84 Replies to ““Beached B.C. whale given traditional native funeral””

  1. I suppose no one thought of just putting a tow line around it and towing it back out to deep water where the sharks and dogfish could feast for about a week.
    Thanks for that Oregon video,bureaucrats and civil servants in action!

  2. Batman: “It’s their land and their money.”
    Oh, really?
    I’m willing to go best 2 out of 3 on whose land it is, BUT IT’S DEFINITELY NOT THEIR MONEY … IT’S OUR TAX MONEY THEY’VE BEEN PISSING AWAY FOR DECADES.

  3. Phantom, don’t let’s leave out the fact that – and now brace yourself Dark Night, because there’s some heavy stereotyping coming up – children growing up on Indian reserves tend to destroy their brains huffing gas; those who make it to adolescence very often die of alcoholism, drug abuse, or the violence that flows therefrom. Because of a greedy old-boy’s system which promotes helplessness, propertylessness, despair, pandering and dependency. Which taxpayers get to finance, like it or not.
    But yeah, let’s focus on honouring those rotting whale corpses. Anything pointing out flaws in the system would be just…. callous.
    (Honestly, running casinos is the least of the problems here; hell, at least it’s enterprise.)

  5. I think I’ll stop softening my language. When I say ‘stereotyping’ I’m referring to a kind of racism. I’m not saying people who stereotype are overt racists, but they very accept racist stereotypes. We all hold stereotypes that shape the way we see certain people. They aren’t always a bad thing. However, I have a few examples of when they are a bad thing:
    “children growing up on Indian reserves tend to destroy their brains huffing gas” -Black Mamba
    “Kathy Shaidle is right. The whale corpse will probably sue to get its own casino” -The Phantom
    “Nope. It’ll stay there to dug up, as promised.
    For a price.” -Kate

  6. I get called a race-baiting liberal, a racist, a liar, or worse in three . . . two . . .

  7. “I get called a race-baiting liberal, a racist, a liar, or worse in three . . . two . . . ”
    Nope it’s you left wingers who like to toss out the racist card at a moments notice, not us.

  8. Traditional funeral for a whale….Doesn’t that entail a bunch of sharp knives and a huge bon fire? I might suggest beer but I don’t believe the ancient natives had beer.

  9. Hey, batman: ‘You don’t like Kate’s “mocking”? Then you don’t have to come to her blog.
    Bye, bye.

  10. bats – you’ve never been near an Indian reserve, have you? Or chatted with someone who grew up on one? Or looked at any relevant statistics?
    You know what? You’re are a “racist”. I care – to the degree that anyone cares about anybody they don’t know personally – about the kids whose lives are being ruined on these third-world nightmares we maintain at great expense in the country which supposedly belongs to us. You don’t. You care about exhibiting your “empathy” and “compassion”.
    Oh, what’s the point? One of the benefits of being a conservative is that you don’t have to spend your time talking to lefties. At what point, in the 1930’s, would it have been okay to say: “Dash it, old chap, but this NSDAP regime is looking a tad unwholsome, eh what?” Sometime after Poland was invaded, I suppose; or not even then. Rush to judgement etc. It’s stupid. Eventually, some of this is just too stupid to engage with.

  11. Hi “Batman”, my name is Michael H Anderson. You’re wrong though, I have no desire to call you a race-bainter. “Hive-mind zombie parrot sock puppet” was more what I had in mind.
    Polly wanna cracker? I can tell you’ve never met any real First Nations people. You can *always* tell.
    Brian, awesome link. ∞², you are a poet.

  12. multirec: BM wasted no time in proving you wrong.
    I don’t pull “I’ve been to reserves and know aboriginal people so I’m not a racist.”

  13. “I dont pull…”
    Only ’cause you literally don’t know what you’re talking about.

  14. Save it batman. In your previous post you call Kathy, Kate and someone else a racist and then whined about people calling you a racist in 3…2…1…
    You’re a little soft in the head if you don’t see the hypocrisy.

  15. I want to correct myself. I adore accuracy. Even ironically, batman is not a “racist”, as far as I know. He’d f*(k everyone in the world over, irrespective of pigmentation and stuff, so he’s just a liberal *spit*.

  16. Centerist who has voted conservative and doesn’t believe politics is two “teams” but won’t be silent in the face of racial stereotypes. I believe strongly in free speech. I oppose human rights tribunals having the ability to govern speech. However, for that to work, I know that when we see racial stereotypes being perpetuated we need to call people out on it.

  18. What most people are negatively responding to is the spokesmen & media claiming it’s a “traditional burial”. Everyone knows whales were never traditionally buried! And, if by traditional they are only referring to the ceremony, ignoring the fact it’s a whale, every moron knows a crucifix wouldn’t have been used. It’s the nauseating, intelligence insulting, condescending, politically correct BS and historical revisionism that’s rubbing so many people the wrong way.
    If the story was framed simply as some random indian reserve quietly disposed of a smelly whale carcass, no one would have said or thought boo about it! Even if a prayer or two were recited as the excavator covered it up, no one would care.
    btw, my wife (a person of Cree ancestry) responded to the story just as 95% here in the comments, with disbelief & laughter. I’ll suggest she get counseling for her self-hating racist thoughts, and myself for revealing this on a blog, will seek out treatment for my latent neo-racism.

  20. But this has evolved into a full blown propaganda event, being funded with government (i.e. -my-) money, in support of the Canadian Indian Industry.
    – The Phantom
    Man, you nailed that one to the wall, Phantom. The publicly subsidized “noble savage” enviro-care-taker narrative, eh? What codswallop.
    Having a good chuckle here. For many many years, whenever I’d watch those noble savage clowns bopping around banging on stuff, on my dime, and going “oo wa wa, oo wa wa” (sic) I always said to my wife, ‘that’s nothing right? … they’re just making this sh*t up, aren’t they?’. Very comforting to hear others voice this view.
    Now Batman, calm down eh? When she tells me about some new health/nutrition/wellness fad [Vancouver!], I say something similar: “you’re just making this up, aren’t you”.
    Just so you know I’m not a ra-a-a-a-a-cist.

  21. Yeah, a traditional native burial would consist of a large (really large – whale sized!) platform upon which the 6 ton behemoth would be hoisted (like the blocks of the pyramids) to rot for decades and generally stink up the whole reservation. I know this to be true because I watched Pale Rider the other night…

  22. Actually, I like the idea of them erecting a cross over the carcass; shows that many Natives did learn something from all those years in residential schools. It is child-like but not a direct irreverence as we used to do it with our pets when they died. Children commonly believe that animals are part of the family.

  23. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; — Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

  25. Post of the day award to:
    MCin EastVan
    […Shame on all of you who have mocked this meaningful ceremony. I have heard that FN bands along the coast have done this for years, burying dead whales. I believe that some of the earliest cave paintings found in BC showed such ceremonies: faint images from 4000 years ago showing a dead whale, a tugboat, and an excavator digging the hole.]
    Actually when I saw the headline….my first thoughts were it had something to do with Hedy Fry or dizzy Lizzy……

  28. They should have cut off the whales penis – if it was male – would have financed the whole shin dig. I heard that whale penis is worth big bucks on the black market. For those of you who are visual:
    http://whalepenis.org/

  29. Look, I’ve been having some problems with that dead rodent at the top of the SDA page. I mean talk about showing disrespect and dishonour!

  30. batman proving his leftist cred by lifting Phantom comments out of context. How utterly expected.
    batty, corpses cannot sue. Not even human corpses, much less whale corpses. Duh.
    Indian councils, aka the Indian Industry (as distinct from Indians generally, because I know you think I’m making a racist stereotype and not an observation about a small group of political agitators) have been known to sue on behalf of a corpse, however. Google “Kenewick Man” as one example among thousands. Not even an egregious example, fairly business-as-usual example.
    Your ignorance of the facts is really quite profound. Truth is, you have been suckered by people who do not have your best interests at heart, to put it mildly. Instead of flinging poo like a shrieking monkey, MAYBE it could be worth your while to wonder -why- people here make these comments.
    Maybe you should be wondering who the people that comment at SDA are. You can actually look that up, Kate did a couple of posts on it. Might be an eye-opener for you.
    Your opinion is uninformed. Inform it.

  31. I suspect “traditional” native whale funerals involved BBQed whale, blubber parties and bonfire dancing ’til dawn.

  32. Now I am a red-meat conservative and I live in the Dead Whale Watching area. I am very disappointed with the generally negative attitude of most SDA commentators.
    This was a real-world problem. The whale carcass was brought in during the last big SE storm of the season. It was lodged firmly in huge boulders near the high tide line. It is not going to float away. It was, however, starting to rot.
    It was adjacent to a very popular beach and it was getting pretty high. It is also an area where cougars have been increasingly bold. Bears not so much but this would have been caviar to them.
    Letting it rot and stink up the beach whle attracting predators was not an option.
    So rather than writing to their MP or getting up a petition, some local folks talked it over and took care of the problem. Individual initiative. Self-reliance.
    I am sorry to say it Kate, but this seems to demonstrate your blog’s demographic are mainly urban folks who couldn’t fix an outboard motor to save their lives. Out here folks are pretty happy about the way things have turned out and have gone fishing.

  33. Johnny Canuck – it’s the silly made-up “funeral” that annoyed/amused me; and critters like batman have the knack of sending me from 0 to 100 in no time flat on the subject of Native yadda yadda. If there was a genuine safety/hygiene/horrible smell problem then of course I’m glad the dead whale was cleared away.
    (I couldn’t fix any kind of motor for a million $$$ and a barnful of kittens, sad to say.)

  34. Not to prolong the debate over a “dead” issue, but my impression is that the Beecher Bay Band were quite sincere.
    The whale has been buried in a secluded part of the Reserve where it will not be a public spectacle. As to the cross, Christianity is still a strong influence on many Reserves, including Beecher Bay. I have heard of similar actions in Washington State but I couldn’t speak from first hand knowledge.
    What I would say is that there is a dumpster load of BS about traditional use trotted out to support outrageous land claims, etc. Right now, about a third of the most valuable privately owned land in Victoria is being claimed with flimsy legal arguments backed up with oral histories of berry picking and the like despite signed treaties.
    But I would give a pass to this one. The people involved are honourable. I was present at a reinterment ceremony of Native remains which had been held in the Provincial Museum as “specimens”. The feelings at the ceremony were, in my view, profound and honest.
    But I still agree with PET (God, I can’t believe I just said that) that aboriginal rights and title were extinguished by right of conquest and that should have been the end of the story.

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