The cost of a rare cowrie

摘要

"No photo before the dive!" Such is the mystique surrounding the collecting of Leporicypraea valentia (Perry, 1811) that I was forbidden from photographing the divers in their houses and warned not to point a camera at their boat. The residents of tiny Nocnocan Island (see map right and image above) explained that a photograph is a 'dead image,' and could bring bad luck to the divers. Of the five men a year ago who could call themselves "the valentia divers," two of them lost their lives in 2010. Their loss has compounded the superstitions that cloak the night-time plunges into the Camotes Sea.