Extracts
...Lamalera, a village on the Indonesian island of Lembata, is the last place on Earth where sperm whales are harpooned from small wooden boats. I have come here with photo- journalist Tom Ives to chronicle a centuries old tradition where village men set sail in vessels so revered they have become a sacrosanct part of the community....

....The whalers' day starts before sunrise. From Lamalera A and B, twin villages separated by a single, steep hill, and informal procession begins. Men wrapped in sarongs gather on the beach, fanning out to the particular boatshed that houses the pelendang belonging to their clan. There are 29 of these sheds above the high-tide line on the beach ......

..... There are no piers, no docks, so getting the boats into the sea remains an arduous task. They are launched each day in the whaling season form May to October as if on maiden voyages ......

...... At first glance a pelendang appears to be an improbable craft, its ability to make its way through water nothing short of miraculous. It is 12 meters long, weighs well over a tonne and is pieced together like a Japanese joined puzzle in a pre-Viking, lashed-lug design....

....Hand-forged harpoons blades of different sizes are sharpened on wet stones. Once it is sharp, each blade is placed on the coiled rope to which it belongs: one for large manta ray, another for dolphin, another for whales, shark, and last but not least, one for the ultimate prize, the pope fish (ikan paus) - the sperm whale....

....The fact that the fishermen here still hunt these whales "by hand" without mechanised power or explosive harpoons means that not only is this a fair fight, but one in which the whale may even have the advantage. The men of Lamalera hunt only toothed whales: sperm, pilot and orca. Because it is said that a blue whale (a baleen whale) brought one of the original clans to Lamalera on its back form Sulawesi, these animals are considered sacred and it is forbidden to hunt them...

...The harpooner's eyes are fixed on the ray as if willing it to come closer. His hands grip the bamboo, he raises the pole that is so long it bends and flexes in the air. He takes aim and hurls this body along with the harpoon into the water. But the ray dives fast and deep and disappears. The harpooner swims back to the boat and is pulled aboard. The sail is raised and the hunt continues....

....During my two-week stay in the village a whale is brought in only once. The boat I am on that day reaches the pelendang named Teti Heri just as the whale, a small orca (seguni), is being lashed to the side by several ropes threaded through the head, tail, fins. The Teti Heri lists all the way home but the crew is jubilant. Everyone comes down to the beach, and children swim naked in the surf around the body of the whale. It is a celebration after a long wait - the last whale brought in almost a month ago.

What follows is an elaborate ritual of ceremonial disembowelling and division, accomplished with axes and knives. The person who first saw the whale gets the meat around the eyes. The harpooner takes part of the tail. The headman of the collective that owns the pelendang receives his rightful share, as does the boat maker, the sial maker, the harpoon maker and the crew. Other portions are given to the families and relatives of the crew and what remains can be obtained by non-family members who have tobacco, cakes and a wine (tuak) made from distilled palm, to trade.

The women wash sand from the red meat in the surf and carry it home, where it will be hung on wooden racks in the sun to dry. The racks contain different kinds of meat in various stages of drying. Beneath the blubber of a sperm whale, tin drip channels are positioned to funnel the oil into bamboo receptacles. This oil will be used to light the lamps in the village, though kerosene is increasingly used. Nothing of the whale is wasted. Every bit, including the blood and bones, will be used. On marked day the women will carry much of the meat to Wulandoni, a village more than seven kilometres away, to trade for staples such as rice, corn, vegetables, fruit. No money changes hands but each has a specific barter value.....

....In 1969 an average of 56 sperm whales and 360 manta rays were taken. Twenty years later only seven whales and well under a 100 rays comprised the annual harvest. In the past few years these numbers have increased, though they are still well below the 1969 levels. Marine biologists can only speculate on decreasing populations in particular areas even as their overall numbers stabilise or increase worldwide.

The Ombai Strait is one of their natural breeding grounds but encroachment by Japanese and Taiwanese factory ships may have thinned out their numbers. A new undersea volcano some way form Lamalera could also be a factor in changing migration routs as could fluctuations in populations of their primary food source, the giant squid.

The other migration that affects the continuation of traditional whaling is that of the young men out of the village, towards the higher education and employment in urban areas found only to larger islands....

.....Of the 29 pelendangs in the sheds in Lamalera, only 12 are still sailing. The rest wait for a crew that may never come.