[Marxism] Human and Animal Liberation Alliance Politics

[Jay Andrew Allen]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:

>
>
> So how do the Makah hunt whales?  According to their 2,000 year
> "tradition" and "culture,"
> or with powered boats and powered harpoons?
>

Actually, a combination. Today's Makah use modern weapons to make the hunt
more humane.

http://www.cnie.org/NAE/cases/makah/m2.html

"When a gray whale is spotted, nine men will set out after it in a 32 foot
canoe. A high speed chase boat will follow them to pursue an injured whale
if it escapes, and a support boat will assist in the event of an emergency.
The canoe crew has undergone intense periods of training, collectively by
rowing out to sea as far as twenty miles, past sight of land, and
individually by undertaking the spiritual preparations known and handed down
within each member's family (at the annual Makah Days celebration when canoe
races are held, the crew outdistanced their rivals by half a mile). The crew
will approach the whale from the left and strike it with a harpoon, then
immediately shoot it with a retrofitted, Word War I anti-tank rifle. This
high-powered weapon (twice the power of an elephant gun) was designed by the
Makah Tribe to kill the whale humanely. Gray whales are known to be fierce
fighters when wounded (adult grays are forty feet long and weigh forty
tons). Once the whale has been killed, a man must dive into the water and
sew the whale's mouth shut so it does not sink, then the vessels will tow
the whale to a place where it can be ritually butchered and distributed to
individual families, who will either freeze it or preserve it with
smokehouse equipment around the
reservation.[7]<http://www.cnie.org/NAE/cases/makah/me.html#7>
"

-J-

-- 
Jay Andrew Allen
http://www.jayandrewallen.net/blog/ - Out-Loud Brainwaves

"In any case, the revolution will be drowned in the ballot boxes - which is
not surprising, since they were made for that purpose." - Jean-Paul Sartre