Half -Light over Warm Seas 117 



two parts with a collar, or sleeve, of bark at the hinder end of the 

 front part into which the tapering end of the back portion was in- 

 serted. The whole was eighteen feet long. The Hne from the har- 

 poon was attached to a float made of sealskin, very neatly sewn up 

 with the fur left inside, and completely watertight. This was blown 

 up with air and was extremely buoyant, so that when about thirty 

 floats were attached to even the largest whale, the animal simply 

 could no longer sound. When a harpoon was driven into a whale 

 and it took, the shaft was either pulled out or fell out and floated, 

 to be picked up by the owner in his canoe. He then inserted it in 

 another harpoon head and went after the quarry again. Finally, 

 the floats were caught and joined together by stout ropes made from 

 spruce roots roasted in hot ashes, then split into fibers, and finally 

 twisted into long lines. 



Lookouts were posted on shore at all times to watch for the 

 whales, and when a school was sighted, the whole able-bodied male 

 population went to sea in large bark or skin canoes, each carrying 

 a specialist harpooner, a steersman, and six paddlers. When a whale 

 had been grappled, it was lanced to death by any and all means 

 possible, and then was towed to shore at the village beach. The 

 whole community then attacked it with knives. The blubber was 

 cut into blocks about two feet square for hauling above tide level, 

 where it was then cut into smaller pieces by the women and ren- 

 dered in large earthenware pots, the oil being skimmed off with large 

 clam shells. The fibrous residue was then smoked. It was tough, but 

 had a flavor not unlike that of bacon. 



Here we see a living demonstration of prehistoric whaling tech- 

 niques, and when we come to examine the tools and other devices 

 employed, we suddenly find that the seeming impossibility of the 

 business has been dissipated. I shall always remember the first time 

 I cut a tree down with a stone axe made in neolithic times, but set 

 into a modern ash haft in the manner devised by prehistoric people. 

 To my amazement and that of a. man with me who wielded an axe 

 professionally made of the best modern steel, my seemingly blunt 

 instrument could almost keep up with his powerful and rhythmical 

 swings. What is more, it made an astonishingly clean cut. 



Certain aspects of this primitive whaling are, however, even more 

 sig-nificant — notably the number of men in each canoe, the im- 



