35 o DISCOVERY REPORTS 



August, there is held each year the whalemen's own festival, the Festa dos baleieros, when the whaleboats 

 are blessed (Plate XV III). On this day the boats from Capelo and Salao come down in strength to Porto 

 Pirn, where they are beached in line upon the sandy shore to the isthmus which leads to Monte da Guia. 

 The crews wear their best clothes of black serge, and each boat is dressed with flags ; the line-tubs are 

 uncovered and the line taken to the loggerhead, and the first and second irons and a lance are set ready 

 at the prow. The dedicatory service takes place on the high top of Monte da Guia, in the little church 

 whose vestry is a whale look-out. For the rest of the year no other service is celebrated there. After 

 the service, the image of the Virgin and Child is borne from the church down the long winding road 

 to the isthmus. The whalemen of the Porto Pirn factor)' have earlier strewn flowers and set up arches 

 of green boughs to make the road into a processional way, and there are a brass band and rockets and 

 fire crackers. Arrived at the beach, the priest visits each boat in turn. The bearers rest the image 

 athwartships, forward of the loggerhead, and looking out to sea. From the after-tub the harponeer 

 takes a bight of line and doubles it, to make a length which he passes round the saint and loosely ties, 

 whilst the line remains snubbed at the loggerhead. When the blessing is over, the image is carried to 

 the next boat. In this symbolic way the Sperm whalemen make once a year a holy capture and ask 

 a blessing on themselves, that they may catch whales yet be protected from the hazards of the chase. 



WHALING IN MADEIRA 



Madeira lies some 500 miles south-east of the Eastern Azores and at about two-thirds of the distance 

 between that group and the Canary Islands (Fig. 1). In the days of the whaleships a certain amount 

 of Sperm whaling was carried on in summer around Madeira and was mostly to the north of the island, 

 according to the charts of whaleship catches published by Townsend (1935). But I have heard of no 

 shore whaling business there until 1941 when the increased demand for sperm oil and the restriction 

 of southern whaling combined to bring the Azores industry a new prosperity and gave the incentive 

 for extending the open boat venture to Madeira. One might suppose that any shore whaling anywhere 

 starting anew in modern times would inevitably employ steam whaling methods. But Madeira could 

 replicate the Azores in the coast-frequenting Sperm whales, in the high cliffs suitable for look-outs, 

 and in her island stock of hardy fisherman and boatmen. Here was everything needful to an open boat 

 industry, which, in time of warfare and scarcity, could dispense with the special personnel of modern 

 whaling and could be started economically at a fraction of the capital outlay required for steam whale- 

 catchers and factory plant. 



In Madeira as in the Azores the whaleboats take only Sperm whales. Table 9 gives the statistics 

 of the industry for 1941 to 1949. The catch of whales per whaleboat is substantially more than the 

 catch per whaleboat calculated from Table 10 for the same period, around most islands in the Azores, 

 but this may be because weather conditions are better at Madeira rather than because whales are more 

 plentiful there. 



Whaling in the island is virtually a replica of the parent methods employed in the Azores, and I 

 imagine that in 1941 Azores whalemen were sent to train the Madeirans in their adventurous trade. 

 Prior to this time the Madeirans themselves had a meagre whaling tradition, for they seem not to be 

 mentioned in the old voyages, and there is only a single record by Clark (1887, p. 56) noting that the 

 Azorean whaling settlement of Cojo Viejo, California, included two or three Madeirans. 



I have not myself visited Madeira and I am mostly indebted for the following brief notes to 

 Figueiredo's monograph (1946, pp. 89 and 141 ff.) and to Senhor Tomas Alberto de Azevedo of Fayal 

 who undertook a whaling mission to Madeira a few years ago. There may be recent changes of which 

 I am not aware. 



