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The
process of stripping the blubber off a humpback whale
at Petit Nevis, near Bequia, is illustrated here in
a recent watercolor by Wren Bynoe (b. 1950), the “Bequia
artist”.
Until
only a few years ago, humpback whaling and especially
whale-processing were important community activities
among the people of Bequia, in the Leeward Islands.
Ships
en route to the whaling grounds from New England
often called at the West Indies, Azores, or Cape Verdes
Islands to recruit hands.
Returning
with their vessels to Yankee ports at voyage end,
many of these men made repeated cruises on American
whalers.
Some
eventually returned to their island homes, but many
stayed in New England, or followed the whale fishery
to California, sending for their families to join
them.
Especially
in southeastern New England and the San Francisco
Bay area, communities descended from these Atlantic
island immigrants still flourish.
In
the islands themselves, this regular contact with
Yankee whalers -- and native-born whalemen returning
to their homelands as experienced whale-hunters --
gave rise to local whaling based on American prototypes.
In
the Azores, sperm whales were hunted in modified seven-man
whaleboats; and in Bequia, in the West Indies, a humpback
whale fishery was prosecuted in Yankee-style six-man
boats.
In
both cases, the adaptations of American technology to
shore whaling are the significant features; and both
fisheries persisted into the late 1980s. Lookouts were
stationed on hilltops, rather than at mastheads; whaleboats
were launched from beaches, rather than from shipboard;
and whales were cut-in and tryed-out ashore. |
