#whales and people

[fatehbaz]

On 22 September 1773, the Leviathan, a whaling vessel from Newport, Rhode Island, entered the port of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The Leviathan was captained by [T.L.] and had been chasing sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in the Atlantic since January that year. By September the ship had lost one of its whaling boats and was short on provisions, so was forced to land in Rio to resupply.

This accidental landing would give rise to a whole new whaling industry in Brazil.

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Brazil was a Portuguese colony where a coastal [...] whaling style had developed over two centuries as a crown monopoly (1614–1801). Whales were captured at sea under contract from Portuguese administrators, while most of the hard labor was performed by African slaves. The main targets were the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) and the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).

In the mid-eighteenth century there was much talk amongst the whalers of another species, one that provided two extremely valuable substances: spermaceti and ambergris. Unknown to the Portuguese whalers, the source of these substances was the sperm whale, a species [...] inhabiting the open sea. It is the largest species of toothed whale (order Odontoceti) in the world, [...] weighing up to 57 tonnes [...]. They can dive to a depth of up to three thousand meters while hunting squid [...]. The spermaceti [...] [is] found in their [...] head [...]. Ambergris is a hard substance produced in the stomach and is thought to ease irritation caused by the mandibles of the cephalopods they feed on. Spermaceti was mainly used in the production of candles and as lamp fuel. Ambergris was used to make fine perfumes and was a component of medicines prescribed to treat headaches and cardiac issues, among other ailments.

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In 1765 Portuguese whaling contractors sent two French whaling experts to discover if spermaceti and ambergris could be sourced from Brazilian whales. They visited one whaling station after another over the course of three years, inspecting dead whales, but they did not find the fated substances. [...] [T]he administrators [...] believed that "God is not served that in our seas of America appear more than three types of whales, without any being those that provide the drugs." [...] The accidental landing of the Leviathan in Rio changed that, as the locals quickly realized the ship was engaged in a new type of whaling, one that demanded novel methods and expertise [...].

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Soon the foreign crew joined the local whalers; a ship was ordered to be equipped identically to the Leviathan, with borrowed spears, harpoons, and hooks so the Portuguese could copy the North American whaling methods. The new ship departed in October 1773 and returned three months later, having caught six sperm whales. Due to the success of this voyage, [the Leviathan's captain, T.L.] and his crew were employed to teach the Portuguese everything they knew [...]; in exchange they were paid a share of the proceeds from each whale caught. During a second voyage that took place from February to March 1774, nine sperm whales were caught around 1,200 km off the coast of Rio [...] [with] innovation[s] borrowed from the Rhode Island whalers.

Facing economic and environmental changes, and by sheer chance, the Portuguese crown and whaling administrators changed target species [...]. From October 1773 to June 1777, 30 whaling voyages were conducted and a total of 186 sperm whales were captured by the Portuguese off the coast of Brazil. At the same time, the presence of North American and British whalers in the South Atlantic increased, and whaling grounds were explored further offshore, along the entire Atlantic coast of South America and beyond. Portuguese involvement in sperm-whale hunting ended in 1777 because the whaling contractors amassed unsustainable debts and the industry was taken over by larger vessels from other nations. The accidental arrival of the Leviathan [...] sparked a new industry in Brazil and contributed to the inexorable decline of the other leviathans in this story, the sperm whales. The exploitation of whales in Brazil was facilitated by the transfer of knowledge first from [Europe] [...], then from North America [...].

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All text above by: Nina Vieira, Patrick Hayes, and Al Matthews. "Facing Changes, Changing Targets: Sperm-Whale Hunting in Late Eighteenth-Century Brazil". Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (Autumn 2019), no. 44. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. doi dot org/10.5282/rcc/8789 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[cabbagegunk]

I personally think that all whale sharks should be put on Mickey’s Dick Smasher.

WHAT!!!! they are such gentile creatures why would you say thst…

[hoshizoralone]

useless lesbian and her beloved children

[plaguedocboi]

I still think about the time months ago I was advertised a book that was being marketed as a “queer horror retelling of Moby Dick” like. Girl. I don’t think you have any business “retelling” a story if you clearly don’t even know what the original story was about.

[sashayed]

i'm finally reading moby dick and there's a lot i didn't know about it such as that the first several dozen chapters are very funny! to me ol Call Me Ishmael has a kind of "what if bertie wooster were 1. american 2. competent" narrative vibe, although admittedly i am what one professor once called an "idiosyncratic" reader, meaning u should not trust anything i say. anyway the book i THOUGHT "moby dick" was going to be doesn't start until captain ahab finally stumps upstairs in chapter 36 and then boy does it ever, because he has I Am In A Tragedy disease and it is contagious and now everyone who was normal two pages ago is monologuing ominously in the dead of night. did you guys know herman melville is a very good writer? have you heard about this? he really knows that if you encounter someone who has you doing soliloquies you should Leave. if you encounter that person while you are on a boat in the middle of the 19th century ocean you are fucked for sure. poor starbuck is out here like "i really would prefer to be in a story about doing my Fucking Job"

[theslimeologist]

Its viscerally upsetting that our preferences are apparently respected but we’re all automatically opted in for tumblr’s AI 3rd party “partners” to supposedly scrape our posts and content? L O L

BLOG SETTINGS -> VISIBILITY -> ENABLE “PREVENT 3RD PARTY SHARING”

If you’re on mobile *you must first update the tumblr app*

THIS MUST BE DONE FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL PUBLIC BLOG YOU HAVE

[spocks-kaathyra]

Spock looking for whales at the Cetacean Institute!

[greencarnation]

eleven is fascinating to me because he came right off the back of tens horrible traumatic breakdown after he lost everything and he immediately tried to establish himself as the opposite of that. he is funny and goofy and almost childlike, and he bulldozes on in his adventures with amy like nothing happened at all. but then something happens and his masks slips and it's like oh! the core of this man is still anger. he is so so angry all of the time and this façade is the only thing stopping him from being consumed by it. he isn't over any of it and he hasn't moved on. he is wearing a fez and laughing but under that all that exists is age old anger and grief and it is going to consume him

[heartnosekid]

a whale shark stimboard for anon!

🐋-🦈-🐋 / 🦈-🐋-🦈 / 🐋-🦈-🐋

[he-said-irene]

Thinking about all the things people say Moby Dick is about and the time I went to a poetry reading at my library and an older man read an (appropriately really long) poem about marathon reading Moby Dick in like 2 days in college for an assignment. It was really neat because he drew a lot of connections to things that never would have occurred to me to say that Moby Dick was “about” - the Vietnam war, civil rights, other things that happened to his friends or himself that were completely foreign experiences to me, but my immediate thought was “This guy GETS it.” Because Moby Dick is, first and foremost, about whatever happens to be going on in your life at the time when you read it. After that it’s about grief.

[enbyandyy]

from grians new video

"I think it says something about my audience that they're willing to watch me mine out two million stone while reading about a giant whale [...] They're having fun" - Joe hills

as someone who regularly falls asleep to Joe mining and reading that made me laugh so hard and I'm not entirely sure why

[kaelma]

Reading the phrase "Call me Ishmael" after having finished the book only a couple months ago and knowing what's to come, watching this man choose whaling over suicide hits differently. He's going to lose everything. And yet he survives and he records his story, and I just wonder if he again chooses to go to sea after his ordeal or if pouring his psyche onto the page was enough.

[gallusrostromegalus]

...God Help Me.

[sufferu]

Admittedly one of the reasons Subaru is trapped in his jar in my fic is because, if he wasn’t, the entire fic would very quickly devolve into hyper-indulgent “Subaru gets repeatedly smothered by cuddles” fluffy nonsense.

[bizarrelittlemew]

favorite quotes from this interview with writer Jes Tom (wrote S2E7 with Natalie Torres)