WHALE HUNTING WITH GUN AND CAMERA 



brought the whale close in shore, a steel wire cable 

 was looped about the tail just in front of the flukes, 

 and the huge carcass drawn slowly upward over the 

 end of the wharf. 



As it rose the eager cutters attacked it savagely 

 with their long-bladed knives, slicing off enormous 

 blocks of flesh and blubber which were seized by "hook 

 men" almost before they fell, passed to the women, 

 and drawn to the back of the platform. 



Meanwhile two other cutters in a sampan were 

 at work dividing the carcass just in front of the dor- 

 sal fin. The entire posterior part of the whale was 

 then drawn upward and lowered on the wharf to be 

 stripped of blubber and flesh. Transverse incisions 

 were made in the portion of the body remaining in 

 the water, a hook was fastened to a "blanket piece," 

 and as the blubber was torn off by the winch the 

 carcass rolled over and over. The head, disjointed 

 at the neck, was hoisted bodily upon the pier. Sec- 

 tion by section the carcass was cut apart and drawn 

 upward to fall into the hands of the men on the wharf 

 and be sliced into great blocks two or three feet 

 square. 



The scene was one of "orderly confusion" men, 

 women and girls, laughing and chattering, running 

 here and there, sometimes stopping for a few words 

 of banter but each with his or her own work to do. 

 Above the babel of sounds, the strange, half wild, 

 meaningless chant, "Ya-ra-cu-ra-sa," rose and died 

 away, swelling again in a fierce chorus as the sweating, 

 half -naked men pulled and strained at a great jaw- 



82 



