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Subsistence Activities at 19Th-Century Shore Whaling Station Sites in New Zealand and Australia: a Zooarchaeological Perspective

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Subsistence Activities at 19Th-Century Shore Whaling Station Sites in New Zealand and Australia: a Zooarchaeological Perspective Subsistence activities at 19th-century shore whaling station sites in New Zealand and Australia: a zooarchaeological perspective Tiffany JAMES-LEE PO Box 489, Port Melbourne VIC 3207 (Australia) [email protected] James-Lee T. 2014. —Subsistence activities at 19th-century shore whaling station sites in New Zealand and Australia: a zooarchaeological perspective, in Thomas R. & Fothergill B. T. (eds), Animals, and their Bones, in the ‘Modern’ World (AD 1750-1900). Anthropozoologica 49 (1): 79-98. http://dx.doi.org/10.5252/az2014n1a06. ABSTRACT This paper examines food subsistence activity patterns in five 19th-century shore whaling stations in New Zealand and Australia. Faunal data are categorised into KEY WORDS indigenous and exotic classes and possible explanations behind differing pat- Diet, terns of subsistence activities between sites and their immediate local contexts shore whaling stations, are explored. Zooarchaeological analyses show that the communities of these New Zealand, Australia, whaling station communities supplemented their whaling rations with indig- 19th century. enous and exotic domestic species to varying degrees. RÉSUMÉ Activités de subsistances des stations baleinières côtières du XIXe siècle en Nouvelle- Zélande et Australie: une perspective zooarchéologique. Cet article analyse les activités alimentaires de subksistance des stations balei- nières côtières de Nouvelle-Zélande et d’Australie au xixe siècle. Les données relatives à la faune sont catégorisées selon les classes autochtone et exotique; MOTS CLÉS Régime alimentaire, diverses options expliquant les différents modèles d’activités de subsistance stations baleinières entre les sites et en fonction de leur contexte local immédiat y sont examinées. côtières, L’analyse zooarchéologique démontre que les communautés de ces stations Nouvelle-Zélande, Australie, baleinières ont, à divers degrés, complété leur ration baleinière de base avec des xixe siècle. espèces autochtones ou provenant de leur lieux d’origine. ANTHROPOZOOLOGICA • 2014 • 49 (1) © Publications Scientifiques du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris. 79 James-Lee T. INTRODUCTION hardworking Quakers from Nantucket and had a strong sense of teamwork (Cawthorn 2000). The Shore whaling station communities in New Zea- crews they recruited included Europeans, Maori land and Australia existed during a relatively short and other Polynesians, American Indians, Africans, period of history, and offer insight into interac- Azore Islanders, Portuguese, Cape Verde Islanders tions between immigrant and indigenous men and and others (Cawthorn 2000), as portrayed in Moby women. This paper presents food subsistence activity Dick (Melville 1851). patterns at five 19th-century shore whaling stations In 1788, two of the ships of the First Fleet ar- in New Zealand and Australia (Fig. 1). Faunal data riving in Australia were whale ships and whale oil are categorised into indigenous and exotic classes was the first export of the colony (Lawrence 2006; to explore the subsistence activities undertaken by Lawrence and Staniforth 1998b; Prickett 1993). The these shore whaling station communities. Possible first European settlers in Hobart were carried by explanations behind differing patterns of subsist- whale ships in 1803, the year of the first recorded ence activities between sites are explored, taking example of commercial whaling in Van Diemen’s into account their local geographic, economic and Land (the original European name for the island of indigenous contexts. Tasmania); two years later a shore whaling station (tryworks) was set up on the Derwent River estu- ary (Gibbs 2010; Lawrence and Staniforth 1998b). HISTORY OF SHORE WHALING Apart from the Derwent tryworks the whaling in- dustry at Van Diemen’s Land stagnated for a time, Shore whaling, as opposed to pelagic whaling, had because of import duties levied on colonial oil in whaling crews living at or near processing stations London and also due to fears of convicts accessing on land, with lookouts on highpoints for sighting boats; the import duties were dropped in 1823 whales, directing crews in small man-powered boats (Gibbs 2010; Lawrence 2006). Meanwhile Brit- to pursue and harpoon whales. The origins of shore ish, French, American and even Australian ships whaling can be traced back to the Basque whalers pursued both sperm and southern right whales in of Spain and France. The Basques may have been Australian waters (Lawrence 2006). whaling for more than a millennium, targeting right The Australian and later New Zealand shore whales (Eubalaena glacialis) in the North Atlantic whaling industries developed out of the south seas (Lawrence 2006; Reeves and Smith 2003). Vikings pelagic whaling industry (Prickett 1993). Shore and North-west Coast (British Columbia) Indians whaling stations were frequently the context for were among other early shore whalers (Prickett first encounters between Aboriginal and non-Ab- 1993). Basques were responsible for introducing original groups – the camps lasted years, allowing shore whaling to Brazil in AD 1603, targeting the more than just fleeting encounters with explorers southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) through (Gibbs 2010). Although there are ethno-historical the 1820s, and then possibly humpback (Megaptera accounts of Australian Aboriginal people feasting novaeangliae) and sperm whales (Physeter macro- on whale meat after whale strandings, eating the cephalus) (Reeves and Smith 2003). Pelagic whalers meat raw or roasted and rubbing the blubber onto from the Netherlands and Britain were hunting in their bodies, there is no evidence to suggest that the Arctic, east of Greenland, by the 18th century, they were hunting whales prior to the arrival of while whalers from New England, America, were Europeans (Gibbs 2010). As previous use of whales moving south across the Equator (Gibbs 2010; by Aboriginals had been opportunistic, and the Lawrence 2006). Whaling vessels began to venture land taken up by whaling stations was small, the into the Pacific during the 1790s, and within several operation of the stations did not negatively impact years there were at least 100 ships operating in the the traditional economy of local Aboriginals. In ‘South Seas Fishery’ (Badger 1988; Lawrence 2006). fact, because the stations processed whales mainly The captains of whaling vessels were often frugal, for their baleen and blubber, the local Aboriginals 80 ANTHROPOZOOLOGICA • 2014 • 49 (1) Subsistence at 19th-century shore whaling sites benefitted from the availability of whale meat, in- N creasing the frequency at which they were able to indulge in a favoured food (Gibbs 2010; Staniforth et al. 2001). In south-western Australia it was noted that between May and September, instead of mov- AUSTRALIA ing inland to hunt kangaroos and escape the heavy coastal rains, the local Aboriginal people were re- placing their traditional protein source with whale Cheyne Beach meat by camping at the stations during whaling NEW ZEALAND TASMANIA Te Hoe season. If these stations had a poor season or failed, Lagoon Bay Adventure Bay the indigenous group had to return to traditional 900 km Oashore sources, and cross areas inland where kangaroo was progressively being replaced by cattle (Gibbs Fig. 1. – Locations of 19th-century shore whaling stations dis- 2010). In parts of Australia (excluding the south- cussed in this paper. west), various relationships between indigenous women and whalers are well known (Gibbs 2010; Staniforth et al. 2001). For example, in August received equivalent pay to their non-Aboriginal 1829, George Robinson visited the shore whaling colleagues, indicating their equivalent level of skill; stations at Adventure Bay, Tasmania, and wrote to this return was shared amongst their community the three ‘firms’ expressing his disapproval of the in accordance with traditional customs (Gibbs whalers co-habiting with Aboriginal females and 2003, 2010). In 1851, at the Cheyne Beach sta- “making them subservient to their own carnal ap- tion, 70km east of Albany in Western Australia, petites” (Plomley 1966: 72, cited in Prickett 1993). the more highly-paid Aboriginal workers received In the Bass Strait and Kangaroo Island mixed-race lays (pre-determined percentages of the profits) of sealing communities that many shore whalers (both £15 each (Gibbs 2003). in Australia and New Zealand) originated from, the Generally, archaeological evidence of Aboriginal practice of shooting Aboriginal men seated around people (whether as workers, wives or children of campfires and abducting women is reported by mis- workers, or as community groups present for whale sionaries. Aborigines also traded women from their meat feasting) at whaling stations is limited, but own tribes, or women abducted from other tribes at Port Collinson whaling station tools made from (Ryan 1996). At first, women were only available flaked black bottle glass may have been manufac- for the sealing season, but as sealers began to stay tured by Aboriginal people (Staniforth et al. 2001). on beyond the season, so did their ‘wives’. By 1816, Evidence, both historical and archaeological, of non- sealers might have between two and five ‘wives’, Aboriginal women and children at shore whaling who Robinson described as ‘slaves’. By 1830 the stations in Australia is also limited, but occasional coastal tribes of Bass Strait and Kangaroo Island mentions are made by visiting ship captains of wives were devastated by the combined effects of shoot- and children at stations (Staniforth
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