Aside from local accounts, summarised in the species accounts above, there are several local stories about turtles. These give an indication of how much interaction there has been between man and turtle.
An epic song tells of a shark fisherman who captures turtles for bait, including finally the “King of Turtles”.Another humorous verse compares the chicken, which lays an egg and then makes a lot of noise cackling, and a turtle,which lays more than a 100 eggs and says nothing.
There is a belief, at least at Laamu Atoll, that a turtle will nest when an unmarried girl becomes pregnant. The turtle may even come up the beach in front of her house.
At Maavah Island (Laamu) the penis of a turtle is thought to be aphrodisiac. A practice of the past was to slaughter a turtle (Vela) and bless the ground with its blood before crops were planted. This predates the arrival of Islam in Maldives and is understandably discouraged by the authorities nowadays.
When the airport was under construction on Hulhule Island (North Malé), a limestone turtle was unearthed. It is about 20cm long and carved with realistic representation of body parts. The ventral surface has a small
rectangular niche. In older times a holy verse from the Koran would have been placed in the niche and the effigy buried under the house in a mixture of Islamic and pre-Islamic beliefs to bring good fortune.
Page 22, Maldives Marine Research Bulletin 04,22 Nov 2000
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