A PACIFIC ESKIMO INVENTION IN WHALE HUNTING IN HISTORIC TIMES

A PACIFIC ESKIMO INVENTION IN WHALE HUNTING IN HISTORIC TIMES By ROBERT F. HEIZER HILE recently engaged in a world-wide study of aboriginal whale hunt­ ing, I was struck by the many similarities in techniques between this form of sea hunting and certain forms of land animal hunting. This plainly indicated that there had been transfers in technique from one to the other, though the direction of flow was not always clearly ascertainable. The technique of gallying or confusing the whale with loud noises is reminiscent of the land hunting method of driving game with noise. In this case the preponderant use of noise as a device of land hunters indicates pretty clearly its secondary adop· tion by whale hunters. There are numerous other examples-use of property marks on weapon points, employment of poisoned weapons, division of the animal carcass, ceremonial preparations by the hunters, ceremonial treatment of the body of the slain animal, etc., all of which are shared by certain sea and land hunters. Aside from possible substratum hunting traits shared by most hunting groups, it seems probable that many hunting methods are ascribable to adaptive diffusion, where a group learns the method and reapplies it in terms of hunting a different animal. I propose to show here the Aleutian Eski­ mos invented, by a simple transfer process, a new and different method of whale hunting patterned after the technique of hunting sea otter. As is well known, the Russians broughtto the California coast, in the first half of the nineteenth century, great numbers of Aleut and Koniag hunters who were skilled in the technique of securing the valuable sea otter. l This hunt was performed by men in a number of baidarkas (two-hatch skin boats) surrounding a single otter. The hunters then cast, with spearthrowers, short bone-pointed darts each of which had a line to which was attached at the end an inflated bladder buoy or float. 2 The standard Aleutian whale hunt was quite differently conducted. Either one man in a kayak, or two men in a baidarka (the man in the rear hatch was the oarsman, the man in the front hatch was the hunter who was entitled to cast the lance) went out to meet the whale in the open bay (PI. lA).3 Silently approaching the surfaced whale, the hunter cast his lance which was tipped with a detachable, barbed, poisoned, ground slate point. The lance penetrated past the thick blubber layer and the point imbedded itself in the flesh of the 1 The Russians in California (Special Publication No.7, California Historical Society, 1937), pp.29-51. I In default of a better illustration, I reproduce a sea otter hunt as depicted by an Aleut artist on a hunting hat (PI. IB). This comes from L. Choris, Voyage Pittoresque Autour du Monde (Paris, 1822), PI. V, pp. 21-22. For descriptions of Aleutian sea-'otter hunting methods in California dur­ ing the Russian period see The Russians in California (op. cit.), p. 30 and fn. 3. a Usually a second boat accompanied the first to rescue the hunter and his assistant if, after the lance throwing, the wounded whale struck and damaged the other boat. W