146 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



to a rope, which they make great and strong of the barke of trees, which they veare out after 

 him; then all their boats come about him, and as he riseth aboue water, with their arrowes 

 they shoot him to death; when they haue killed him & dragged him to shore, they call all their 

 chiefe lords together, & sing a song of joy: and those chiefe lords, whom they call Sagamos, 

 divide the spoile, and giue to euery man a share, which pieces so distributed they hang vp about 

 their houses for prouision : and when they boile them, they blow off the fat, and put to their 

 peaze, maiz, and other pulse, which they eat." The species of whale thus killed by the Indians 

 is not indicated, but it is unlikely that they could attempt the capture of any but Right Whales, 

 which were the least difficult to overcome. Doubtless a log of wood was fastened as a drag 

 to the rope which the Indians "veared out" on striking the whale. 



An absurd relation by Joseph de Acosta, in 1590, of a supposed method of capturing whales 

 by the Indians of Florida, gained currency, and long was quoted in the old works on natural 

 history, to the effect that the Indian approached the sleeping whale in his canoe and drove a 

 wooden stake into each of its nostrils, after which he continued to bestride his quarry till its 

 struggles ceased, and then towed it ashore. A cleverly executed engraving illustrative of this 

 strange story was published in the same year by Theodore de Brie in his Collectiones Pere- 

 grinationum in Indiana Orientalem et Occidentalem (Frankfurt am Main, 1590). The figures 

 appear to represent Right Whales. 



Early Whaling at Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bay. When the historic Mayflower 

 rounded Cape Cod into Massachusetts Bay, she carried on board a "master and his mate, 

 and others, experienced in fishing" who greatly regretted their lack of proper tackle for the 

 taking of the whales that daily came about their ship. Bradford's Journal informs us that 

 these people intended the following year to "fish for whale here," but with what success we 

 are not informed, if indeed the project was carried out at that time. That the whales were then 

 (December, 1620) common and that their value was appreciated by our forefathers, is further 

 shown in Bradford's remark that "we saw daily great whales [at Cape Cod], of the best kind for 

 oil and bone, come close aboard our ship, and, in fair weather, swim and play about us." Evi- 

 dently these were Right Whales, since the quality of their oil and 'bone' was well known to 

 the seamen. The narrator adds: "There was once one, when the sun shone warm, came and 

 lay above water, as if she had been dead, for a good while together, within half a musket shot 

 of the ship; at which two were prepared to shoot, to see whether she would stir or no. He 

 that gave fire first, his musket flew in pieces, both stock and barrel; yet, thanks be to God, 

 neither he nor any man else was hurt with it, though many were there about. But when the 

 whale saw her time, she gave a snuff, and away." 1 So ended the first attempt of the Pilgrims 

 to capture whales in New England. 



In 1629, Higgeson, "a Reverend Divine," mentions in his account of the "commodities" 



1 Young, Alexander. Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1844, p. 146. 



