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So the Great Spirit gave the Bowhead [Whale] to the Inupiaq. He gave them a way to hunt it from their boats covered with walrus hide. He made a special time each spring, when the ice of the ocean would break apart to form a road where the whales would swim. In that whale road, the whales would come to the surface and wait there to be struck by the harpoons of the Inupiaq. They would continue to do so every year as long as the Inupiaq showed respect to the Bowhead, as long as the Inupiaq only took the few whales that they needed in order to survive. From "The Gift of the Whale," in Keepers of the Earth, by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), 1992 |