Examining & explaining
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Catching beluga
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Eating beluga
2001
Examining & explaining
Theresa Nanouk: They made these whale nets a long time ago. These are too big for salmon, so those are for [beluga] whale.
Oscar Koutchak: This is seal skin. You let it render. It takes two men to make this babiche. One is holding it and one is [cutting] with a sharp knife. And they stretch it, and hang it up, and let it dry.
When they want to put a float [on net], they burn wood about that long [approximately two feet] on both ends. It’s shaped like a figure eight. And they leave the black burnt part. My dad used to do that. The edge of this one here [top line of net] has to have a rope over here to tie every so often to the float line. They’re maybe every ten feet. They’re not too many. And they make a rope about that long [approximately three feet], and they tie it to the float line. And it [net] sinks down below the surface of the water.
And they have a few sinkers on the bottom so it keeps straight.
Theresa Nanouk: And they used rocks for sinkers.
Oscar Koutchak: And they had two good size anchors on both ends.
Theresa Nanouk: They used big rocks.
Oscar Koutchak: They don’t stretch it real hard. They just keep it kind of loose.
Theresa Nanouk: My son Peter makes his own nets.
Oscar Koutchak: But if you’re lazy, you can buy it. It costs a lot of money. But you can hang it yourself. You can buy a commercial one or hang it yourself. I do my own hanging with herring nets.
Catching beluga
Theresa Nanouk: They set [beluga nets] out in the ocean where it’s deep, so when the whales go by, they get caught in there.
And you can see if an animal gets caught. Even if you’re way up on the land, if you look down that way, your net is stretched over this way [V-shape], because there’s an animal in there. Then we know we got a whale.
Oscar Koutchak: They struggle enough that they get deeper and deeper in the net.
Aron Crowell: So people catch beluga with nets now in Unalakleet?
Oscar Koutchak: Yes.
Theresa Nanouk: Right now they’re going to.
Oscar Koutchak: Right now they’re doing it with king salmon net.
Aron Crowell: So it works just as well?
Oscar Koutchak: Yes, it’s like an eight, eight and three-quarters inch mesh.
Aron Crowell: Do they come by as a group, in a school?
Oscar Koutchak: Yes. From my picture window, when I looked out to the ocean one time, the sun was just in a perfect position for where they were migrating, must have been about a mile or mile and a half out. And my wife said, “Look, look, look out there.” And I looked, and there were some spouts. The sun was over there in just a perfect position where the spouts kept going up. There must have been about thirty or forty Beluga.
Eating beluga
Aron Crowell: What happens when one is caught then, how do you butcher the whale?
Theresa Nanouk: They always have to drag them in with boats and cut them up on the beach.
Aron Crowell: And how do you share in the village?
Theresa Nanouk: We just tell everybody they have to come and get some while you’re cutting it.
Oscar Koutchak: The best parts are right here [chest].
While the guys are butchering seals, the kids are taking their pocket knife and eating from their flipper.
Theresa Nanouk: Yes, they chew on the flipper a long time ago. Now this younger generation doesn’t know anything. [Laughter.]
Oscar Koutchak: That’s what we used to do.
Aron Crowell: So do you eat it as muktuk, the skin and fat from beluga whales?
Oscar Koutchak: Yes.
Aron Crowell: And what about the meat?
Oscar Koutchak: My dad saved it for dog food. At that time, my two brothers had their own dogs. They had about seventeen or eighteen dogs, and my dad had seven dogs, hunting dogs. So there were a lot of dogs to feed.
Suzi Jones: And what about the organs?
Theresa Nanouk: The seagulls eat them.
Oscar Koutchak: Seagulls eat them, yes. Nothing goes to waste.
In Norton Sound, belugas—also called white whales—have always been a prized and important source of food. The animals are in the area from May until November. Hunters set nets—now usually purchased rather than hand made—in the fall when the water is cloudy and the nets less visible to the whales. The traditional wide-meshed nets were made from untanned bearded sealskin, and were longer and wider than the ones used for seal hunting. Placed near islets and beaches and anchored down by rocks, nets entangle the belugas, which then drown because they are unable to surface and breathe.
Beluga whales were traditionally treated very carefully after death in order not to offend the spirits of the animals, an act that could bring bad luck or even death. Edward W. Nelson—in the Norton Sound area from 1877 to 1881—recorded that: “No one who aids in killing a white whale, or even helps to take one from the net, is permitted to do any work on the four days following, this being the time during which the shade [spirit] stays with the body.
No one in the village must use any sharp or pointed instrument at this time for fear of wounding the whale’s shade, which is supposed to be in the vicinity but invisible; nor must any loud noise be made for fear of frightening and offending it. Whoever cuts a white whale’s body with an iron ax will die. The use of iron instruments in the village is also forbidden during the four days, and wood must not be cut with an iron ax during the entire season for hunting these animals.”
The first beluga killed by a young hunter was customarily shared by the whole village, although he himself could not partake; this ensured his future success in hunting. The bones were also given special care. Along with broken spear shafts, beluga bones were deposited in an inaccessible area, usually on sea cliffs, where they were safe from dogs. Dogs were considered offensive to the spirits of animals, and it was believed that back luck would come to a hunter if he let dogs come into contact with the bones of his catch.
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