Spirits of Our Whaling Ancestors

Revitalizing Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth Traditions

By Charlotte Coté
Foreword by Micah McCarty
Categories: Environmental & Nature Studies, Indigenous Studies, Social Sciences, Anthropology, Political Science, Canadian Political Science, Regional & Cultural Studies, Canadian Studies, Environmental History, History, Canadian History, Natural Resources, Indigenous History
Publisher: UBC Press
Paperback : 9780774820530, 328 pages, August 2010
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Table of contents

Foreword by Micah McCarty

Kleko Kleko / Thank You

Orthography

Nuu-chah-nulth Pronunciation Guide

Abbreviations

Introduction: Honoring Our Whaling Ancestors

1 Tsawalk: The Centrality of Whaling to Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth Life

2 Utla: Worldviews Collide: The Arrival of Mamalhn’i in Indian Territory

3 Kutsa: Maintaining the Cultural Link to Whaling Ancestors

4 Muu: The Makah Harvest a Whale

5 Sucha: Challenges to Our Right to Whale

6 Nupu: Legal Impediments Spark a 2007 Hunt

7 Atlpu: Restoring Nanash’agtl Communities

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Description

Following the removal of the gray whale from the Endangered Species list in 1994, the Makah tribe of northwest Washington State and the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation of British Columbia announced that they would revive their whale hunts. The Makah whale hunt of 1999 was met with enthusiastic support and vehement opposition. A member of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation, Charlotte Coté offers a valuable perspective on the issues surrounding Indigenous whaling. Her analysis includes major Aboriginal studies and contemporary Aboriginal rights issues, addressing environmentalism, animal rights activism, anti-treaty conservatism, and the public’s expectations about what it means to be “Indian.”