"Shadow of the Whale:" West Coast Rituals Associated with Luring Whales

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Supernatural Gamekeepers and Animal Masters: A Cross-Cultural Perspective" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Native peoples along the Pacific Coast of North America exploited stranded whales that washed ashore, providing abundant meat and oil for consumption. Many rock art sites along the coast between Alaska and Acapulco contain images of whales and other cetaceans, and portable effigies also depict these marine mammals. According to ethnographic information from the Chumash and Northwest Coast tribes, the whale effigies were used by shamans in rituals designed to summon the whales to beach themselves in one’s territory. At least some whale depictions in rock art may have been created in similar rituals.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Supernatural Gamekeepers and Animal Masters: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24351