Cetaceans and human culture

Cetaceans do not only occupy the oceans: they have always inhabited the human imagination. From Jonah swallowed by the great fish of the Bible to the prints of Hokusai, from Melville’s Moby Dick to Hollywood’s Free Willy, whales and dolphins have fed the literature, mythology, cinema, music and visual arts of every civilisation that has lived alongside them. This cultural imprint, sometimes forgotten, reflects an ancient fascination that is today being converted into energy for protecting them.

Literature

Moby Dick (Herman Melville, 1851)

The summit of cetacean literature and one of the great American novels. Inspired by two real events, the white sperm whale Mocha Dick, hunted for decades off Chile, and the loss of the whaler Essex in 1820, sunk by a sperm whale, Melville’s novel blends adventure, philosophy, theology and an informal treatise on cetaceans. For centuries, Melville’s chapters on whale anatomy were read as encyclopaedic references, despite their scientific errors. Captain Ahab and his vengeful quest remain one of the most powerful literary figures ever created.

Jonah and the whale: a biblical and mythological narrative

The story of the prophet Jonah swallowed by a “great fish” and spending three days in its belly appears in the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament. Taken up by the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions, it probably has its roots in real observations of stranded sperm whales or of large whales seen at sea. It is one of the oldest mentions of a cetacean in world literature. The narrative has inspired hundreds of works of art over two millennia.

Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)

In the original Italian tale, Pinocchio and his father Geppetto are swallowed by a terribile pesce-cane: a “terrible dog-fish” that is never named as a species. Disney turned it into Monstro, a gigantic whale, in the 1940 film. That scene became one of the best-known images in Western culture, and helped to entrench the mistaken idea that a whale could swallow a human whole.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (Jules Verne, 1870)

Verne’s novel devotes several chapters to cetaceans, bringing Captain Nemo and the Nautilus face to face with whales, sperm whales and, of course, the giant squid, a celebrated fight that brought the “giant octopus” into the collective imagination. Verne, a thorough populariser of science, works the knowledge of his own day about cetaceans into the story.

In the Heart of the Sea (Nathaniel Philbrick, 2000)

A historical account of the loss of the Essex, a whaler sunk in 1820 by a sperm whale in the Pacific. The survivors, adrift for three months in whaleboats, turned to cannibalism. Philbrick reconstructs this story, which inspired Melville, from the original archives. Adapted for the screen in 2015 by Ron Howard under the title In the Heart of the Sea.

Mythology and legends

Sirens and sea monsters

In Greek mythology, the sirens drew sailors in with their song before devouring them, an image probably inspired by distant observation of the large cetaceans and their songs. European medieval bestiaries abound in cetus and balaena, sea monsters depicted with an iconography that is partly real and partly imagined. The Greek word kêtos (κῆτος) would give us our word “cetacean”.

Celtic legends

In the Irish and Scottish Celtic traditions, the selkies are sea beings who can take human form, often associated with seals but extended to dolphins in some variants. The blue men of Minch, who haunt the Scottish straits, are another folkloric figure probably arising from the observation of dolphins.

Inuit traditions

For the Inuit peoples of the Far North, cetaceans are not mythical animals but sacred beings woven into daily life. Sedna, goddess of the sea, is in several Inuit mythologies the origin of the cetaceans (sometimes born of her severed fingers). The bowhead whale hunt, still practised by some Inuit communities under traditional quotas, is surrounded by precise ceremonies and taboos.

Polynesian traditions

Humpback whales hold a central place in Polynesian, Māori and Hawaiian mythologies. In several traditions they are the ancestral guides of navigators, able to lead the canoes across the Pacific. The film Whalerider (2002) draws on a Māori legend from this tradition.

Cinema

• Free Willy (1993): Keiko, a killer whale in captivity, becomes a worldwide cause. The film genuinely set off a movement of public opinion against the captivity of cetaceans.
• The Big Blue (The Big Blue, Luc Besson, 1988): On breath-hold diving and the fascination with dolphins. Co-written by the free diver Jacques Mayol, who is the model for the character of Jacques Mayol played by Jean-Marc Barr. A cult film in France.
• Whalerider (Niki Caro, 2002): A young Māori girl who defies tradition to become a whale rider. Adapted from a novel by Witi Ihimaera.
• Blackfish (2013): A hard-hitting documentary on Tilikum and SeaWorld. It brought attendance at dolphinariums down and led to changes in legislation.
• The Cove (2009): A documentary on the killing of dolphins at Taiji. Academy Award 2010.
• In the Heart of the Sea (Ron Howard, 2015): An adaptation of Philbrick’s book on the Essex.
• Big Miracle (2012): The true story of the rescue of three grey whales trapped by the ice in Alaska in 1988.

Music

Songs of the Humpback Whale (1970)

The most important album in the history of cetacean conservation. In 1970 the biologist Roger Payne released, on CRM Records, a vinyl record of humpback whale songs he had recorded in Bermuda (the record would later be distributed by Capitol Records). The album became an unexpected commercial success, several million copies sold, and hearing it set off a wave of public opinion in favour of protecting cetaceans. Greenpeace and other NGOs used these songs in their campaigns. Without exaggeration: “Songs of the Humpback Whale” contributed directly to the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling.

Sampling and contemporary music

Cetacean songs have been sampled by many artists: Judy Collins (“Farewell to Tarwathie”, 1970, with whale song), Lou Reed (“Magic and Loss”), Crosby & Nash, and more recently in electronic and ambient music. In 1971 the composer George Crumb wrote Vox Balaenae (“voice of the whales”) for amplified trio, directly inspired by Payne’s recordings.

Visual arts

Japanese prints

Japanese culture has a long relationship with cetaceans, at once prey and mythical figure. Several ukiyo-e prints of the 18^th and 19^th centuries depict whaling scenes, in particular those of Hokusai (who made the famous “Great Wave off Kanagawa”) and of Hiroshige. The whaling port of Taiji, which has become notorious since The Cove, is also the place of origin of traditional hunting techniques documented in classical Japanese art.

Ancient frescoes and mosaics

The Romans depicted dolphins (delphinus) on the mosaics of their pools, fountains and baths, often with cherubs riding the animal. The Etruscans before them already had this iconography. The Minoan Cretans, older still, painted dolphins on their walls at Knossos. Cetaceans have always been present in the Mediterranean visual imagination.

Inuit carvings

In traditional Inuit art, carvings in soapstone and walrus ivory frequently depict cetaceans, belugas, narwhals and bowhead whales, sometimes with hunters or shamans. These works, produced for centuries, are today sought-after museum pieces. Contemporary Inuit carvers continue the tradition, combining animal representation with spiritual symbolism.

Contemporary photography

The invention of amateur and professional underwater cameras between the 1960s and the 1990s opened up cetacean photography to a far wider public. Photographers such as Brian Skerry, Flip Nicklin, Paul Nicklen and the National Geographic team have created a body of images that has profoundly changed our relationship with these animals. Seeing sperm whales photographed in social interaction, or belugas calling in groups, has helped to turn conservation into a mass movement.

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