Haji Wahiib’s wife, Hajah Atie, is a talented cook and we have engaged her to prepare meals for us. A few guys I have spoken to say they have large freezers full of fish, obtained from angling around the lagoon, and I have noticed these large freezers in a couple of houses. I’d like to see how common this is.

The photographs below document the day, while AV footage combines two separate incidents--a reef shark that got away and a sweet-lipped emperor that didn't.

Connecting boat trailer to 4-wheeler

Lowering boat at ramp 

Kepiting ketam balong (land crab) to attract fish

Spreading land crab to attract fish.

Hook has octopus for the littler fish to nibble on. Then gong-gong (spider shell) for the larger ones

Ikan gerapu (Rock cod); meat is soft and great to make ikan sambal (a spicy condiment) but scaling is difficult, so we returned these to the lagoon.

Ikan babi (trigger fish)

Ikan kakap kuning (Sweet lipped emperor)

Ikan mak keripuk (wress)

 Later on...Haji Wahiib and his wife Hajah Atie, who turned part of the catch into a delicious dinner

Fishing has contributed significantly to the diet in the past and today. PJ recalled to me that in his youth:

[We fished] on the lagoon mainly. Most men went every weekend because every single weekend we had to go to South Island to feed the chooks [chickens] because we had a pondok [beach shack]. So on the way back we would fish. We would anchor the boat to fish. Once you got extra you share it around. And when you cook it you put extra oil it will last a couple of days. My parents said as long as you don't touch it [the fish], it will last.... [We did] not fish for fun that time. 

When, in mid-February 2014, volcanic dust from an eruption in Indonesia saw flights to Cocos Islands cancelled, Pak Imannya said even if there are no shipments, and fresh food doesn't arrive, he joked "don't worry, here in Cocos we have plenty of fish". But I think this reflected a truth, fish are truly plentiful. But fishing is not just about survival, it also says a lot about society and culture.

Woman (left) and man (right) fishing at beach

Fishing plays an important role in the reciprocal economy. I will explain, in another Blog, that an economy of gift giving sits alongside the capitalist economy on Home Island. Cocos Malays returning, taking the flight to mainland can often be seen carrying eskies (large Styrofoam boxes) full of fish, I think to give to relatives. In this gift-giving economy, fish are crucial. Put another way, fish are often gifts.

Fishing reflects a gender divide. Angling is largely undertaken by adult men. You can see women and children fishing, casting from the shore sometimes. I've also been told that women do go fishing on the boats. However, I have seen no women fishing out on the lagoon. While women are highly integrated into the capitalist labour market (see the photos in Blog “Earning a Living”), fishing seems to be something of an obsession for men. This might compare to rearing roosters for Balinese men, surfing for surfers, or motorcycle maintenance for bikers.

Fishing is a meaningful activity. Getting money from the ATM is not something about which much significance is placed. It is mostly an ends oriented, instrumental action. For people on the mainland, when you add the cost (petrol, bait etc.) and effort (usually several hours) involved, fishing makes no sense. It would be more efficient in time and money to buy fish from a professional fisherman. But a different kind of rationality dominates in angling. The point is to do things the right way, and the right way is for a man to go and fish for his family. From this perspective, fishing is eminently sensible. On Home Island, it might also make sense from a 'rational' economic perspective, as meat is dear and fish are plentiful.

None of this, of course, is exotic. Fishing resonates in many other cultures, as books, magazines, and a huge international industry attests to. History supports the point; we could look to the Christian tradition. Aspiring to escape what they saw as religious persecution,the Puritan forefathers approached King James I to endorse their project of settling in the New World. When his royal majesty was told the little band proposed to support itself by fishing, he exclaimed : "So God have my soul, 'tis an honest trade! 'Twas the Apostles' own calling." James was probably alluding to Matthew 4:18-20, one of my favourite New Testament passages:

Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."  Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.

The symbolism wouldn’t have worked if Peter and Andrew had been butchers or mowers! While the specific symbolic significance clearly differs between cultures, looking at the Christian tradition shows that the appeal of fishing as a symbol is clearly not limited to the Cocos Malays.

Finally, in the broader context of human culture, oceans have played a crucial role. Incas and Aztecs built civilizations in mountains. The Mongols built a civilisation on grasslands. Generally, however, civilisations have been developed in river valleys (Ancient Egypt on the Nile; Mesopotamia built around the Tigris and Euphrates). Sometimes these are a fair way up river, such as Indus and Angkor. Others are near the sea. The Indian Ocean has provided a freeway of sorts for trade in goods and ideas for two millennia. It was in this context that the Cocos Keeling island were inhabited in 1826. Through the fish and trade the Indian Ocean has supported the Cocos Malays and peoples on its shores in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

In sum, fishing for Cocos Malays, as in many other societies, is much more than an activity sourcing fish from the sea. However, to understand what fishing means among the Cocos Malays, I need to go much deeper than these opening observations. I feel confident that, if I can explain fishing better, I’ll be able to explain Cocos Malay culture better too.

(For anglers who might be reading this Blog, I am learning about fishing as we go. Anyway, in the fishing excursion pictured above, we used mono line. We used no sinkers and, after we lost our rigs on the bombies (protruding reef and coral), no swivels; just the hook and bait. The idea was to get the bait to move around, attracting the smaller fish, and then the sweet lips we were after. Haji Wahid used a hand line; I used a small rod. The boat was anchored and the water was probably 2-4 foot in depth on the mid-tide.)

Postscript March 8: Fishing is real

After I wrote the blog, Monika posted it on Facebook. Hajah Atie was kind enough to comment "this is real":

On a subsequent fishing trip, I also found myself thinking, without reflection, "this is real". 

Haji Wahiib was idly sketching this while passing time. It's a drawing, but fishing is 'real'. You think about fishing even when you are not fishing. It is a deeply meaningful activity.

On the one hand, of course it's real, like your experience of your nose or my experience of the laptop I'm writing on. But there are experiences that strike us humans as much deeper--the kinds of experience or behaviour people are referring to when they say "keep it real" or "the real thing". Haji Wahiib has invited me on another fishing trip, "but no camera" he insists. And now I understand. The camera just gets in the way--on the boat, when I cast the rod, and stop to take photos. It's just a distraction from what really counts; the fishing.

Making a living

Making a Living:

Working on the Cocos Islands

Mak Mia (wife of Pak Mia) is a specialist teacher at the Home Island school. She also distributes pharmaceutical goods from the plane.

Keeping gardens, chickens etc, the subject of my blog "Making things grow", only goes so far. So I need to look at other aspects of the economy. In this blog, I’ll focus on working for money.

 During WWII, when there was an Allied airbase on West Island, some Home Island traded with airforce personnel. Since it was established in the late 1800s, the cable station, responsible for relaying telegraphs and then a wireless (radio) station, did not employ locals, but there was also some trade. 

Many of the older people living on Home Island now were once incorporated into the coconut economy of the Clunies-Ross days. They worked collecting coconuts from the islands of the Cocos atoll, husking them so they could be shipped off to Australia. They were paid in the Clunies-Ross currency and could spend it at the Clunies-Ross shop.In particular, after becoming part of Australia, the coconut industry stopped. 

These days, how do the Cocos Malays living on Home Island get by?  People buy supplies shipped in by boat or air. Primarily, these goods are retailed at several shops on Home Island and on West Island. 

Many isolated small populations struggle to develop a large, varied 'formal' economy and the Home Island population is no exception. I would like to get a trained economist's perspective on this, but, anecdotally, it seems that in view of the challenges, the Cocos Malays have successfully transitioned to a market economy in some aspects of their economic life.

For some employment is provided by a steady trickle of tourist visitors. On Home Island, several shops open a few hours a day to sell bait, trinkets, clothes, and so on; and a small supermarket is open longer. Nevertheless, work opportunities are comparatively limited. A large proportion (compared to mainland Australia) of the Cocos Malay  population receives state welfare in the form of pensions, unemployment benefits, and the like. And the state seems to employ a large proportion of those who have work. The Cocos Malays have established a large co-op, which provides employment, including the  ‘ground crew’ on West Island for the three flights per week of a commercial passenger carrier (Virgin) between Perth and Cocos, and the one flight per week of a courier company (Toll). And finally some local enterprise has developed, in the form of about 30 small businesses. It appears that many work limited hours, that is part-time, sometimes in different jobs. 

So where do the Cocos Malays, who reside on Home Island, work? Much of the work is done on Home Island. 

Welding for the mosque

Working the cash register at the largest local supermarket

Shire workers building another lane on Jalan Pantai (Ocean Road).

Co-op workers unloading containers after the supply ship arrived. 

Family members helping stock one of Home Island's shops after the supply boat has arrived.

Nek Iwat's shop

Nek Iwat gave these kids some free drinks for Hari Raya

 Aside from working on Home Island, many catch the daily ferry across the lagoon to work on West Island. Here is a day in the life style record of work on West Island and on the way back. It is a composite over several days though:

Travelling on the top deck of the 6am ferry to West Island

Walking down the jetty to the bus

These three men are entering the quarantine station, where they work.

Virgin flies 3x/week as at February, 2014. Cocos Malays are employed as ground staff.

PJ works for Toll, a logistics company which flies a cargo plane into West Island once/week as of February, 2014. He's pictured here about to get a cool drink at the end of his working day.

Kylie (in the background) returned to Home Island a few years ago. Her mum and husband are Cocos Malays. Rosie (in the foreground) is Cocos Malay. These two, along with the other staff at the Tourist Centre, are very welcoming and informative.

Azrin (left) works for Quarantine when the Virign flight arrives. PJ works casual for Toll and for the Department of Infrastructure. Work has finished and both are waiting for the bus to the ferry terminal.

Nek Nina drives the bus between the ferry terminal and settlement on West Island. He's such a nice guy, it's worth catching the bus just to chat with him. He's employed by the Co-operative.

Pak Mia, smiling as usual, collecting fares on the return trip to Home Island. The ferry workers are also employed by the Co-operative.  PJ is visible in the right foreground.

The skipper hosing down the ferry at the Home Island jetty. The last trip for the day is complete.

  Analysis

As I mentioned in “making things grow”, “mode of adaptation” refers to how people make a living. It might be through hunting and gathering (e.g. Australian Aborigines pre-contact); growing gardens (e.g. ni-Vanuatu of Vanuatu); herding animals (e.g. some Mongolian tribes). From around 1500 in Europe, societies have begun to trade goods, labour, land, and even cash as commodities for sale in increasingly international economies. Put simply, to get by, people sell their labour to buy stuff. The value of the labour and the stuff they buy is determined by an international market. This mode of adaptation we could simply call “capitalism”. However, as in many other societies, only a part of economic life could be characterised as capitalist. I will blog more about capitalist and non-capitalist economic elements as I get to experience them.

Making things grow

A recently erected sign next to an old well on Home Island explains:

There are no fresh water rivers or lakes on either of the Cocos atolls—and without access to an alternate water source, human settlement would not have been possible. Fortunately Cocos, like many other coral atolls islands, has an underwater system of fresh water “lenses”.

These lenses “float on top of the subterranean saltwater”. This provided water for the initial settlers in 1826 as it does now.

Old well

New water gallery

You only have to dig down about 2m or less to reach this fresh water. Indeed, if you excavate much deeper, I suppose, you’re back into salt water.

I’ve seen two bores on Home Island. Returning from the beach around noon, I bumped into the Watercorp officer. He was testing the water by putting it into a beaker—it went pink as usual. This was what he was looking for apparently. And that, I trust, is good news for all of us! I think the water tastes great here. But water is not just for drinking.

Making things grow

Most of what Home Islanders consume, including the rice staple, is shipped in. Nevertheless, local residents supplement this. At 1950mm/year, rainfal abounds, but the ground appears sandy and rocky.

Bananas are rain-fed. They are planted in small plantations. Some of these plantations seem to struggle with poor growth and little fruit to show.

Bananas

                                                      

This, in spite of efforts at composting.

Compost heap.

                                         

Nek Neng, and I imagine others too, grows jerok (in my ignorance, I’ll translate this as “Southeast Asian lime”) and manggo.

Me trying my hand at harvesting tapioca roots.

                                                     

However, what really excited me was running into our neighbours harvesting a few singkong (tapioca) roots. With my usual lack of reserve, I asked if they would let me help, without understanding what they were doing. At least this gave me a chance to learn a little from my mistakes.

You can eat the tapioca’s roots (ubi kayu) and leaves. Small roots are used to make flour. Large roots are used to make chips (keripik). The leaves can be used in curries etc. The remaining stalks are replanted. As stated, I got very excited about the possiblities of this miraculous plant and I was not alone. The grandfather (nenek) pictured was also enthusiastically relaying its properties, and one of our neighbours started taking photos of us taking photos of them. (In my undergraduate days I could have written a wonderfully complicated post-modern essay on this, but I will save you the pain of reading it.)

Backyard vegetation.

                                   

Aside from gardening, some locals keep animals. Ducks and pigeons (widely consumed in the Malay world) are numerous. Not suprisingly, chickens are also reared, mostly in cages, but there are some around the housing area.

A coop for chickens and other fowl.

                         

Survival, Culture and Modes of Adaptation

Why are anthropologists interested in things like obtaining water? Culture enables humans to survive in their environments. It is not primarily about symphony orchestras or elaborate dances. Of all living organisms, humans are organisms born least equipped. We inherit comparatively few instincts. Those instincts we possess, do not enable us to procure food from a forest or water from a hill. Such knowledge and skills necessary for survival are external to the human organism; they must be learnt and transmitted. We only have cultures to adapt to and change the vastly different ecologies we depend on.

Modes of adaptation vary. Although archaeology continues to be updated, the current picture is that humans have been around for about 100,000 years. Until about 10,000 years ago we hunted and gathered.  But, it turns out, different ecologies can sustain different modes of adaptation and in the last 10 millennia these have flourished. Different societies began to plant gardens (horticultural); herd animals (pastoral); irrigate crops (agricultural); build factories (industrial). Some societies have swapped from one to another. Most societies have combined elements of the different modes.

Irrespective, all modes of adaptation must fulfil one criteria—enabling survival and reproduction. Without that, the society disappears. So, the cultural challenge for residents on Home Island, like all human societies, has been how to survive.

Several approaches to studying human culture thus places method of survival at the base. According to a Marxist approach, this all forms part of the economic base. On top of this lies superstructure, namely social structures (gender, family, class, clubs, caste etc.) and belief structures (magic, common sense, religion, science etc). It seems to me this isn’t a bad way to start trying to understand Cocos Malay culture on Home Island.