Too many flying foxes

This old Kanak was walking round Baaba island every two months. It was requiring him three days to complete his tour. He walked along the shore line looking for floated pieces of timber and other things brought by the sea, all useful to him. At night he was sleeping near a beach in the open. He was eating only copra from dry coconuts collected along his way.

Arriving in front of the sole European homestead of the island, he saw two of the sons of the owner. He told them "it is full of kouquinkes (flying foxes in his language) near the big swamp, niaoulis (a local gum tree) are black with them".

The two brothers took quickly their shot guns and walked fast to the swamp which was quite far away. Fortunately the low tide enabled them to take a short cut through the swamps.

In these old times flying foxes were plentiful. There were not many guns and cartridges were too expensive for most people. Often European settlers were hunting them with sticks thrown at the flying foxes hung in trees. They had learnt this from the natives. This hunt was not very efficient and flying foxes were then breeding faster than they were killed.

However our young men had never seen before such flock of flying foxes. Niaoulis branches were bending to the ground under their weight, they were in all trees including in mangrove trees. They were not flying, perhaps because there was a very strong wind seaward.

The hunters started to shoot them, flying foxes were falling in numbers, two or three at each shot. The other ones were trying to escape. They were like a black cloud in the sky. But the strong wind was dragging them to the sea were, exhausted, they started to fall down in the water and and to drown. Seeing that, the hunters stopped their shooting and rushed to collect them. They took arms full of them, went back to the water, came back again loaded. They made many trips to the water. At the end, they gathered them in a very big sack. Loaded it weighted more than 150 pounds.

Returning home was a kind of ordeal. It was now high tide and they had to make a long detour to reach home. The sack was extremely heavy and in addition they had to carry the guns. They walked slowly, for hours carrying the sack in turns.

Back home, they were given flying foxes to eat. They had them at lunch and diner day after day. Flying foxes came roasted, in sauce, boiled, roasted again. The recipe cycle was short and quickly over. They had to resume it again and again. The flying foxes supply was seemingly endless. For weeks flying foxes were on their menus. Their father, who never ate flying foxes, was making sure that all would be eaten. He had his sons to salt the flying foxes to preserve them so that none would be lost before they ate them all. In the bush and particularly in Baaba, people were poor and wasted nothing. All were eventually eaten by the two men.

Lesson never forgotten: our young men learnt that, even in a time of plenty, hunting should be done moderately according to one's needs.