For generations, the history of American whaling has been preserved not only in books and museums, but also in an unusual form of maritime art known as scrimshaw.
The craft involves engraving detailed images onto whale teeth and bones. Once closely associated with sailors working aboard 19th-century whaling ships, scrimshaw has survived into the modern era, although the artists who continue the tradition now face a difficult question: how long can the art survive when its traditional material can no longer be legally obtained?
The question has become especially relevant as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick approaches its 175th anniversary. The famous novel remains one of the best-known cultural records of America's whaling era, while scrimshaw provides a more physical connection to the people and experiences of that period.
Artists such as Jade Gotauco and Michael Vienneau are among the contemporary practitioners keeping the tradition alive. Their work often depicts whales, ships, sailors and dangerous encounters at sea, reflecting a period when whaling played a major role in the economy of coastal communities such as New Bedford and Nantucket.
During the 19th century, New Bedford became one of America's most important whaling centers. Thousands of men worked aboard ships operating across the world's oceans. The industry eventually declined as petroleum became a cheaper and more practical source of fuel for lamps.
Scrimshaw survived the collapse of the whaling industry because enormous quantities of whale teeth and bones had already been accumulated. But decades later, environmental legislation dramatically restricted the commercial trade in marine ivory. Artists today therefore generally rely on historical materials obtained before the restrictions came into force.
That scarcity has transformed whale teeth into valuable objects. Contemporary scrimshanders may pay thousands of dollars for suitable material, making the continuation of the traditional craft increasingly difficult.
Some artists have experimented with alternative materials such as cow bones, deer antlers and mammoth ivory. Yet traditionalists argue that these materials represent related forms of engraving rather than authentic scrimshaw, which is historically tied to the materials produced by the whaling industry.
For Gotauco, that contradiction is central to the meaning of the art. Whaling caused enormous suffering to whales and exposed sailors to extraordinary dangers, but the objects left behind also document the lives and experiences of those people.
Rather than seeing scrimshaw simply as a celebration of whaling, she views it as a way of remembering a complicated chapter of American history.
And that may ultimately be the fate of the art itself.
As the supply of legally usable historical whale ivory continues to disappear, the remaining artists may be among the final practitioners of traditional scrimshaw. For them, preserving the craft could mean accepting that its natural conclusion is approaching.
Source: BBC Culture — with additional historical context from the New Bedford Whaling Museum and Nantucket Whaling Museum.
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