The Makah tribe on the coast of Washington is attempting to get permission to hunt whales again next spring and the wailing (pun intended) and gnashing of teeth has begun from environmentalists.
I am in full support of letting these guys go out on the open water and try their hand at bagging themselves a big smelly sea mammal, and not just because it pisses off the earthfirsters, but because there is evidence coming out that we might just have a local over-population of whales.
I like to call it ‘Thinning the Pod’.
I also like the idea because it forces the aboriginal worshipping left to remember that “indians� weren’t the peace-loving little forest pixies that they would like to portray them as. The natives of the North American continent, as every person who doesn’t hate the westward expansion of paleface knows, conducted wars against other tribes, committing murder, rape and arson along with engaging in cannibalism and conducting a slave trade.
They also hunted for no good reason other than they wanted to kill something. Such is the case of this whale hunt today and the whale hunts of this tribe in history. They didn’t hunt whales for food, it was a ‘manhood ritual’.
Now, those opposed to this hunt will try and tell you otherwise if you bring it up, but they’re either ignorant or lying since the Makah’s own website says differently.
Whales gave oil, meat, bone, sinew and gut for storage containers: useful products, though gained at a high cost in time and goods. Only families already wealthy could afford such outlay. Only such outlay rewarded with the highest possible prestige.
Who’s got the biggest stack of chips and brass gonads was the intent of the whale hunt. The Makah were fat on salmon and vension to the point that the first white settlers to the area were amazed at their lifestyle.
The one point I would conceed to the anti-whale hunt types is that the modern day hunters have a few new tools that their ancestors didn’t. Things like boats with internal combustion engines, waterproof/thermal clothing and a .50 caliber rifle.
Yep, the Makah are out shooting Grey Whales with a Barrett 50.
This piece of equipment was actually OK’d by the enviro-weenies because the thought of the hunters killing a whale with 20-25 spears sounded too grisly.
I’ll try to stay up on this for y’all, but I suspect that if the tribe is successful, it will be national news again and you won’t need me to watch it.
What the Kid didn’t tell you was the Rest of the Story.
That would be the huge amount of resources that are consumed just so the whale hunt can proceed.
First, the tribe sallies forth from their tribal port at La Push in a native American road vehicle and drives to Seattle to file for the hunt. Shortly after that, GreenPeace or whatever other enviro outfit wants to oppose it sallies forth (probably by bicycle) to the DNR and files for a hearing. The hearings are held, and the enviros lose, because the “First Citizens” ALWAYS have the ABSOLUTE right to take such aquatic (and land) species that they want to, for cultural and subsistence purposes, IN PERPETUITY, according the Treaty of 1855, which the Great White Father signed with them at the conclusion of an early Indian War.
Then the enviros change their bicycles for Benzes, and sally forth to the Federal Court to challenge the Whale Hunt under Federal and International law. They lose again, refer to the treaty rights above. The International Law thing doesn’t apply, because the Makah only hunt within the 12-mile limit, which are territorial waters of the US of A, so international no-whaling treaties don’t apply. They don’t apply anywhere else either, apparently, since Japan and South Korea take lots of whales and put them in cans. But I digress.
So, their legal challenges rebuffed, the enviros sally forth in boats of every motley discription to Neah Bay, the port just around the cape from La Push, and they spy on La Push from the sea. When they observe the Makah whaling umiak put out (or get towed out by a motorized craft as the Kid pointed out above), they zoom in with their Zodiacs and try to scare off the whales and generally interfere with the hunt.
All this creats considerable hazard to seafarers, in both the Makah and enviro boats, and in any craft which happens along (this whole thing occurs in the sea lane between Seattle and points south along the coast, so there’s considerable shipping, fishing trawler and even yacht traffic). This brings out the Coast Guard from Neah Bay.
Now the Coasties would rather be doing something else, such as inspecting inbound Al-Qaeda ships bound for Seattle berths, but they have to get in the middle between the enviros and the Makah.
I haven’t mentioned dollars, because I don’t think anyone ever added it up, but this has to cost the US taxpaying drone millions.
Because of one whale.
Because of one political philosophy by the Greenies that says that mankind may do nothing to any part of the “environment” that they, the self-appointed stewards of said environment say we can’t.
A pox on both their houses.
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