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The Fish that Almost Ate Guam

     I got a rather testy letter back from my editor when I sent her the drafts for this story. She hired me to write fact, she said, not fiction, and fish tales were Talisa’s department - not mine. But I’ll remind her that she also hired me for my curiosity and adventuresome spirit, and how could I boast such qualities if I willingly let pass a chance to investigate a story with such a title as “The Fish that Almost Ate Guam”?

     I was sitting in a beachside tavern in Guam, just a few days into my tour of the Pacific islands. The trip had been uneventful and I was in low spirits – too many coconuts and not enough excitement. But I happened to overhear a band of girls saying they were off to “sing to the fish” – as if that were as natural a thing as taking in a show or grabbing a bite to eat. After some good natured prodding, I coaxed the girls into expounding. Their tale was good enough for print, so I’ll relate it to you mostly unchanged:

     When Guam was young, before it had been discovered by the outside world, the people of Guam lived happily on their lovely island home. But as outsiders began to come in, bringing with them unrest and dissention and ideas of war and conflict, the native people began to suffer. The fishermen of the island began to notice that the island itself was suffering too – the bays on either side were getting larger and the land between them, smaller. A giant fish, they speculated, was slowly eating the island in half. The people felt helpless, for no matter how often the men set out in boats, they always came back empty-handed. The fish had a hiding place and could not be found.

     At that time, it was a habit of the young maidens of the island to go down to the springs to wash their hair with soap oranges and lemon, and let the peels float out into the bay. One day a girl noticed some of the peels floating in a bay on the opposite side of the island. Telling her friends, they concluded that the monstrous fish that had been destroying their home must have tunneled its way beneath the island itself, and have a home down there. They devised a plan: since the fish had eluded the men for so long, it must be shy and wary of fishers’ nets. So they wove a net from their hair instead. Going down to the spring, they began to sing to the fish, to coax it out. When the massive fish, intrigued by the noise, came out from beneath the island, the girls threw out their hair and jumped into the water, trapping the fish and saving Guam from certain destruction.

     So if Guam was already saved from this island-eating monstrosity, I questioned, then why were the girls off to “sing to the fish” today? The girls would only giggle – but they invited us to come along and see. We followed them to their favorite bathing spot – Agana Springs – and watched the age old practice play out. Washing their hair out, they sang silly songs about the fish, in one verse taunting it in another mockingly praising it – interspersed with snickers and giggles. Soon I saw bubbles rising from the water, followed by rocky looking spears which breached the water’s surface – these were our deadly island-eating fish, our hosts pointed out, laughing. 

     What I had expected of an island eating fish, I’m not sure – gnashing teeth, rock-smashing jaws, fearsome fins? But peering into the depths, a wall-eyed, long-nosed, clownish-looking school of wormish creatures peered back at me, quivering happily to the beat of the girls singing. Comical as they were, the fish were large – ranging from 10-20 feet – though hardly of island-eating proportions. Nor did they seem to be of island-eating temperament, bouncing about in the water, sputtering at the sound of the merry voices on the shore.

      “I don’t think there’s anything to the stories,” said one girl of about 15, “It’s just an old tale meant to make our ancestors look clever and to warn against outsiders. Some people say there are bigger fish living under the island and if we forget to sing to them or let too many foreigners into the bay, they’ll come out and start eating again – but I think we’d have seen them if they were there.”

     When the girls packed up and went home, Timmy and I stayed behind to explore some of the tidal caves around the bay. We found tunnels of every size: some large enough to walk through, others smaller than a finger’s width – these fish were island drillers, if not island eaters. The light of our lanterns brought fish slithering out of their holes and peering up from pools in curiosity. 

    Though I was eager to plumb the depths of this mystery and find the monster fish of legend right then and there, Timmy was equally eager not to be drowned by the rising tide, so we left much of the cave system unchecked – let it not be said I don’t make compromises. Taking a final look out over the bay, I thought I caught a glimpse of a large shadow in the depths and a rising wave above it – the island-eater itself? It passed too quickly to be sure.

     In a meadow in North Berkshire, a soft breeze and the smell of pastries lulls me into believing that I've finally taken my oft delayed sabbatical. But this picnic - and quite a picnic it is: blanket, tea, polite conversation and all - is strictly business. I am meeting with the Ladies Saddle Club of Berkshire to hear their side of a grizzly and controversial tale. Controversy is nothing new to Juba and I, as we've been researching for the Hot Topic column of BB for nearly a decade together, but to have it served with cucumber sandwiches and pecan tassies is a first.

     The ladies arrive in style on their prized mounts - some side saddle in classic fashion, others astride in the modern way - their mounts well fed and glistening in the spring sunlight. It seems like such a club would surely be the pride and joy of any small town in Berkshire, but each day opposition mounts against these ladies - opposition I am not sure they are undeserving of.

     It is only on close inspection that the secret is revealed - beneath the flowers and bows, the daintily crafted leather of their bridles, the impatient chomping of the horses at their bits reveals sharp fangs where equine molars are expected. These are no typical saddle ponies - they are of the Thracian breed. The infamous man-eating mares of Diomedes.

     That is just a name, of course. These horses are many generations removed from the mares owned by the giant Diomedes of Herculean legend - and, in fact, many of them are stallions, not mares. They've tasted no man-flesh in their lifetimes, but eat a less compelling diet of kibble and scrap meat like the hounds the ladies keep in their stables. But the stigma that hung about those four fabled mares still hangs fresh in the air about the Saddle Club - no matter how aromatic the ladies make their picnics.

     Three weeks earlier a carriage horse was bitten quite savagely by one of these horses, adding strength to fears that have been building in Berkshire for years.

     "If it had been a dog," quips Marlene Thatcher, head of the Saddle Club and my host for the afternoon, "there would have been no story. Dogs are biting horses - and people - in a county like Berkshire on a weekly basis. This is the first instance of one of our horses doing anything remotely aggressive. And it wasn't unprovoked. The papers don't tell you that."

     I sip at my tea - a little too sweet for my taste, but then everything about the Ladies Saddle Club seems more sugary sweet than necessary. The ladies in their genteel floral hats are doing their best to keep conversation light, but Thatcher is on point.

     "We take precautions - we keep our distance from traffic and give people fair warning - that carriage driver was getting pushy and trying to squeeze in where there wasn't room for him, his horse would have gotten bitten or kicked by even the tamest old nag."

     The photos in the paper showing the carriage driver comforting his bleeding horse certainly made no effort to be unbiased. But the question remains as to whether these animals belong on city streets.

     The modern day Thracian Mare has been domesticated for many thousands of years - but that domestication has not rid it of the wild, unpredictable, and sometimes vicious nature of its wild cousins, who still run free in the undeveloped regions of the Thracian Plain. In other domesticated equines such qualities would have been selectively bred out over generations, but in the Thracians, who were historically the chosen mount of warlords and conquerors, they were passed down as favorable temperaments.

     So why do the ladies of Berkshire choose such a mount for their afternoon exercises? They will not deny it is a form of fashion - the modern woman, they explain, wishes to be both genteel and wild, delicate and dangerous. The Thracian mares reflect that. One can admire their attempts to redefine themselves, but when the general safety is put at risk, it seems there would be other, less dangerous forms of self expression.

     "We didn't intend to cause any uproar," says Thatcher in a quiet moment when the other ladies are attending their horses, "it was a whim and we didn't think anyone would care much, other than to gossip a little. But now we are quite attached to our poor beasts, so what are we to do? If the county decided to ban them, well - well, certainly they're not the ideal city-dwelling creatures, but they are dear things - it would break our hearts to have to get rid of them."

     Her admission is the first compelling argument I've heard today, and, I know, the most heartfelt one. Whatever their behavior on the streets may be, today on the lawn I see an exchange of affection no less real than between other riders and their mounts. What the fate of these beasts will be I do not know, but it is a uncomfortable stalemate to be sure.

The Ketea Indikoi

     Like most of the creatures we are sent to report on, the Ketea Indikoi are little studied and reports of their appearance and behavior have grown, like old fish tales, to wild proportions.

     The most popular descriptions of these beasts mark them as having the heads of a variety of animals – lions, leopards, wolves, rams – sometimes even of humans and satyrs – with fins and scales and great coiling fish tails to finish off their forms. Many of the self-proclaimed hunters of sea monsters claim that the ketea indikoi are closely related to hippocampi. Having studied hippocampi myself, however, I doubted there could be such correlation between the fishy hippocampus and these creatures that are, if their descriptions can be trusted, clearly mammalian.

     As I expected, the reality of the Ketea Indikoi is less titillating to the seeker of legend than was promised, though no less fascinating to students of animal behavior and adaptation. These creatures, though slow moving and surly, proved to be inquisitive and intelligent opportunists upon closer acquaintance - and unlike many of our other, more reclusive, subjects, that acquaintance was freely given - they showed little fear of man or beast or mermaid.

     These lions and leopards of the sea, are, in fact, a giant cousin to seals – the smallest would dwarf even the largest of elephant seals. Their coloration makes it clear why sailors mistook them for jungle cats – the males, with manes of thick blubber wrapped in dark fur do strike a lion-like chord and the leaner, fawny-speckled females might well look like a leopard to a sailor with too many days on the sea.

     As for those coiling fish tales, I must report a falsehood - their tails and flippers are indeed larger in proportion and more tactile than their common cousins, but they are as mammalian as the rest of them. 

     The real joy in these animals, however, is not in their physiology, but in their behavior. Though I normally keep safe distance from my subjects as a rule, it was impossible with these friendly sea-bears. They have a great curiosity and thronged about us as soon as we came to shore – first to sniff and chuff at us, then simply to laze about us as we took our notes and sketches. This natural curiosity and fearlessness make the Ketea Indikoi excellent scavengers. We observed them feeding on a variety of delicacies – clinging to rocky outcroppings with their massive paws to munch on crabs and anemones, shaking trees with their curling tails to bring down fruits and dates to eat, and even, in a naughty turn, snatching a loaded fish net from a hapless boat. 
 
     Though it would be a joy to linger with these bumbling beasts for longer and learn all the secrets of their comings and goings, I’m afraid with this job a short study must do. Other mysteries await us, to be briefly discovered and quickly left – such is the life of the monthly reporter.