I remember seeing or reading about an island where the indigenous people were afraid of the sea and would never go in.
Anyone know about this?
Peace,
mangeorge
I do not know about “afraid”, but there are several well-documented studies of islands in Polynesia where the inhabitants lost the knowledge of building ocean-going canoes, or destroyed the trees that could be used to build them, such that they were unable to take to the sea in any meaningful way. See Easter Island, Mangareva, etc. as was covered in Jared Diamond’s Collapse.
Daufuskie, for one, back in the day. Pat Conroy wrote a fictionalized account of his teaching there in “The Water is Wide,” which became the movie “Conrack.” But one thing that was not fictional was how even though they were surrounded by water, no one could swim, and it wasn’t that unusual a thing for someone’s body to have get fished out of the water.
Many of the tourist guides to Bali mention this, that the sea is considered a rather sketchy place and the Balinese only go to the beach to sell tourists stuff. There are some fishing vessels and tour boats, as well, but not as many as I’d expect, and the water as recreation seems not to be a done thing among the native people there. My observations while there did seem to bear this out, at least on the North side of the island. (The South is where the surfer culture seems to congregate, so many it’s different down there.)
The Kumeyaay Indians, in the San Diego area, lived by the sea, and did some fishing and gathering of shellfish. They didn’t go in swimming. In fact, walking out into the surf was an “ordeal ritual” for them.
I wouldn’t say, exactly, that they were afraid of the sea, but the idea of plunging into the surf for pleasure, as many of us like to do, was quite alien to them.
If wading out into the water was a test of manhood, or something of that sort, then that certainly suggests that they couldn’t swim. The whole point of such rituals is to demonstrate that you’re willing to take risks for the group.
I don’t know… Swimming in the surf is different from swimming in a lake or river… It’s possible that the extra degree of challenge from the surf was what made it into a ritual ordeal. The nasty taste of the salt water might also be an element.
In terms of serious cultural sociology…I’m out of my depth…but I will try to find someone who is properly knowledgeable and ask them.
The Royal Navy sucked?
Just an urban myth…
Well considering that if you live on an island, the ocean is really great place to get yourself killed as opposed to staying dry land, I think it’s understandable that anyone familliar with open water would know it’s dangerous as all hell.
BTW as far as anecdote - my wife is from Japan and grew up in what’s basically a large fishing village. She HATES the water. Won’t go near it, not even a pool.
Its not unusual for our local fishermen not to be able to swim. I live in Cornwall UK. I think its more of a tradition really, they think the idea of the boat is to keep them out of the water, they even have a certain resistance to wearing live vests. I heard one say if he went in the drink and wasn’t in a position to be hauled out within moments swimming was just prolonging the agony! To many the sea is a place of hard work and not to be played with like leisure users. One guy i know was asked to stand by a yacht in distress said, either they want rescuing or not because i’m still dragging a net what ever you want.
I met a women in Hawaii last year. I told her that I had gone to the beach for the day. She said that she had been ONCE as well too. In further conversation, it turned out that she was from Oahu and had only been to the beach once in her life. It scared her so she never went back. She didn’t know how to swim either.
In many of the small islands off the West Coast of Ireland, there is no tradition of swimming or going to the beach. The sea is regarded as a dangerous, hostile place…and the less contact with it the better.
Of course, the low water temperature is a factor-but the beaches are stunningly beautiful (on the rare sunny days).
There were records in the Potato famine of people living on the coast dieing of starvation and never thinking of going fishing.
That kind of story sounds like a way to blame the victims, so that you (not you, sidecar_jon, but the 19th-century British) can shake your head in sad disbelief at their stupidity and indolence, rather than think about the policies that contributed to the Famine.
The reality is that every coastal and island settlement in Ireland was a fishing village, so the idea that they just had no clue that you could get food from the sea is extremely dubious.
Plus, fishing professionally requires training and experience. A farmer can’t just hop in a boat and hope to catch enough fish to feed his family, especially when all the other farmers are doing the same thing.
The sea is a dangerous place for the inexperienced. Just as you cannot use any given land for farming, you cannot use just any patch of Ocean for fishing, Australia for instance is a net importer (or used to be) of fish due to relatively poor stocks. It might be far enough that you have no direct link with people nearby, so no traveling by sea either. You do not use the sea for fishing, or for trade and travel, not much point in going there.
Yes, I thought it was fishy.
I’ll agree with the poster who said that it’s an urban legend. People may not play in the ocean but there are fishing traditions in all the places mentioned in the thread.
I think it refers to people driven to the coast, rather than fishing villages. But yes maybe your right. There’s a whole thread about it http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-141336.html
I guess at worst it was caused by the free market…ducks and covers.
When I was a child learning how to swim was pretty much a given. I was surprised to learn that this wasn’t always the case. I went to Virginia Beach and heard the old lifeguard stories and how a sailing ship had run aground maybe 50 feet offshore and the sailors couldn’t swim to shore because they couldn’t swim at all.