The Last Whalers: The Life of an Endangered Tribe in a Land Left Behind

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A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity. Previously, they harpoon-hunted whales on their tana (a boat with about 8-10 rowers and a harpooner), usually several at the same time, so they wound the whale and keep him by several dispersed boats, so it is unable to capsize any and run away. This made them one of the most communal cultures – only a group can hunt and deliver the whale and only whales have enough meat/fat to sustain the community in the quiet season. Seasonal work, drag-nets to catch smaller fish, including tuna, which is valued say in Japan and gives ways to improve living standards, but abandon the traditional cultures, destroys them very fast. An immersive and absorbing chronicle that takes the reader deep into the lives of this tribe and is told with a richness of interior detail that renders their lives, and the choices they face, not just comprehensible but somehow familiar... Clark's writing about the ocean and its creatures is superb, so vivid that the reader can feel the sting of salt water up the nose...The magic in this work is Clark's decision to cede the story over to the Lamalerans themselves. In doing so, he captures the drama of the tribe as it attempts to navigate new opportunities that, while enticing, may bring about the extinction of their culture...Whether that culture will, in the end, withstand mounting pressures from the outside remains to be seen. If it doesn't, The Last Whalers will at least document all that has been lost."-- Gabriel Thompson, San Francisco Chronicle As subsistence whalers, their life is deeply entwined with the natural world, and the rhythms of that world. The description of the hunt, what an honor it is to be the harpooner of the whales, and the knowledge and skills needed to be successful, is compelling. The bravery of the crews, who hunt whales using traditional iron and bamboo harpoons to capture huge sperm whales, is astonishing. For someone from the Western world who is completely separated from the hunter/gatherer society its a brilliant picture of a different way of life.

This is a non-fic about one of the last hunter-gatherers’ tribes on today’s Earth and the only one, which mainly survives of whale hunting. I read it as a part of monthly reading for December-January 2021/2022 at Non Fiction Book Club group. And what hope, then, do these whalers have of resisting the onslaught? “There is a saying in Lamalera,” Clark tells us. “ Preme ki, ‘Hope, but not too much,’ reflecting the belief that the whales would never come if the people demanded them.” The stories of the Lamalerans themselves are even more gripping--from a young orphaned whaler waiting for his big break to an aging legendary harpooner struggling to understand his son’s resistance to the traditional way of life. They bravely stand up to the forces of modernization, largely refusing modern technology that would make the hunts easier and far less dangerous, and relying on bartering and gift-giving instead of paper currency. They hold on to the ways of their ancestors, believing that their tradition--however inconvenient--contains their essence, and that by giving it up, they may lose what it means for them to live. The Last Whalers is marvelous because readers come to know these people intimately. A young man dreams of becoming a harpooner, the most honored position in their society, yet also dreams of life in the city. A young woman receives an education but committed to care for her elders must return to the village. The elders must preserve the old ways and knowledge while accepting that change is inevitable. To leave the village is to also leave the unity of one family, one heart, one action, one goal. It is hard to walk away from the strength of community to live in isolation with only yourself to depend upon. Clark’s writing is supple but unshowy. Here’s an account of one harpooner’s encounter with a whale:A forceful debut...Clark's prose soars...Furthermore, his sympathy for and devotion to his subjects is real: he speaks both Indonesian and Lamaleran and fosters an intimacy that allows him to disappear entirely in the telling of their story. He brings us into his characters' lives, showing us the rhythms of Lamalera and the day-to-day tensions the villagers face...Clark successfully depicts these people in their full human complexity rather than as primitive tropes... His finely wrought, deeply reported, and highly empathetic account is a human-level testament to dignity in the face of loss and a stoic adherence to cultural inheritance in the face of a rapidly changing world."-- Tim Sohn, Outside Magazine Amazing. Before reading The Last Whalers, I didn't know of the Lamalerans, how (in)famous they were & how controversial their way of living. I have so many thoughts, many of which I want to share when I've organized it all in my head much better.

Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.” This humility gives the book an organic and resonant propulsion. Accumulated tensions are only slowly released. Scenes are delivered, not summaries. This book earns its emotions. A fascinating debut...Accessible and empathetic...Clark creates a thoughtful look at the precariousness of cultural values and the lure of modernization in the developing world."-- Publishers Weekly

One thing you learn, in squeamish detail, is how to carve up a dead beached whale. “By the end,” Clark writes, “only the flippers retained their skin, so that they rested against the flesh like mittened hands trying to cover a naked torso.”