October 31: Waiting for Buddy
Big-city mayors, who have a homeless problem, could take a hint from the Makah whalers—who have a resident problem. For a month, the Makahs have said they're ready and raring to go kill a whale, if only they could find one that's not protected as a "resident." They've agreed with federal fisheries officials to spare the whales hanging around the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and to take only "migratory" whales snowbirding down the Pacific Coast from Alaska to their Baja love lagoons. In October, any whale in the area is presumed resident unless proven otherwise, and everyone except the impatient Makahs seems to agree that the transients don't show until November or December.
Worse yet, the self-appointed whale guardians of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, floating offshore in two pirate-flagged ships, have done what no one thought to do before: They've given the resident whales names, including the inspired "Buddy." How can you kill a "Buddy" when the whole world is watching?
Easily, the whaling advocates reply; just wait until November 1. That's when the presumption of residency evaporates and the Makahs get to decide which whales are migrants eligible for hunting. They say it's a simple call: Today a resident, tomor- row a transient. (Wouldn't the cities love to declare their homeless Buddies instant "residents"?)
A month ago the Seattle Post-Intelligencer declared, "Day of Reckoning at Hand for Whale Hunt." Now, tomorrow, hunting season really starts. Really.
The protesters, who've been patrolling offshore in some 20 boats, blasting humpback whale songs over their loudspeakers (gray whales don't provide such compelling soundtracks), now escalate. They drive a small caravan onto the reservation, but are turned back by tribal police at the cemetery, with much angry jeering on both sides. The protesters insist they're just trying to exercise free speech and drive on a state highway that happens to cross a sovereign Indian nation.
Givers of food
That night, there ensues a different sort of escalation—which the protesters aren't there to see. The Makah Tribal Council hosts a "Celebration of Treaty Rights" potlatch to commemorate the start of whaling season. It begins more or less at noon, with a dinner of beef and chicken—none of the seal the Makahs have already begun taking, much less any whale. I only last till 1:30—am. I'm told later the party went till 3, which is early; often these dances and potlatches, held to celebrate weddings and festivals like the summer Makah Days, go till the next day's light.
In this case, "Celebration of Treaty Rights" clearly means "Celebration of the Whale Hunt." The hastily assembled event marks a new red-letter day in tribal history: the first anniversary, give or take, of the Monaco meeting at which the International Whaling Commission approved the Makah hunt. Rightly or wrongly, the hunt is viewed as a make-or-break test of the treaty rights; its unheralded patron is Sen.Slade Gorton, whose dogged attacks on tribal sovereignty only seem to prod the Makahs and other tribes to assert it more. Use it or lose it.
One speaker after another invokes treaty rights and whaling, usually in the same breath. Their sermons are punctuated by singing, drumming, and dancing by the Makahs and their visiting cousins, the various Nuu-chah-nulth groups from Vancouver Island. Children, grown women, and elders dance intently while the men drum. There are welcoming dances, paddle dances, even the fabled chiefs' dances—hypnotic but invigorating (as they must be to continue all night), joyous and solemn at once and by turns. They are not staged for the media; early on, the master of ceremonies forbids filming, taping, and photography by non-tribespeople; out go the cameras and their crews with them. And on goes the potlatch. Across the gym's south end hangs an immense white curtain blazoned with the tribal insignia, which is translated variously as "Seagull People" and "People of the Cape." A large truck backs up to the side door, packed with the fruit of a successful hunting expedition to the Port Angeles Wal-Mart. Like a fishing boat discharging its catch, or a whale disgorging prophets, it spews out cardboard cartons, which a line of volunteers passes, bucket-brigade style, behind the curtain.
Soon enough, and on and on through the evening, children and teenagers distribute the goods, beaming at the privilege of playing Santa Claus to the grown-ups and little 'uns. Children scamper about, showing off their new neon skateboards and Tickle Me Big Bird dolls. Many adults get Mirro cookware. In between major gifts, the kids press candy, fruit, and punch in our hands—Halloween in reverse.
However the missionaries and government agents tried to stamp out the "wasteful" potlatch ritual, it seems to have adapted well to serve a variety of modern purposes: Christmas in October; useful goods for the poor; honoraria for emissaries from other tribes (who are potlatched gas money "to show our appreciation for people who've traveled so far").
And, maybe, good old-fashioned electioneering. One attendee tells me quietly (and other tribespeople later affirm) that this potlatch, funded by the Tribal Council, "is really all about Marcy's re-election." "Marcy" is Marcy Parker, the council's vice chair, only woman, and IWC delegate. She is a diminutive but flinty woman, viewed by many at Neah Bay as the real power behind much tribal politics and policy—including the whaling. Again and again over the next two weeks I will hear that the hunt "is Marcy's baby." Despite the fiercely macho and exclusively male character of traditional Makah whaling, the fight over reinstating it is increasingly dominated, on both sides, by strong women. Along with Parker, there's Alberta Thompson, the lone persistently outspoken dissenter against the hunt, who dares do publicly what other tribal elders dare only on the sly: commit the ultimate apostasy by throwing in with Sea Shepherd. And there's Lisa Distefano, Sea Shepherd's second-in-command—and, in one colleague's words, "human side"—who's stepped to the fore while founder Paul Watson fades back. (A wise move, if deliberate; with his bullish manner and dismissive remarks on Makah culture, Watson comes off as a whale-loving Captain Ahab in reverse. "Sea Shepherd is nothing but a cult," I hear one sweet little lady say. "If he told them to drink Kool-Aid, they would.") And there's the Makah Whaling Commission's executive director, Denise Dailey, who last week replaced its president, Keith Johnson, at the daily (yes, daily!) press briefings on the hunt's progress or lack thereof. (Johnson's coach-like cheer had come to seem increasingly forced.)
