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Slings and arrows in hunt for heritage
Indians celebrate, divide whale--catch protest, abuse
Wednesday, May 19, 1999
By MIKE BARBER and REBEKAH DENN
NEAH BAY -- Under an oyster-colored sky, the curious came down to the sea yesterday to take one last look at the whale that had brought about the biggest celebration in the recent history of this tiny Indian fishing village.
After a day of joy, song and prayer -- and more protests -- the Makah were at peace yesterday, enjoying the return of their whaling heritage after more than 70 years.
After a night of stripping the meat and blubber off the 30-foot female whale, all that remained of the 30-ton animal was its carcass. Even its powerful smell was not enough to keep people away.
"That's a big fish, hmmm? Can you say fish?" fisherman Steve Johnson murmured to his 22-month-old son, Xavier. The boy toddled over and grasped the whale's tail, making his father smile.
"I just wanted him to touch it . . . the first whale that we got," Johnson said.
It was the first whale, but tribal members say not the last.
Families throughout the tribe worked together to form the first whaling crew, but now individual families plan to start up separate whaling crews.
Whaling captain Wayne Johnson said at least three families, including his own, already are interested in organizing a hunt. The timing would depend on how quickly the first whale is consumed, he said, but he wanted a crew to start to practice within 10 days.
Whaling protesters vowed to return.
The Makah -- the only tribe in the continental United States with whaling rights in their 1855 treaty -- may kill as many as 20 gray whales through 2002.
Whaler Donnie Swan said he knows he'll whale-hunt again. Yesterday, though, he was happy just to sleep in after weeks of waking before dawn to paddle out to sea in the tribe's canoe.
Swan said he was thrilled to find the tribe's children grabbing chunks of muktuk, or whale blubber, from his hands as fast as he could cut it Monday night.
"All the little guys were saying, 'Cut me off a piece,'" he said. "It was just awesome, hearing them say that."
It tasted like clam chewing gum, though some said it was "nutty" or "bland." Others spit out their samples.
Tribal members, supervised by an Alaska native, finished butchering the whale about 3 a.m. yesterday. The tribe awarded the man an eagle feather for his work. Moved, he placed it inside his shirt, by his heart.
The whale's skeleton was towed into the bay late yesterday and sunk in a cargo net. It will be hauled up after crabs and other creatures pick the bones clean. It will then be reassembled for the Makah Museum.
The families who received cuts of meat were planning how to prepare it yesterday.
Tribal member Richard Butler said he might smoke the 5 to 10 pounds he received. Swan said his family's cut was soaking in water, which "gets the wild taste out of it."
Most of the blocks of meat, though, were loaded into community freezers and refrigerators, Swan said. They were taken to a plant on the reservation, where 17 women and 11 men are using rendering machines, meat slicers and other equipment on the blubber and meat. Some crew members, meanwhile, have asked for pieces of the heart.
Wayne Johnson said he didn't think adding whale to the tribe's diet would be a big deal. "We've been eating it for thousands of years," he said. Depending on its purity after rendering, the whale oil could be used for everything from lubricating machinery to fueling stoves to garnishing food, he said.
Neah Bay High School teacher Maureen Winn, who watched the whale being gutted on the beach yesterday, said she was gathering recipes and planned to add whale meat to her home economics course to integrate it into the Makah diet.
Whale meat is already on the menu for a potlatch Saturday, when 2,000 to 5,000 Indians from as far as New Mexico, Alaska and Canada will celebrate the hunt as a victory for treaty rights, said Tribal Council Chairman Ben Johnson Jr.
Tribal elder Helma Ward, 88, who preserved many Makah whaling traditions and songs in her mind during the decades the tribe did not hunt, said, "I'm glad I lived to see this."
On the beach yesterday afternoon, next to the whale bones was the hand-carved Hummingbird canoe used to hunt the animal. The canoe attracted visitors, who touched it and climbed inside.
Tourists Louise and Brian Pearce from New Zealand happened to motor their yacht into Neah Bay yesterday.
"I wished we had been here the day before," said Brian Pearce, a rancher. "We'd heard about it. I think it's all a lot of hassle over nothing. There are thousands of gray whales out there. Good luck to the Makahs."
Butler asked children flocking over the canoe to photograph him and his son, Wayne, sitting inside. Wayne Butler, who lives in Portland, cut short a vacation and drove nine hours to Neah Bay to see the whale.
"It's a first in my lifetime," he said.
"Mine, too," his father added.
Children who poured onto the beach yesterday after hearing of the hunt's success said yesterday they hoped that May 17 would become a Makah holiday. The carcass fascinated them.
"I took a bite out of the rib. It was chewy," said Leon Sawyer, 12. He and buddy Blake Hill, 14, said they'd like to be whalers.
Rosanna Ward, 16, said, "There are a lot of kids who look up to basketball players and movies stars and singers, but they never get a chance to see those kind of people here. To a lot of kids around here who want to get a chance to see the whalers, they look like heroes."
Tribal leaders, meanwhile, fielded messages calling them "murderers," death threats and other "abuse" because of the hunt, Ben Johnson Jr. said yesterday.
The tribe rejects such insults, Johnson said. "We have a culture, and we live by it."
P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or michaelbarber@seattle-pi.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS 
A Makah police officer slings rocks to keep dogs along Neah Bay away from the carcass of the whale hunted and butchered by the Makah yesterday. Grant M. Haller/P-I
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