Makah whale hunt
Diane Hirshberg
There's an article in the Sunday NY Times Magazine on members of the
Makah Nation preparing for their first whale hunt in generations, and
all the controversy this has generated.
I can't post the article because the Sunday NT Times Mag. is only
available on-line to AOL subscribers (!)... so if one of you AOL folk
can do it, I think it might be of interest to many here. Then again, it
might just reopen the same darn debate we just finished about the
Inuit...
;-)
--Diane
--
Diane Hirshberg
*** remove nospam- from e-mail to reply ***
m_c...@hotmail.com
have been doing lately.
mC.
Permission Granted to Kill a Whale. Now What?
By ROBERT SULLIVAN Photographs By SHINGO WAKAGI
For the Makah Indians, getting the green light for their first whale hunt in
two generations was the easy part. The environmentalists protested; the
tribal elders squabbled. And none of the living Makah have ever hunted a
whale before.
Team Makah in training: The use of a .50-caliber rifle is causing as much
controversy as the whale hunt itself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ In
the fall, the Makah Nation, a Native American tribe of 2,000 people that
makes its home at the very northwest tip of the continental United States,
plans to send a crew of eight men out into the Pacific Ocean in a canoe to
harpoon a whale. It will be the first time a Makah crew has hunted a whale
since the late 1920's, when a tradition of thousands of years was ended
because of overhunting. So it is an event of great significance to the Makah
people, who consider the whale hunt to be a sacramental act. It is turning
out to be an event of great significance to people who aren't Makah too.
In the Northwest, a little tribe that no one had heard of is suddenly
front-page news, with environmentalists' protests and anti-Makah Web sites
springing up like the late-summer wildflowers that drape Washington State's
Olympic Peninsula, site of the Makah reservation. On a sunny day last winter,
as the newly chosen whaling crew was making its first practice run in Neah
Bay, John McCarty, one of the Makah who were organizing the hunt, stood on
the beach and watched the canoe put into the white-haired waves. "The whole
world," he announced, "is watching the Makah."
For the most part, the world is not too happy. In 1996, with the support of
the Federal Government, the Makah applied to the International Whaling
Commission to hunt whales, citing an 1855 treaty that they say allows them to
do so. But by the time they received permission, in October 1997, to take up
to five California gray whales a year for five years for ceremonial purposes,
everyone from an Australian animal rights group to an international
whale-watching association had begun complaining. This spring, just as a
$310,000 grant from the Commerce Department was winding down, preparations
for the hunt nearly came to an end. At an anti-Makah rally in downtown
Seattle in June, Representative Jack Metcalf, a Washington State Republican
who has spoken of the American people's "special relationship with whales,"
vowed to stop the whale hunt.
As the time for the hunt approaches and protests become increasingly
belligerent -- an anonymous letter threatened that one Makah would be killed
for every whale -- the tribe has taken to meeting regularly with a
law-enforcement task force, partly to protect the Makah, partly to protect
the protesters who are expected to show up in Neah Bay at the end of this
month at the tribe's annual Makah Days celebration.
The protest operations are being led by the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, the marine-conservation group based in Marina del Rey, Calif., that
prides itself on having sunk nine whaling ships during 20 years of whale-hunt
protests. In the past, Sea Shepherd has been a champion of Native American
rights, but in this case it insists that a Makah hunt will be used by
worldwide commercial whaling interests to break the world's moratorium on
hunting whales. (Whale hunting is generally banned internationally, though a
few nations ignore the ban and several aboriginal groups are allowed special
privileges to hunt.) Paul Watson, the president of Sea Shepherd, plans to
block the Makah whaling crew with his command ship, a flotilla of private
boats and a small decommissioned Norwegian Navy submarine armed with
killer-whale sounds intended to frighten away gray whales. "This is possibly
the most important whale hunt in the past 25 years," Watson says.
All this is not exactly what the Makah imagined when they dreamed of one day
having a chance to hunt a whale again, back when it looked as if just getting
permission to hunt was the big hurdle. And yet the Makah -- despite the
protests, the political pressure and a nasty bout of internal squabbling --
are moving ahead with the hunt.
"It's a war out there, and we know it," George Bowechop, a village elder and
a member of the tribe's whaling commission, told me one night at a
celebration for the return of the hunt. The protesters' scorn, he said, has
made the Makah only more determined. "They want us in the museum. They'd
rather we just said, 'Oh, the Makah were great whalers,' and leave it at
that. They want us to have a dead culture. But it's been our way of life. We
look at the ocean and we feel we not only have a legal right but a moral
right to whale."
On the day last winter when the whaling crew was making its very first
practice run, a few Makah village elders surveyed the action alongside local
kids and a small team of aboriginal and commercial whalers who had flown in
on a kind of whalers' field trip. They came from Iceland and Tonga and Japan
and a few of the other whale-hunt-friendly places around the world. One
Icelandic whaler -- blond-haired and blue-eyed and wearing a parka, in
contrast to the shirtless, dark-haired Makah crew members who were shedding
their basketball shoes and preparing to paddle off in gym shorts -- reminded
another visitor that the actual whale-hunting portion of a whale hunt can be
difficult too. "In Iceland," he said, sizing up the Makah's 34-foot canoe,
"we hunt for whales much smaller than the gray whale and we use a boat that
is much bigger than this one. I hope they are careful, because with a whale,
you know, it's not a game."
"They want us in the museum. ... They want us to have a dead culture. But
it's been our way of life. We look at the ocean and we feel we not only have
a legal right but a moral right to whale."
Micah McCarty was at the front of the Makah canoe as it set out that day.
Micah is the son of John McCarty and great-grandson of Hishka, one of the
last of the great Makah hunters, and for a long time Micah has been talked
about as the Makah expected to harpoon the whale. As he paddled out toward
the mouth of the bay, out toward the snow-covered mountains of British
Columbia, all was quiet except the paddles as they sliced through the gray
surf: when you closed your eyes you could imagine a hunt that was free of
protests and politics and bureaucracy -- a hunt like his great-grandfather
might have led. "If you paddle right," Micah said, looking out ahead of the
canoe, "you can paddle for hours."
As he continued to paddle, Micah talked about how the canoes of his ancestors
were equipped with food and water for several days, in case the whale fought
and ran and dragged the boat through the ocean. "We could get one right away
or we might have to go for a while," he said.
With that, Micah rose up in the canoe, and, though there was no great hump of
barnacled whale rising up from the flat surface of the sea, he drew back his
arm and stood as if he were about to launch his harpoon.
For the Makah, the idea behind the whale hunt was simple: by resurrecting
this cultural and spiritual centerpiece of the tribe, the community would
blossom again and the local economy might even be revived. Unlike most tribes
in the United States, the Makah live on their ancestral land, on the very
peninsula of cedar trees and rocky, volcanic cliffs from which their
great-grandparents set off in search of gray whales. As it is now, Neah Bay,
the reservation's main village, is a small fleet of ramshackle houses on
streets lined with old furniture and rusty appliances: about 50 percent of
the villagers are unemployed. The hunt has in some ways created a canoe-based
empowerment zone.
Though the Makah no longer crave the taste of whale meat, the gray whale has
historically been considered life sustaining. Traditional tribal stories tell
of the time when the Makah could not leave the land for food because of great
storms and Thunderbird, a flying wolflike god, delivered a whale to their
shores. But for the last two generations, this life-sustaining relationship
has become a parody. Even when dead whales have washed ashore on the Makah's
beaches, armed Federal guards have been posted to keep the tribe from carving
them up.
Some opponents of the Makah's hunt have argued that it was actually dreamed
up by commercial whalers in Iceland or Norway or Japan. But as some Makah
remember it, the tribe's fisheries-management people were down by the docks
when they read in the local newspaper that the gray whale would soon be
coming off the endangered-species list. John McCarty, who at 63 is too young
to have witnessed his grandfather's last whale hunt, recalls walking up from
his fishing boat at about that time and hearing someone say: "Hey, John!
How'd you like to go hunt a whale?" It wasn't long before the idea became a
hit with the tribal council, and the simple idea began its accrual of modern
complications.
The complications began last fall, with the choosing of an eight-man crew. In
the old days, each family had its whalers, but now the council had to
jump-start the dead tradition. A whaling commission was formed to select the
crew and to draw up some physical and spiritual guidelines --
paddling-endurance standards, for example, and instruction in methods of
personal prayer, all of which had to be culled from old stories and archival
sources, since no living Makah had been on a whale hunt. Everything had to be
cleared by the tribe's Seattle-based lawyers, and a whale-management plan was
written in cooperation with the National Marine Fisheries Service. The tribal
whaling commission came up with a budget, hired a staff and tried to set up
its computer, such that over the winter the sacred act of whaling became a
kind of bureaucracy in itself. Aside from being the great-grandsons and
-nephews of Hishka, aside from being connected by tradition to the spirits of
the sea, the crew would also have on-the-job insurance.
At the core of the crew were the first four men named. Wayne Johnson ended up
being the leader of the squad, in charge of getting everyone together for
physical and spiritual training, though he tended to emphasize the physical.
He is tall and thin; he looks like a semiretired stuntman. At 45, he is by
far the oldest crew member -- and is likely, when the hunt comes, to follow
alongside the whaling canoe in some kind of a chase boat. Darrell Markishtum,
in his mid-30's, is the crew's unofficial chaplain, its spiritual center. He
works for the tribal fisheries office but in his spare time collects
traditional Makah stories. Donnie Swan, in his early 20's, is a fisherman and
hunter who rides a motorcycle and wears Oakley sunglasses and camouflage. He
is strong and quick and anxious for the hunt. "My oldest daughter's always
saying, 'My daddy's gonna catch the whale!"' Donnie says.
Micah McCarty, 27, is the crew's bohemian, a kind of Save the Whales whaler
who sees environmentalism and whaling as compatible if conducted on ancient
Native American terms. He generally wears black jeans, a black shirt, black
hiking boots and a black beret; he ties back his long, dark brown hair in a
ponytail. He carves traditional masks and totems from cedar and exhibits his
work in galleries in Seattle and Victoria. He is smart and sharp-tongued.
"Our sacred tradition is all wrapped up in red tape," he often says. Micah
lives amid carving tools and paperbacks in an old military barracks, a few
dozen yards from the ancient Makah whaling village. "I grew up as a minority
kid and I knew I was the descendant of these people who were like kings, and
I was like, Why? To me, I'm living the last will and testament of my
ancestors, as opposed to dying on the job in some industrial reality."
The members of the Makah Whaling Commission had envisioned a kind of Colonial
Williamsburg-style hunt, one that would resemble the hunt of their ancestors,
with at least one exception. In keeping with tradition, the crew was given
spiritual training and learned the old whale-hunting songs; they traveled to
Alaska hoping to sing and dance and hunt with native whale hunters. The big
exception was that, in addition to the harpoon, the Makah crew would take
along a gun. That gun is a .50-caliber rifle with an infrared sight; it's
light green-gray and is heavy and looks to the untrained eye like a bazooka.
It was modified with the help of a ballistics expert (who is also a
veterinarian) to quickly kill a gray whale without knocking the hunter out of
the canoe. The people protesting the hunt have called the Makah's rifle
inhumane. "There isn't a trace of 'ceremonial whaling' in this plan," Sea
Shepherd has written. "It's blatant, undeniable whale warfare!"
But to the crew, the rifle is a safety precaution, and they don't see why a
modern traditional whale hunter shouldn't have one. "The rifleman will shoot
as this is in the air," Micah explained to me one day on the beach, holding
aloft his practice harpoon. "It will be simultaneous. Because that's the way
we feel we can achieve the quickest time-to-death ratio. Basically, the time
to beat is 15 minutes until the whale is subdued."
Even with a rifle along, however, a whale hunt is something to be anxious
about. Early one morning last winter, when the bay was like a sheet of glass
in the just-risen sun, Wayne got the crew together at J.J.'s Pizza, a little
beachfront bakery. Everyone was there but Micah, who at the last minute
caught a ferry to British Columbia to visit his girlfriend. The whalers
talked about taking group hikes and group sweats. Darrell was thinking about
getting back into tai chi. Everyone was needling Donnie about having given up
smoking in preparation for the hunt.
In the old days, Wayne was saying, there were periods of quiet and prayer and
deprivation before the hunt. Men would purify themselves by living alone in
the woods and bathing in mountain ponds and streams; they would abstain from
sex. "If they hunted a whale," Wayne said, "and the whale got away, the first
thing they would do is look around the canoe and say, 'O.K., who slept with
their wife?"'
After coffee, the men wandered down the beach. They shared some modern whale
stories, like the one about the Russian whalers who were tossed from their
canoe and dangled in the freezing water while the whale came back and studied
them as if it were pricing a cheap jewel.
"When we met the Russian chief, he said that not everyone's going to come home
all the time," Wayne said. "The gray whale, if he gets mad, he'll attack you."
They all nodded their heads and were quiet for a while, and then they compared
the length of a 50-foot gray whale with the length of their canoe.
March was to be the month that the crew's rigorous training started, but
things didn't go as planned. The month began all right, with a potlatch for
the crew, a night of celebration and dancing, after which the crew flew to
Alaska. But the whalers returned to discover that the protesters were gaining
strength and that their own momentum had stalled.
The men were reduced to sitting around -- this was the week, coincidentally,
that "Moby-Dick" was playing on cable TV. They went out in the canoe a few
times, and trained a little on their own; Donnie was smoking again, but he
had also begun to harpoon seals and sea lions. Micah, too, continued to
practice throwing his harpoon. For the most part, however, the crew members
were frustrated. In the crew's sweat lodge one night, across the street from
a diner, Wayne lamented in the steamy darkness that they weren't getting out
in the canoe enough. "The women are out there every night canoeing," he said.
"And if the women can do it, we can, too."
As executive director of the tribal whaling commission, John McCarty was
coming under stealth attack; unbeknown to him, factions of the whaling
commission and the tribal council were moving to shut him down. They felt he
had not moved fast enough and that he was not taking proper advantage of the
technology available to the hunt. For a time, John tried to run the hunt
without the tribal council's blessing; in the end, he decided to pull out
altogether and moved away from the reservation for a while to work a roofing
job. His son Micah stayed on the crew.
By the end of June, training was back on track. Wayne had the crew out
paddling after work almost every night. The carving of a traditional 36-foot
whaling canoe was almost done. Keith Johnson, the president of the Makah's
whaling commission, announced that, barring any legal challenges, the hunt
would go on sometime in October -- which is when the whales arrive and also
the time when the ocean normally begins to turn dangerously rough. Keith, for
his part, was trying to keep expectations down. "We're going to learn a lot,"
he said. "There are a lot of unknowns. We could have a great, great hunt and
not get a whale."
Although momentum had been recaptured, the tone of the hunt had somehow
changed. The crew seemed more interested in using modern technology to get
the first whale and traditional methods later, after it had established -- to
protesters, to the world -- the tribe's ancient right to whale hunt. No one
seemed to lament this more than Micah. He was still planning to go on the
hunt, though it wasn't clear who would throw the harpoon. "Whoever throws
that harpoon is going to go down in history," Wayne said.
For his part, Micah said he would give up his place in the canoe only if he
felt the hunt was somehow sacrilegious, if it was not respectful of the
whale. He also talked about the possibility of leading his own hunt, perhaps
next year. As for training, Micah had managed to stay focused during all the
turmoil. Most days, he woke, said a water prayer, stretched out, put on his
Nike Air cross trainers and went out for a long run. From his home, he
crossed the river where his great-grandfather Hishka would have bathed. Micah
trained not for the sake of body-fat reduction but to make himself worthy of
a sort of nobility, an apostolic succession. "There's an old saying that the
whale chooses the whaler," Micah said, "and I want to be honorable enough to
be chosen by the whale."
Earlier this summer, Micah took a long hike north along the beach. He left
late in the day and walked into dusk and then built a bonfire and catnapped
before the growing flames. As the sun was setting, he heard an otter breaking
open shells on its belly, and then he imagined ancient canoes and ancient
hunters, and then he was just looking out over the ocean, over the horizon,
looking, listening.
Along the hike, he found himself thinking about his own whale hunt and even
picturing the whale, as he often does these days. "I was visualizing the
scenario of the final approach," he said, "with the whale blowing its stack.
I was visualizing plunging the harpoon. And I was wondering, Would it be an
electrical charge from the animal to me? What will the animal feel in its
heart? What would it be like? What would it be like to be there with the
whale?"
Sunday, August 9, 1998
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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Greendarnr
Permission Granted to Kill a Whale. Now What?
For the Makah Indians, getting the green light for their first whale hunt in
two generations was the easy part. The environmentalists protested; the tribal
elders squabbled. And none of the living Makah have ever hunted a whale before.
By ROBERT SULLIVAN Photographs By SHINGO WAKAGI
(Side quote) "They want us in the museum. ... They want us to have a dead
c.w. >I<
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I was born with eyes that can never close." -from: I Give You Back" by Joy
Harjo '83
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greendarnr
didn't see
mC's post 'til now.
Floyd Davidson
>Diane Hirshberg <nospa...@uclink4.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>
>>There's an article in the Sunday NY Times Magazine on members of the
>>Makah Nation preparing for their first whale hunt in generations, and
>>all the controversy this has generated.
>>
>>I can't post the article because the Sunday NT Times Mag. is only
>>available on-line to AOL subscribers (!)... so if one of you AOL folk
>>can do it, I think it might be of interest to many here. Then again, it
>>might just reopen the same darn debate we just finished about the
>>Inuit...
>>
>>;-)
>>
>>--Diane
>
>this display of "culture." What next, a return to slave killing as a
>cultural expression?
Wouldn't you say that is just a little too much of a leap to be a
credible argument?
> Who's the Makah's PR man? I just watched a
>National Geographic special saying that many scientists believe that
>whales are a highly intelligent species.
Whales are indeed highly intelligent. So are pigs. Do you eat
bacon, ham, or pork chops?
> No mention was made of the
>Mekah elders. It would be difficult to imagine a more efficient
>campaign to bring back the term "ignorant savage."
As it applies to you?
> Generally I like to
>join the dance at this type of thing, but I can't hop into the canoe
>on this one. Can anyone help me join the protest? Gov. Locke called
>out the National Guard this weekend, in a poorly informed attempt to
>stop protests. I hope he doesn't figure out that this next week will
>be the real thing. Protester are supposed to stay 500 yards from the
>canoes. All right, keep the canoes 500 yards away from the intelligent
>species. Intelligence says that a curtain of sound to scare off the
>whales is the best defence. Any other ideas? Let me know ASAP. I'm not
>too good in a rubber raft, and I abhor violence toward any ignorant
>animal. Other than that I'm in.
I wish the Makah people the best of luck with their future. My
perspective might be a little different than yours though, as I
daily interface with a culture that is deeply involved in
subsistence hunting of bowhead whales. If the renewal of grey
whale hunting can do for the Makah people what the bowhead does
for Inupiat people, then ignorant savages who oppose Makah
culture with no understanding of what it is or how it works
should be ignored.
Floyd
--
Floyd L. Davidson fl...@ptialaska.net
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)
lisa dillon
tell me of her grand fathers whale hunts and the preporations for such,
the reverence and ceremony involved and the sacrifice the whalers make
none of this is taken lightly or without regard, These are traditional
people whaling with taditional methods, not an easy task and not a half
hearted desision to do so,I have a deep love and respect for the Makah
and pray for there safety people make judgment calls without knowing the
people maby if they are so concerned they ought to go visit Neah bay in
a good way and talk to a few makah for themselves......Lisa D.
Floyd Davidson
Maybe I should expand a little on Lisa's suggestion, because it
is a good one. People tend to misunderstand, however, just
exactly what they need to learn about when they visit with a
people/culture.
Let me describe something that I experienced as a young parent
some years ago when my children were introduced to a new school
system. It was a small primary school, and the principle
teacher had been there for a few years. When he and his
wife (who, it turned out was about the best 1st grade teacher I
have ever met) first arrived (in Salcha, Alaska which is about
40 miles from Fairbanks on the road system) they looked around
for a way to inspire children. The reason was that to teach a
value system, and to teach even reading and writing effectively,
one *must* inspire children.
The obvious program, given the weather and that the school was
nestled right up against a perfect ridge to provide trails, was
a cross country ski program. Except the fellow had never really
skied in his life. But it was obviously the best way to
inspire children in that location at that time, so he learned to
ski, and they built trails (renamed this year to be
the "Darryl Coe Ski Trails"), and formed the Salcha Ski Club.
That was well over a quarter of a century ago, and the man has
since retired. His program is still functioning though, and it
has produced hundreds of extremely well educated adults who are
lawyers, physicists, business managers, and all variety of
productive kinds of people. The success rate for those who
actively participated in the program was far better than the
average. (I guess one should also mention that they produced
more nationally ranked junior level cross country ski racers on
a per capita basis than any other program in the country. From
a little community of maybe 1200 people, there were 3-4 ranked
in the top 20 nationally every year, but success at skiing was
*never* the objective... just a side effect.)
So, how is this similar to the whaling issue? Well, there were
some parents who complained about the ski program at the school.
There was a continuous battle with different kinds of ski
programs at other schools (e.g., when my children were in High
School they did not ski on the HS team, they skied on the club
team). There were no end of jealous people and bigots who
wanted to destroy the program. It was targeted primarily
because it succeeded in teaching a great value system to a
specific set of children.
When people complained to me about the ski club, I explained to
them that I could care less if the teacher were teaching violin
lessons or skiing, the point was that it worked and was a tool
being used to inspire and teach children, because skiing was not
the end in itself.
Now.., I don't care if the Makah are taking violin lessons or
are hunting whales, the important part is teaching the
traditional value system of their elders to their children.
People who visit the Makah (or visit the Inupiat here on the
Arctic Coast of Alaska) should listen carefully to what they are
told, but they should never lose the context of what it is
really all about: teaching a value system to children.
It happens that the way Makah culture has developed to teach
their value system involves the hunting of grey whales. That
teaching system has evolved and been improved over generation
after generation, and it is known to work. Trying to learn new
ways to teach the same values might eventually succeed, but more
likely it will fail and cost the world the loss of that value
system's functionality. Gradual changes that can be weighed
against effectiveness are one thing, but total upheaval is a
disaster that almost always fails.
Hence we should understand that it is not specifically those
ceremonies, nor the rituals or the manner in which they are done
that are really important. It isn't the harpooning of a whale
in the old way with the old tools that is important.
What is important is continuing to teach, in the best way known,
the Makah value system to the Makah children. That is what they
mean when they say the purpose of the hunt is to preserve their
culture and their traditions. The hunt is a teaching tool.
Tenkiller
ceremonies, nor the rituals or the manner in which they are done
that are really important. It isn't the harpooning of a whale
in the old way with the old tools that is important. What is important is
continuing to teach, in the best way known,
the Makah value system to the Makah children.<<
Floyd,
I must, respectfully, disagree with you here. Without trying to impinge on your
years of experience with the Inupiat peoples, let me say that in a spiritual
sense, the ceremonies, rituals and manner of taking a particular animal (in
this case gray whales) IS the most important thing. It is that respect for the
animal spirits that assures balance and survival for a tribe. For traditional
Native people (and I count the Makah in this, from my experience) various
animals played multifaceted roles within tribal culture, one of which was
educating the next generation. But, the way those animals are taken and used
and the part the animal spirits play in the Native community are central to
what differenciates the Makah from just another group of people who hunt
whales.
Using your logic, we could say that Russians who have lived on the coast for
generations and who have hunted whales for subsistence but, who are Orthodox
Christians, for example, are entitled to the same consideration to hunt as the
Makah because they may also use it as a tool to teach their children.
I don't really think this is what you had in mind.
Instead, the central thing that differenciates Natives from non-Natives in
this arena, is that in taking the animal's life, consideration is made through
ceremony and ritual to respect and preserve the spirit of the animal, thereby
assuring balance and continuity not only within the tribe, but the animal's
community, as well.
There are countless examples in stories from various tribes on what happens
when proper respect and ceremony are not observed in the taking of an animal
under those circumstances. The "moral" to each of those stories, if you will,
is that the way you take the animal and care for its spirit makes the
difference between mindless slaughter and proper respect.
Tk
Adrian Redmond
contributors named in article)
Subsistence whaling in the Arctic
---------------------------------
It's about time that we of the western world tried to understand the
perversity of our influence on Native society. The subsistence whale
hunting of Alaska, Canada and Greenland being a case in point.
There are many well-founded arguments to support subsistence whaling.
First - subsistence whaling is the major source of natural animal
protein and fats in Arctic society. This is not fox hunting in the
English shires, but a necessary source of sustenance for a population
whose alternatives are somewhat more limited that those of the average
European or Lower 48th American. The Arctic is not a museum, to be
preserved for the green-lobby, but a living environment which has been
the homeland for a proud and peaceful people for thousands of years. But
they have no garden vegetables or wheat crops - it's dark and pretty
cold most of the year. Life in the Arctic - human or otherwise, has been
carnivorous since long before the dawn of man.
Second - whale meat, in common with other subsistence is good healthy
food, which is especially suitable for nutrition in Arctic regions. Most
sea mammals have been virtually unpolluted until recent years - now
there is worrying scientific evidence that heavy-metal pollution from
our countries eventually becomes accumulated in the fatty tissues of
arctic sea mammals - the Inupiat people are now having to face the same
worries that we have about factory bred animal foodstuffs. But still,
their food produce is better nutritionally for them in their climate,
and studies have shown that reductions in subsistence activities produce
reductions in the general health of the population due to imported diet.
Third - The whale species in question - Bowhead, beluga, and the small
whales - minke, narwhal and the like, are not threatened. Whatever the
green lobby has tried to convince us, the Inupiat people have patiently
and professionally proven, through their own scientific research
programmes, that their subsistence activities are sustainable.
Fourth - the cultural importance of subsistence lifestyles for
indigenous populations must not be underestimated, especially in these
years where our culture puts a massive influence on theirs. In common
with many aboriginal languages, Inupiaq (Alaska) and Inuit
(Canada/Greenland) languages are almost useless for communication in a
modern workplace or administrative environment - they lack the words and
the concepts. However, that is both the weakness and the strength of
these languages - they were never developed for the internet or the oil
industry, but have served their people well through millennia in the
Arctic. Their language, in their world, is poetic, and hugely
descriptive, containing nuances which we would never dream of - when
describing matters of relevance to their culture. the weather, the
landscape, the natural environment and its creatures. Subsistence
hunting is the cradle of the culture, the basis for education in the
extended family, the basis for an Arctic democracy. Protecting and
preserving these cultures so that they may live and continue to develop
on their terms and according to their needs is dependent on the
language, which in turn, is dependent on its being used for that which
it was intended.
Fifth - the morality. Whose country is it anyway? The Inupiat people
settled there first - 125 years of Russian colonisation (which hardly
affected northern Alaska), followed by a 121 years of American
colonisation/statehood, are mere ticks on the clock beside the history
of these people.
If we wish to defend the morality of how we have harness our natural
environment in Europe and America, If we wish to defend our morality as
regards to the ways in which we treat animals - as pets, farm animals,
sport-targets, and subjects for conservation. Then we must respect the
traditions of indigenous peoples and their rights to determine their
subsistence policies in their homelands.
This is not just a matter of respecting Inupiat dignity and intellectual
sovereignty - it's also a matter of respecting our own values - freedom
of speech, national sovereignty, local and regional democracy, human
tolerance and environmental responsibility. Funnily enough, these values
which we preach on festive political occasions are integral to Native
cultures. If we put our prejudices and racial misunderstandings aside,
we would see that native cultures are not that far from our own, they
are (luckily for them) less developed - which means that they have not
yet lost many of the essential human values which our culture discarded
decades - even centuries - before. We could learn a lot from the
indigenous peoples of the world.
On the moral issue it is wise to point out, that whilst subsistence
cultures have a close relationship to the animals on which they sustain
themselves, to their life and death - our cultures have remained just as
carnivorous, but we have hidden the (for us) fearful process of death
behind the tiled walls of the slaughter houses. Our use of living
resources is not sustainable. We breed many animals, most of which are
slaughtered in childhood, few of which live under anything approaching
natural conditions, and none of which ever have a fighting chance in
nature. How many farmers or butchers die at work each year - of
starvation, cold, accident or at the mercy of their hunted beasts? Only
fishermen come anywhere near to the Native's closeness with nature.
Any attempts by outsiders to depreciate the importance and neccessity of
subsistence whaling rely purely on ethnocentric standpoints "Yes, but
they don't need whalemeat now they can import pork" or "the whale is
extremely intelligent, and should be protected". Who says they can eat
pork? The Jews can't (won't). The vegetarians and vegans can't (won't)
what gives these groups the right to choose, and not us. Personally I
don't go a bunch on whalemeat - it depends on how it's cooked, and with
whom i eat it - but I have a choice, and so do the Inupiat. I find it
harder to defend my eating factory beef than to understand Inupiat
subsistence hunting. That is why I keep my own sheep, and buy beef from
a friend who keeps and slaughters his own cattle. I'm not religious
about this, but I try to apply moral values to my larder - and I know
that the Inupiat people, despite their consumption of hershey bars and
beefburgers, apply their moral values in their kitchen.
As to the whale being intelligent - what does that mean - intelligent
for what? Compared with humans maybe - but so is the pig. In fact most
living organisms are just as intelligent as their biotope demands -
except those whose extinction was brought about by their unsuitability
for their environment. There are many marine organisms which are more
threatened with extinction than the whale, but many of these bethnic
sludge like creatures would have little appeal on a poster, sweatshirt
or badge for and environmental organisation. let's face it - we like
whales because they have been "sold" to us - by clever campaigning and a
worrying humanising process - but whales are not teddy-bears - they are
huge, majestic yet powerful creatures who are a ample match for their
hunters.
As to claims of cruelty about whaling - one must remember that the
Eskimos are expert hunters - a traditional quality which is reflected in
the regulations about whaling. They are not simply allowed to kill and
land a certain quota of whales - the International whaling commission
rules specify not whales landed, but strikes - actual hits with a
harpoon. The quota system means that the bad hunter, who hits and wounds
a whale, but does not land it, has used his quota. Nowehere in the world
is whaling more regulated, and more self-regulated than in Arctic
communities like the North Slope of Alaska.
Conclusion - it is not enough that we in the "developed" world merely
accept native lifestyles and subsistence activities - our industrial and
colonisational plundering of their world, our misguided
environmental-political interference in their world has wreaked untold
damage. We must put their cause on our political agenda - recognise
their sovereignty over their homelands, and establish cooperation in
trade, culture and politics on equal terms. We must redress the balance.
We must teach our children to respect indigenous peoples, and to learn
for us, from them, what we and our fathers have forgotten.
Maybe in 50, 100 years time, we will have enough understanding of their
world, to even begin discussing and debating their way of life with
them. Until then, we should assume a position of humility and
responsibility.
We forget that human beings are not a passive spectator to the natural
environment - we are part of that environment. The Inupiat Eskimos are
an integral part of the North Slope of Alaska and the North West Arctic
Region - they have survived not only by conquering and slaughtering the
whale, but by respecting, fearing and understanding the whale.
We may be able to teach then a thing or two about hydrocarbon geology
and truck manufacturing - but they are light years ahead of us on
environmental issues - and they have not done too badly in the oil
business either!
Adrian Redmond
Channel 6 Television Denmark is currently producing a four part
documentary television series about industrial development in Alaska
seen from the native perspective - the series - with the working title
"Native Experience" is commissioned by the Home Rule Government of
Greenland, and is under production on location in Alaska in the autumn
of 1998 and the spring of 1999, ready for release in English, Danish and
Inuit languages late in 1999. Adrian Redmond is
writer/director/cameraman for this production.
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