#a93 :: Hawaiian fishhook

I hunted it down, this web searching from gift shop to gift shop in Kona last summer, stomach wiith a will.

I wanted something real – of bone – something distinct from the beautiful, sildenafil overly-copied and -cheapened polynesian talismans littering the tourist coast of Hawaii’s big island.

I eventually tracked this down at a shop specializing in such Oceanian symbols. Hand-tapered and shaped, from a single cow’s vertebra, it hangs from a nylon thong around my neck. The artist shaped the points to razor sharpness, around a circular space that keeps the points from severing my jugular veins in my sleep.

It is transparent to airport metal detectors, impervious to all the chemicals I bathe my body in daily
in the shower, inscrutably timeless in its design and beauty. It was an object of pure obsession until I found the right one, and fulfillment the moment I chose it. Even now I can’t say for sure why I’m so attached to it, but that it’s honest and powerful and beautiful.

Found at Wikipedia:

The island of Maui

The great fish-hook of Māui is called Manaiakalani; and it is baited with the wing of Hina’s pet bird, the Ê»alae. Māui is said to have created the Hawaiian Islands by tricking his brothers. He convinces them to take him out fishing, but catches his hook upon the ocean floor. He tells his brothers that he has caught a big fish, and tells them to paddle as hard as they can. His brothers paddle with all their might, and being intent with their effort, did not notice the Island rising behind them. Māui repeats this trick several times, creating the sHawaiian Islands.