What's the largest animal
that's ever lived?
It's not a dinosaur,
it's this magnificent mammal a blue whale.
Whales: Giants of the Deep
is an amazing exhibit that includes whale biology, their evolutionary history,
how people and cultures have interacted with them.
Some of the things that have been most exciting about understanding whale biology is their
history.
So, we've been able to talk about new DNA evidence that shows the surprising result
that whales are most closely related to hippos and that together they fall within
a group called artiodactyls. The group that includes pigs, and sheep, and deer, and
antelope,
hippos, and now we know, whales.
One of the things we can do in any show is tap into our world-class collections. For
example, Andrewsarchus, this skull behind me is a giant predatory creature that was
discovered in the 1920's. The only known skull of this animal ever
discovered.
And, we now know that it's a close relative of whales.
For this exhibit, Whales: Giants of the Deep,
one of the things that we're doing is
introducing
material culture from the native peoples of the Northwest coast, and there are a lot of similarities with
Polynesia, particularly with the Māori
of New Zealand.
One of the wonderful artifacts that we are including in the exhibit is a
Kwakwaka'wakw feast dish,
which features killer whale on one end
and a human being at the other end,
and one in the dorsal fin itself.
This is an ancestral figure named Siwidi, he transforms into a killer whale
himself.
He has brought back this magnificent power that will allow people
to subsist and prosper.
The American Museum of Natural History's ethnographic collections
are some of the best in the world
especially for native North American materials,
and if you go into the Northwest Coast Hall you'll see any number of
representations of whales.
I'm really pleased that this exhibition is here, not only because
we get a chance to find out more about whales, but also because we get
more of a chance
to find out how the Māori have related to whales over time.
Here in the exhibtion we have
two maihi, which are the carved panels from
the gables of a pātaka.
A pātaka was a storehouse for food and would be used for whale meat
and for weapons, weapons made out of whale bone.
It was a storehouse for things that belonged to the chief.
Also the
iconogrophy
on the maihi, on the bargeboards,
would usually include whales with a spiral through its head and then coming up to the tail at the
the peak.
And
this refers to the great plenty that a whale would bring.
We have a fantastic
Māori collection here at the Museum and
many things are on display in the Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples on the third floor.
An interesting facet of the exhibition is that it shows whales
perceived in two
very different ways.
Some, focusing on the early hunting, industrial hunting, of whales
to a transformation to a modern sensibility
in which we are very concerned with the conservation of
these endangered and magnificent beasts.