Sojourning Seeds

A stranded drifter

How long were you lost at sea

Sea bean on the sand

Sea beans are seeds or fruits that wash into the sea, drift for some time and then get washed ashore. They are also called drift seeds or beans. There are a handful of different kinds that you can find on Saipan that usually wash up on the eastern beaches. I am still trying to figure our if it is sustainable to include see beans for my project. The above picture is that of a kukui nut (Aleurites moluccana) which I originally thought drifted from Hawaii. I've been finding quite a bit of them lately.

SEA HEARTS (OR MONKEY LADDER BEANS)
The sea heart (Entada gigas) is a well known sea bean because of its curious shape, big size, and high polish. The ones I've found are dark brown and have a very hard covering making them appear like wood carved hearts. Sea heart vines are lianas (woody, long-stemmed and rooted on the ground). Parts of the thick vines grow ribbon-like and this prompted the common name, monkey ladder vine. I haven't seen these vines growing on Saipan. It would be interesting to find since they own the record for bearing the largest seed pods (over 5 ft. or 1.5m).
Another monkey ladder vine is the snuff box bean (E. rheedii) since the hard seed covering was used as snuff boxes. In Chamorro it is called, bayogon dankulo (kneecap, big) and the seeds are reddish brown, almost rectangular in shape and are supposedly poisonous. The leaves and stems are used in traditional medicine. Its synonym is E. pursaetha and another common name is the African dream herb since its leaves are dried and smoked there supposedly to induce vivid dreams.

LITTLE MARBLES
I do not have a lot of information about this beautiful marble-like seed. They are also called glass eye vine (Oxyrhynchus volubilis). I usually find them covered in a beige, corky layer that need to be scrapped off to reveal the shiny black to dark brown seeds.

SEA PURSES
The sea purses we mostly see here are Dioclea wilsonii. They somewhat resemble our local bayogo (Mucuna gigantea) but are generally bigger and the hilum (where the seed attached to the seed pod) has a bright yellow border.

Does it look like a tiny purse? See the yellow border of the hilum?
Most sea purses I've found are reddish brown but this one (my favorite amongst) is mottled in color. I still need to clean this one up since it had goose barnacles (Lepas sp.) attached to it (white specks).

BURNEY BEAN
Burney in Old English means "island brook". We know these seeds locally as bayogon dikike (pronounce the y sound as a z) which literally means "knee cap small". Most of the ones I've collected are from the vine. They range in color from light to dark brown or mottled with black like the ones below. These seeds are the basis of the bayogo (bojobo) doll industry, seed leis and are extensively collected in the Mariana Islands. Like bayogon dankulu it is used in traditional medicine. Scientifically it is called Mucuna gigantea and like most of its family members, their seed pods have stinging hairs (trichomes) so you have to be careful collecting them. More on this on another post!
BROWN HAMBURGER BEAN
Hamburger beans (Mucuna sloanei) are a joy to find washed up on the beach. They are smaller in diameter and rounder than sea purses. The surface of the seed is polished but rough and the hilum is thick and dark.
Does this really look like a hamburger?
CANDLENUT
I was first made familiar with the kukui or candlenut (Aleurites molucanna) out of Hawaii's seed leis so I thought these were mainly from Polynesia. I now know that they are native in Asia and they even grow as close to us as Pohnpei. Maybe that's why they are pretty common drift seeds here. They polish quite nicely and I may have enough to put together for an authentic seed lei. Problem is if the seed inside is rotten, it is oily and pretty stinky so I will have to find a way to remedy those two problems. I haven't had much luck locating trees on Guam nor here on Saipan.
That's a nice shine! The seeds really take a good polish. Also, the oil inside the seed really does burn like a candle.

MARY'S or CRUCIFIX BEAN

Finding Mary's bean (Merremia discoidesperma) this past weekend was quite a surprise! This drift bean holds the record of having the longest drift of 15,000 miles (24,000 km). Sure other sea beans can stay buoyant longer potentially drifting father, but where they originally came from is hard to determine. Mary's bean has a limited range growing only in Mexico and Central America though.

Mary's bean has been found as far up north as Norway. If the record distance was set by beans found in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (Bikini and Wotho Atolls) then we may have a record breaker in our hands! Old Man by the Sea, Saipan, CNMI is farther than the RMI!
Because of the cross-like indentation on the "top" side of the bean, it has religious significance to some people. It is named after Mary, the mother of Christ and is also known as the Crucifixion or Crucifix bean. It is supposed to be good luck to carry one and women in labor carry them to ease the pain. Some of these are heirlooms being passed from one generation to the next.This is the record breaker's "bottom" showing the hilum, the scar where it once attached to its fruit.
GRAY NICKARBEANS OR NICKARNUTS

I love the unique look of the Gray nickarbeans (Caelsalpinia bonduc). They look like small gray eggs with parallel fracture lines. Nicker is a Jamaican word that came from the Dutch knickker, a baked clay marble. The Chamorros however locally call them, pakao. They are used in traditional medicine. Incidentally, bonduc came from the Tagalog word for mountain, bundok. Boondocks is also a Western derivative that means backwoods or out of way place.

I finally found some Gray nickarbean vines. They are pretty spiny which led to another common name, wait-a-bit vine. I am going to have to return to the spot see when they flower and bear fruits.
SCREWPINE
These aren't seed but are part of the woody part of the screwpine (Pandanus tectorius) fruit. I've used screwpine leaves for cordage but these specimens are so pretty that it looks easy to craft them into things. These are lightly sanded and once coated with tung oil. My BFF, Laurina, thinks they look kind of spooky because the holes look like the eyes and mouth of the grim reaper. I don't see it but do you?
This one is probably from a different Pandanus species that I've yet to identify. It's probably not from here since we really only have 2 species locally. It is pretty nonetheless!
I have found other interesting drift seeds and sea beans to share later. I finally identified a pretty weird looking black seed that felt and looked like a plastic ball. It turned out to be palm nuts from a species of prickly palm trees (Acrocomia mexicana) that grown in South America and West Indies. I didn't have any picture so I will have to share later.Hope you liked my stories. Check this and this which are other sites that are chock full of information on sea beans and drift seeds.

Ti napu.

The Beachcomber

P.S. I misidentified the Little marbles and you can read about their true identity here.

Haguet: fish hook pendants

Saipan Triguy, Lewie T. asked about hooks that the ancient Chamorros used for fishing on a comment on one of my earlier posts. On this post, I'd like to share with you a bit on what I found out for myself regarding this topic as I also wanted to experiment with making fish hook pendants.

Fish hook pendants are very popular nowadays since they look quite masculine, evoking feelings of strength, skill, prosperity and a cultural connection to the vast blue sea. The most popular designs are based on functional and contemporary Polynesian designs, especially from Aotearoa (New Zealand).

The ancient Polynesians did not have metal on their islands so other materials that were hard yet be carve-able were used for their fish hooks or matau. Materials such as shell, wood, human bone, and whale bone and teeth were utilized much like in Micronesia.

Because of their popularity though, there are a lot of low-quality mass produced Polynesian-style carved hooks that you can practically find in any tourist shop or on the internet. Even admiring a decent looking matau in Waikiki’s International Market did not guarantee an “authentic” Polynesian hook as I was told, “No. This one is made in Thailand.” Here are two pictures of a bone Maori-style matau that my good friend Greg M. got while vacationing in Bali. It doesn't look too bad really, and it even has some nicely carved designs on the bottom of it.
I like the stories though that come along in obtaining a unique piece. A lot of people belive that these special pendants contain Mana or spiritual power and the essence of the maker and then the wearer. I am really a big fan of the Polynesian matau designs and will probably make some in the near future. How did the ancient Micronesians design their fish hooks? I asked this question as I explored the idea of making my first hooks based more on ancient Chamorro or Micronesian designs.

Like the Polynesians, the ancient Chamorros also used shells, wood, bone, and teeth to manufacture this very important tool that was relied on for obtaining food from the sea. The Chamorro word for hook is haguet. (Incidentally, haguet is very similar to the Tagalog word for hook, kawit or kalawit, again showing an Austronesian connection in the languages.) The most abundant fishing hook artifact that archeologist have found are made from tree oysters or tooth pearl shells from the family Isognomonidae.

Isognomons are closely related to pearl oysters (Pinctada sp.) and are bivalves that are flat compressed-shelled animals that encrust rocks and mangroves. Their interiors are pearly. Here are a couple of tree oysters that I have found on Saipan:

This is Isognomon ephippium or saddle tree oyster (Linnaeus, 1758) which I found in Luta (Rota, CNMI) in August 2005. It usually grows up to 12 cm wide but this specimen is about half of that. Its exterior is dark and black and the shell is flaky. Inside is beautifully nacreous (pearly) and tinged purple.

These are Isognomon perna (Linnaeus, 1767), also known as false pearl oyster or rayed tree oyster, that I found in Obyan Beach, Saipan. They are nacreous inside and their exteriors are an off-white color usually with broken brown radial stripes.
Here is a picture from the CNMI Museum of History and Culture, Saipan that depicts the process of making a haguet from an Isognomon shell. I really wish I had a better close up picture because you can see that the finished haguet looks very different from the actual sea shell.

The finished haguet is looks crystalline because the shell is ground down to expose the aragonite mineral of the shell. Isognomons produce a bimineralic shell composed of calcium carbonate (outer layer) and aragonite (inside later), a carbonate mineral. It is a hard substance and luminous to look at. Here’s a website with great diagrams of the shell: http://www.futura-sciences.com/fr/comprendre/dossiers/doc/t/zoologie-1/d/la-coquille-des-mollusques-memoire-de-lenvironnement_662/c3/221/p3/

Unfortunately, these shells are too difficult to fashion because of their crystaline structure which are too easy to chip and break when they get too hot from cutting or polishing. They are generally small shells as well which isn't ideal for making pendants.

Compound trolling hooks were also produced by the Micronesians. Again, I consulted The Catalogue of Prehistoric Micronesian Artifacts (Intoh) to look at some examples. The following pictures illustrate the shank part of the compound hook that is made out of the black-lipped pearl oyster, Pinctada margaritifera (Linnaeus, 1758). The shank is cut from edge of the shell and away from the hinge. These illustrations are from artifacts found in the Marshall Islands and Pohnpei.

This is a picture of a P. margaritifera valve that I found. It is bigger than the palm of my hands. It has a beautifully nacreous interior. Its natural beauty prevents me from cutting it into different pendants!

Here's an example of how a trolling lure would look complete. These lures are from Yap that can be found at http://www.pacificworlds.com/yap/sea/fishing.cfm.

The shank is supposedly shapped like a small fish and the pearl oyster is used to simulate a shiny silvery fish that bigger predatory fish would eat. The point itself could be composed of shell, haggan (sea turtle) shell, or bone.

This is my first attempt at a stylized compound trolling haguet. As you can see, it is not yet finished but I am using a piece of nigas (Pemphis acidula) found during a beachcombing expedition for the shank and a beef bone point. I inlayed a piece of rectangular Spondylus on the shank and will have to decide on how to bind all the parts together. I decided to use wood and bone because I really do not have (or have anough of) the actual materials that the islanders used according to the examples that I have seen.

This is my first completed stylized compound haguet also made of nigas (Pemphis acidula) and a beef bone point. I read later after I was done making this hook that nigas was a preferred hard wood for making compound hooks on other islands. That was pure luck! Nigas is so hard that it is called ironwood at some of those places.

Here’s a picture of nigas at Coral Ocean Point, Saipan. The common name is small-leafed mangrove, but it is not a true mangrove. Nigas is a coastal tree that you usually see living on jagged coastal rocks. I read that they can grow into medium sized trees at places, but I’ve only seen them in bush form on Saipan. I also read that they are over harvested in many areas because they make good bonsai trees. Driftwood from this tree is usually a rustic gray but when you cut, shape, sand and polish it, it comes out as a rich dark brown colored wood.

Compound hooks are hard to make, but I will spend some more time learning a better way to produce them. Bone hooks need a little more investigating since the material is not as dense and is easy to scratch. I will need to do more research on how to properly make them, and even maybe order a book about bone carving.

Spondylus was not made into hooks by the ancient Chamorros. I wanted to experiment though and see how these would look like or how they would act as I fashioned them into hook shapes. Now, I am not the first person to fashion Spondylus into hooks mind you. I don't think a lot of people attempt it though because a good piece of Spondylus is an uncommon commodity. I've seen some designs that look as if the artisan was afraid to cut it. Mindfully so I say, since I learned that the fear is well placed as I have lost a few good pieces in attempting the twists and turns of a haguet. It is not easy!

This is my first attempt on making a Spondylus hook. I made it very simple out of a very solid fragment which held a beautiful intense orange color. I paired it with a hima salape’ (giant clam money) and a Spondylus salape’ toggle. Hima is very dense and it chips and cracks when heated making it hard to cut and polish. It was my first attempt with the material and the salape’ has tiny cracks that I decided to keep anyway to remind me of the learning process that I go through in this new hobby of mine. It symbolizes struggle and the hardness and skill you gain going through trials.

Here is another design. This has a hima salape' toggle and a Spondylus salape' on the left side of the cord. It is supposed to represent your korason (heart) and your love for the island.

Lastly, this is another stylized Spondylus haguet. The piece that I cut this from didn’t look too promising when I found it, but I am glad that I took the time to grind off layers from it until I carefully got the sheen that I wanted. This is a favorite piece. I paired this haguet with a Conus miles, or soldier cone salape’ bead.

Thank you for letting me share once again.

The Beachcomber.

Spondylus salape': Non-classic colors

On an earlier post, I mentioned that the classical Spondylus salape’ beads are usually orange in color. Most people are convinced that the Spondylus species that the ancient Chamorro artisans fashioned into orange beads are Spondylus varius. I am not too convinced yet if this is all that correct because of the varied species of the thorny/spiny oysters that are found in our waters. Classifying or naming a specimen using pictures from a shell book or even from Internet sources is a difficult task. Expert and amateur taxonomists alike can attest to this challenge.

One of the people I “talk stories” on biology with is a good friend and former colleague Dr. John S. He looked up in the Micronesica (the University of Guam journal of natural sciences of Micronesia and the region) to find that we have have present in CNMI waters: S. varius, S. multimuricatus, S. nicobaricus, S. squamosus and S. violascense. At times I wonder if I should have been a taxonomist because of the way I want to catalog/classify things in nature. You see, I want to be sharp enough to pick up any Spondylus shell fragment and say to a certainty that this is what it is. I know: NERD!

So how does this all translate to the pendants that make? Again, the classical Spondylus salape’ are mostly orange and I experimented with other fragments that I found that are what I call non-classical in color.

I call this salape’, Korason, the Chamorro/Spanish word for heart. It has a beautifully striated red color. The toggle is from a smaller fragment that I found that matched Korason’s colors surprisingly well.

This next piece is Papakyo, which means stormy in Chamorro. The word pakyo is very similar to bagyo, the Tagalong word of the same meaning, which hints to the Austronesian language link between the Mariana Islands and my mother islands of the Philippines. I am sure that Papakyo is a Spondylus squamosus which has an unmistakable dark maroon color. I picked up this shell fragment after a small tropical disturbance in the area hence the name. Papakyo has a rectangular toggle cut from the same shell fragment.

The piece below I named Putitainobiu after the Chamorro name for the flower Bougainvillea (puti=pain, tai=not have, nobiu=lover). I used to paint acrylics a lot and orange was a difficult color for me to utilize. I am convinced that only the Creator, the Master Artisan himself, can put pink and orange together and make it work this beautifully.

One day I was cutting a beautifully colored shell fragment with soft pink and white striations. In handling it, I knew this piece would polish quite nicely. My mind raced though, troubled by some odd news and some deep wounds caused by the remembrance of a recent break up. Although I was outside on a beautiful day, under the shade of a kind mango tree and a light breeze cooling my bare skin, my cutting was disturbed by what was effectively turmoil inside. I knew I had to calm myself down and focus on the task of creating.

You see, I somewhat believe that there is something to energy, be it positive or negative, and how it affects things you touch or handle, and in this case create. I know this is all hokey to Western science, and maybe even some Christians would think it a bit odd too, this theory of energy transfer. Well, although I can’t really explain it or prove anything I can personally say that I know there is something to it. Just for an example though, so you don’t think I am all weird and everything, when I practiced massage on Guam a few years back, I’ve experienced feeling ill after treating some clients that were really in bad shape. A number of experiences like that convinced me not to treat anyone if I was feeling out of tune (physically, emotionally, mentally, etc.) as well, so that I don’t transfer any negative energy to the client.

Anyway, although in cutting an inanimate object such as a shell fragment is not the same, I tend to apply the same personal theory. I’d like to approach the art of creating like a Zen Japanese sword smith who undertook their task with great solemnity, and purity of heart and mind, undergoing fasting and ritual purification before laboring in the art of metallurgy. Well, my mind should at the least be clear and positive anyway.
So anyway while cutting this particular piece, thinking about a friend who came back from vacation as a single woman really bugged me. I took it a bit to heart since I at the time was mending a broken heart and although I never really met the former nobiu, I thought their relationship was all good. It made me think of how fragile relationships really are and how many things could go wrong. But I know that there are reasons for breakups and they are usually for good reasons. I had to dig deep to not be so bothered and accept things that I couldn’t do anything about really.

So how did I get rid of the internal drama and perform the task at hand? I focused on who my friend was. Although we don’t spend a lot of time together, I know that she is special. I firsthand see that she is well loved by colleagues, the kids that she teaches, the drama team she’s a part of, and so on. I think they also call her, the Northstar, since her unwavering character is a good reminder to all of us what beauty really is inside and out. She is a real beauty, as is this piece of salape’ that I made with her in mind. This one is called Mai-Rhea. Isn’t she lovely?

Thanks again for letting me share.

The Beachcomber