Year of the

CHARLES
W. MORGAN

Common Core State Standard: ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.4 • ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.5• ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.6 • ELA-Literacy.RI.5.1 • ELA-Literacy.RI.5.2 • ELA-Literacy.RI.5.3

The Changing Perceptions of Whales over Time Written by Amanda E. Schuff, Mystic Seaport Museum Educator
In our first four articles for the year of the Charles W. Morgan, we covered the history of the ship, explored the what, where, when, why, and how of whaling, and learned about who might have
sailed on wooden whalers like her. This article will give a bit of background on our evolving relationships with the huge, mysterious creatures upon whose backs an industry thrived. Just as
whaling methods have changed dramatically over hundreds of years, so have people’s feelings and knowledge of the whales themselves. A Yankee whaleman out to sea in 1850 would think
about whales very differently than you or I would today.

Human beings have been fascinated by whales since before written history began. Legends, myths, and origin stories involving cetaceans are found in many cultures around the world. For
example, Wampanoag Native Americans believed that a giant named Moshup would wade into the waters off of Martha’s Vineyard, grab a whale of his choosing, kill it against the nearby Aqui-
nnah Cliffs, broil it over a giant fire, and enjoy a whale steak for supper. (Blood from these slain whales is why the clay banks of the cliffs are a deep red color, according to this myth.) Whales
are mentioned in the Bible, most famously in the story of Jonah, who spent three days and nights in the belly of a whale - or fish, depending on the translation - but in other passages as well.
The 6th century Irish monk St. Brendan and his companions, according to legend, were searching for the Garden of Eden when they came upon a “bare, treeless black island” in the middle of
the Atlantic Ocean. The group made a camp, celebrated Easter and lit a fire, at which point the “island,” a whale called Jasconius, woke up and sank under the water to put out the fire on its
back! Thanks to tales like these, and our ancient ancestors’ limited, close-to-shore-only access to whales, cetaceans remained curiosities, monstrous Leviathans from the deep, for hundreds of
years.

As commercial whaling started to skyrocket in the 17th century, cultural attitudes about whales began to shift. Whalemen were now learning the whales’ preferred habitats, eating habits, and
getting up close and personal with them both inside and out. Whales began to lose some of their mystery, but remained powerful, imposing creatures. It was not uncommon for an inexpe-
rienced harpooneer to faint when the whaleboat slipped next to a 60 foot, 50 ton sperm whale for the first time and the realization that he was responsible for accurately spearing it hit him
with full force. Whalemen as a rule were extremely unsentimental about the whales that they hunted, slaughtered and processed, thinking of them as a source of blubber, baleen, and oil but
most of all profit. Cetaceans were a natural, God-given resource to be exploited; many whalers, particularly Quakers, went to sea with a with a religious zeal, believing it was their moral duty
to provide for their families and community in this way. Many veteran whalemen spoke of their pride in ultimately capturing what was known as a “fighting whale:” one (usually a sperm
whale) who took their small whaleboats on a Nantucket sleigh ride, struck back with its flukes or jaws, and perhaps even stove the boat. A whale which was capable of inflicting serious harm
or death on its hunters was a whale with spirit, a true challenge, one worthy of killing.

As the discovery of petroleum in 1859 sounded the slow but inevitable death knell for traditional wooden-boat whaling, newer technologies were developed which allowed the industry to
continue but proved even more disastrous to the whales. Huge new factory ships, bomb guns and lances, advanced whale spotting capabilities, explosive harpoons and other innovations
pushed many cetacean species towards the very brink of extinction. Even some hardened old Yankee whalemen were disturbed by the scale of the killing that these new innovations allowed:
by the 1930s, whaling fleets from around the globe were taking about 50,000 whales annually, compared to a rough estimate of 200,000 over the course of the entire 19th century. This was
not sustainable. Created in 1946, the International Whaling Commission was initially concerned with regulation of global whale populations, but has switched its focus towards conservation.
As more and more synthetics or alternatives to whale products were discovered in the 20th century (plastics for baleen, jojoba oil for sperm oil, etc.) and as serious scientific research began on
cetaceans, demand for whaling fell off dramatically. Coupled with new international laws and, especially, the rise of the environmental movement from the 1970s onwards, our modern aware-
ness of whales as intelligent, sophisticated, and threatened creatures is in stark contrast to perceptions of them 150 years ago. Thanks to organizations like Greenpeace, television shows like
Whale Wars, movies like Free Willy, documentary films like Blackfish, and countless other examples, today whale watching boats filled with tourists cruise around locations where whaleships
once relentlessly pursued these giant animals nearly to extinction. While ship strikes, still-small populations and the refusal of some countries to abide by the IWC anti-whaling moratorium
are problems whales continue to contend with (although Japan, the world’s most high-profile whaling nation, has recently agreed to halt its Antarctic whaling program), their future looks
better than it has in decades.

Look for our next article in June - “Sailing the Celestial Sea”

Did You Know

• According to a letter sent in to Natural History magazine in 1947, almost 60 years earlier, a young whaleman
named James Bartley had been thrown into the water as his whaleboat chased after a sperm whale, presumably
drowned. He was found the next day after the same whale had been killed and was being processed - inside the
whale’s stomach, unconscious but alive, skin bleached white by the whale’s digestive juices, and with vivid memo-
Connections Literature, Art & Music

• Take a look and listen along to this: http://educators.mysticseaport.org/

ries of sliding down its throat. Unsurprisingly, the letter was a fake; what is surprising is how many people believed
(some still do) this wild story.
• Australian inhabitants of whaling towns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries believed that sitting inside a
whale carcass, sometimes for over a day at a time, was a powerful treatment for rheumatism, a joint condition. This
has never been medically verified, probably because researchers were unwilling to immerse themselves up to their
necks in rotting whale blubber in the name of science.
• When the unmanned Voyager probes were launched into deep space in 1977,
both had aboard Golden Records records including greetings in many languages,
photographs, music - and whale songs.
• In the spring of 2013, India banned captive dolphin shows at aquariums and
marine parks throughout the country (India has a national aquatic animal, the
Ganges River dolphin). A government statement suggested that dolphins, close
cousins of whales, should be seen as “nonhuman persons,” have their own rights,
and that it is “morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment pur-
poses.” Animal rights activists applaud this decision.
documents/whale_show/. Though it seems incredible to us today that people
would come in droves to see a rotting animal carcass, in an age before the
Internet, this may be the only chance you had to see this “monster whale” for
yourself.
• Have someone describe an animal to you using only the basics (for exam-
ple: it swims, it’s big, it’s gray). The lesser-known or stranger the animal the
better. Draw the picture and then check it against the actual animal. How did
you do? Considering the fact that for centuries, artists who created images of
whales had probably not even seen one themselves, do the types of images
you see if you search for “medieval whales” make a bit more sense?
• In 1967, marine biologist Dr. Roger Payne and his colleagues discovered
that humpback whales sing to communicate with each other. When his record
Songs of the Humpback Whale was rereleased in an 1979 National Geo-
graphic issue about humpbacks, it became a sensation. Whale songs have a
haunting, soothing quality to them. Listen here. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=0WOjJIynHgM