Those are some amazing Native American warrior skills. It must take generations of ancient lore and learning, tribal wisdom and manly virtues to be able to kill a whale -- with a .50 caliber machine gun.
Members of the Makah tribe are allowed to hunt California gray whales for cultural purposes. But as the man with the National Marine Fisheries said, the recent machine gunning and harpooning of this whale off Washington State, apparently by tribal members, "does not appear to be of that nature. "
Still, don't be surprised if someone trots out a cultural defense argument, along the lines that if machine guns had been around 200 years ago, the Makah would have killed whales with them, so why not now?
People have tried to mount a sort of cultural defense for Michael Vick's repugnant hobby, as if torturing and killing dogs has some anthropological value. Whoopi Goldberg recently came to Vick's defense, claiming that where he comes from -- the South -- "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country."
That sounds especially creepy when you recall that about 150 years ago, the same part of the country -- the South -- was passionately defending its right to its own "peculiar institution" ... that little cultural quirk known as slavery.
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They are allowed to take a certain number for their survival how they kill it makes no difference to me. Hate to see that one die and they take another one so the species loses one extra.
No, its worse than that, Patt. Its like that little cultural quirk known as the KKK and lynching.
We should not be surprised this happened, though, we have seen much the same locally with the guy who stabbed a sea lion for stealing his bait, or the people killing the large sea birds. The fact that there are nine guns for every ten Americans in inventory in this country, and we have a current culture where it seems our youth are forgetting how to read in place of listening to their iPods, and watching violent and demeaning music videos, and seeing violence glorified on TV and in the movies, and seeing our president dispatch our youth to Iraq to wage an illegitimate war and cause the destruction of Iraqi society, are all what have caused some fools among Native Americans to machine gun a whale.
I don't know about you, but I didn't: shoot buffalo, commit genocide, chop down forests (beyond clearing some sumac trees at my parents house), do anything but fight against infectious disease (my current job).
I'd be surprised if you did either.
If you want to gag yourself because of what people who aren't you and who you had no control did something, so be it. I think the rest of us prefer to be a bit more responsive.
But let’s assume for the sake of argument that you are culpable. In fact, let's assume your full time occupation is bombing Native American holy sites and casinos, and you save only Sundays and holidays for clubbing baby seals. Should you be barred from speaking up if you see even a Native American mugging an old lady? Driving drunk? Littering?
Of course not. Your grotesque behavior should be criticized and punished on its merits, as should anyone else's. You would certainly be a hypocrite if your criticism extended to sanctimonious judgments of the person, but even hypocrites have the right, arguably the responsibility, to call out objectionable behavior when they see it.
Of course these people (natives) had regional differences, conflicts and battles. They were not perfect....but they had an amazing ability to live WITH nature and to love it. Their religion was based on a love of the earth and its creatures and plants.
WE have messed this continent up and destroyed their way of life.
It makes me very sad when natives embrace the greed and lack of respect for nature that our society embraces.
So yes this shooting of the whale has nothing to do with cultural rights or tradition. These natives are using the white mans tool of lies and rationalization to justify a greedy act.
There was so much we could have learned from natives, but sadly they learn from us too.
As far as I know there has never been a tribe or a nation of people that have not known war and killing.
This was a tragedy beyond measure to destroy such a beautiful animal whose brain is larger than a human.
Just does not make sense, surely another source of food can be found without the destruction of these magnificent endangered animals before they are forced by nature to change their customs.
Talking about rationalizaion....
Upon reading the article from seattlepi.com you would think that there are two separate incidents being confused here.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/330946_whale08.html?source=mypi
I refer to the comment by WilliePilgrim here for an insightful comment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/09/california-gray-whale-sho_n_63663.html?load=1&page=2#comments
I'd like to hear if anyone has the truth of this. Doesn't make much difference to the whale I suppose but I wonder how accurate the reporting has been.
I'm curious what this site's resident pro-native american individuals think of this.