8 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



Nor is this just an imaginary scene, something we have had to 

 concoct to explain how man first followed the whale. The details of 

 this picture are etched much more clearly and precisely than any- 

 thing our unaided imagination could devise, because not only can we 

 watch the very same process today on the islands of the Indian 

 Ocean and on many other coasts, but also we actually have contem- 

 porary pictures of this prehistoric enterprise. What is more, these 

 pictures are so vivid that they amount almost to written records and, 

 like hieroglyphs, show an astonishing wealth of detail, such as the 

 skin canoes, the barbed harpoons, the keen-pointed lances, and even 

 the species of quarry that was hunted. Just to complete the picture 

 for us, moreover, we have in our possession examples of these very 

 artifacts that were once used and of the bones of the actual whales 

 that were caught. The picture is living history. 



There are still porpoise fisheries native to many lands. In Den- 

 mark porpoises were killed to the number of three or four hundred 

 during April and May each year at Iseford in Zealand, as they en- 

 tered the Baltic, and again in the fall at Middlefart some thousand 

 were slain as they congregated to pass out of the Little Belt again, 

 to go to the North Sea for the winter. There was a large porpoise 

 fishery on the coast of Normandy in the tenth century, and in 979 

 A.D. King Ethelred II of England tried to encourage this by exempt- 

 ing the ships carrying the catch from the tonlieu tax when they 

 reached English ports. 



A curious porpoise industry grew up in the Bay of Fundy among 

 the Passamaquoddy Indians sometime during colonial days. It seems 

 to have stemmed from a much earlier and more primitive native 

 fishery, for it was entirely in Indian hands and was carried on in 

 canoes. Youths were specially trained for the profession and, while 

 it took them many years to become adept, experienced hunters killed 

 as many as a hundred and fifty porpoises in one year. The method 

 adopted was to shoot the animals with smooth-bored guns loaded 

 with a terrific charge of powder and heavy BB shot. Hunting was 

 carried on in all seasons and was a most precarious procedure, for 

 the hunter had to stand up in his flimsy canoe to shoot the animal, 

 regardless of the condition of the sea, and then had to paddle quickly 

 to it, spear it to death, and haul it into the canoe before it sank. 

 This is no mean accomplishment when the animal is six feet long and 



