Why you Whisper Around Sharks

As told by Anie at Deadmen Tales.

Dark clouds rolled in and a great shark circled Barbados roiling the waters.

This king of sharks saw a beautiful native girl gathering oysters. He lost his mind for her charms. Shark took his magic and with great speed circled until he appeared as a handsome native man, with the finest cape of rustling shells. He followed the girl to her tribe's campfire.

The Kaiabi celebrated the visit of this great foreign chief with feasting and games of strength. The visitor won every contest, even the log pulling, which he dispatched with the power of a dozen men. No one was surprised when the great visitor asked the Kaiabi chief to allow him to marry the girl.

She was delighted and they lived happily in a small hut on a hill. There was a small pool at the foot of the hill, and the shark everyday would swim and make the pool larger, Soon the pool's length equaled the length of the island. The woman would grow worried at how long he spent swimming but he reassured her, he was preparing for their future.

Soon the woman was with child but the shark told her he needed to make a trip to his village and would soon be back. He made her promise to always have their child wear the cape of rustling shells. It was his birthright, his protection. But do not worry as he would return soon.

When the baby was born, the shark had not returned, and the woman saw a mark upon the child's back which looked like the mouth of a shark. It was then she realized who her husband had been.

As the boy grew he too would swim every day in the long pool that his father had dug. Sometimes the woman would gaze into the pool and think she saw a shark swimming beneath the water.

Before the sun rose each morning mother and son would stand beside the pool, the boy with the cape of rustling shells around his shoulders. She would ask the passing fishermen where they were going to fish that day. They would chuck the boy's chin and tell him one day he would get to go with them. Then the boy would dive into the pool and swim for hours. The woman worried.

The fishermen caught fewer and fewer fish and the Kaiabi were growing hungry. The chief called them to the campfire. “There is a bad spirit among us,” the chief told the people. He devised a spirit test, laying out a carpet of moonflower petals and asked each Kaiabi to walk across the flowers. The humans would bruise the petals, but the spirit would leave no mark.

The woman was frightened. She knew her son was the child of a shark, and he would be killed if the people discovered his identity. When it came turn for the youth to walk across the petals, he ran and slipped. An elder grabbed at the cape of rustling shells to keep him from falling. But the cape fell from the boy’s shoulders, revealing the shark’s mouth upon his back.

The tribe chased the boy out of the Kaiabi camp, but he slipped away from them and dove into the pool. The tribe threw big rocks into the pool, filling it almost all of it up, save for a small circle near the house. They thought they had killed shark boy and stopped. But the woman remembered that the shark said he had prepared for their future in the pool. She swam to the bottom and discovered he had made a passage that led to the ocean. The boy left the cape near the passage and joined his father in the sea.

Since that time, the fishermen never tell anyone where they go to fish, for fear the sharks will hear and eat the fish before they can catch them.

The Kaiabi suspended the contests for some time.

Time has passed. The Kaiabi start the games once again in their old form of a canoe race, a picture solving puzzle, and the feat of strength log pulling. It is actually to be held here, at this time next week, Saturday. You can grab a notecard from the buoy just off shore with more details.

But if you see a shark in the water, lower your voice, because they might be listening to you.