Memory and whaling: Commemorations of whale deaths in early modern Japan

Abstract

Encounters with whales in early modern (seventeenth- to nineteenth-century) Japan were often memorialized through artwork such as scrolls or woodblock prints, permanent monuments such as steles or grave sites, and even in ritual practices such as annual Buddhist memorial ceremonies. Whaling groups used the commemorations of their interactions with whales to teach hunting techniques, display their prowess to outsiders, and atone for the Buddhist sin of killing another living creature. Non-whaling communities, which usually encountered whales through limited beachings or strandings, also found those situations worthy of commemoration. Their memorials celebrated the spectacle of the whale from the observer's viewpoint, or expressed gratitude for the financial windfall the dead whale brought to the community. This article examines how a community's relationship to whaling determined how it memorialized the encounter. These early modern memorial practices inform commemorations of whales even to the present day.