Oceanic Fishing Culture: Materiality, Ritual, and Identity

Fishing has long been a defining practice across Oceania, sustaining communities while shaping ritual, social, and aesthetic traditions. The objects associated with this activity—hooks, sinkers, and storage implements—testify to a deep entanglement of material ingenuity and cultural meaning.

The fish hooks of the Solomon Islands exemplify this synthesis. Fashioned from shell, bone, or wood and often inlaid with lustrous mother-of-pearl, they served not only as practical instruments but also as symbols of prosperity and protective power. In certain regions, there is a spiritual practice known as “bonito cult”, where it was believed that the bonito fish possess spiritual power or be connected to ancestral spirits.

 Equally distinctive are the Maori hooks (matau), crafted from bone, shell, and wood. Ingeniously designed to rotate and secure rather than pierce, they demonstrate an advanced understanding of both local fish species and marine environments. Their symbolic afterlife is notable: the stylised hei matau pendant persists as an emblem of safe passage and prosperity, underscoring the enduring resonance of fishing technology within Maori cosmology.

The Marshall Islands hook reflects a Micronesian tradition of adaptation to varied marine ecologies. Subtle formal adjustments to hook shape and material reveal finely tuned knowledge of reef and open-ocean species, currents, and seasonal rhythms.

Complementing these tools is the Taluma fishing tackle box, whose crafted wooden form housed lines and lures. Its careful construction suggests the esteem accorded to fishing equipment, underscoring the technological and symbolic value of these objects within daily life.

Finally, the Hawaiian whale-tooth sinker illuminates the role of prestige materials in fishing culture. Whale teeth, associated with mana, transformed a utilitarian weight into a signifier of status and spiritual potency.

Together, these artefacts reveal an Oceanic fishing culture in which subsistence, ritual, and identity converge—where functional tools become material expressions of social values and cosmological order.