Issue 9: Burning History & the Ashing of Science

More documents

Recommendations

Info

10 | ORIGINS Side and bottom view of the “narwhal” or “unicorn whale” from An Account of the Arctic Regions with a history and description of the Northern Whale-Fishery by W. Scoresby, 1820. Narwhals primarily live in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, from central Canadian Arctic eastward to Greenland and into the eastern Russian Arctic (though rarely sighted here). They tend to spend two months of summer in ice-free shallow bays and migrate to deep, offshore, ice-covered regions by the continental slope. Narwhals annually migrate between the two seasonal areas over two month movement periods. Sometimes narwhals die from drowning when the strong Arctic winds freeze the surface of the water, blocking narwhals from surfacing to breathe. Being mammals, they still need to breathe air, and when they can’t crack the ice, it becomes a fatal event for the creature. www.knowyourorigins.org
CREATURE FEATURE | 11 Due to many factors, including man-made climate change, little-to-no hunting regulations, and ocean pollution, narwhals are considered Near Threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Data from 2011 states narwhal population is over 80,000. To help protect the status of these creatures, the Canadian government instituted Narwhal Protection Regulations under the Fisheries Act in 1971. This made hunting narwhals illegal for anyone other than the Inuits. There is a catch limit of 5 narwhals a year per subsistence hunter and hunters are required to utilize every part of the narwhal. N a r w h a l s In Fiction The following is an artistic retelling of an Inuit legend of how the narwhal got its tusk. There once was a little Inuit boy. His mother was wicked and had stolen his eyesight. She took the boy’s eyes and threw them into the frigid water when he was born. From then on, the boy couldn’t see anything, but a friendly loon had taught him to use his sense of smell to get around. One day, the boy smelled the scent of a polar bear approaching his home. Using his nose, the boy was able to sneak up on the polar bear and kill it before it was able to attack his family. However, instead of being happy for the boy’s success, the mother simply took the meat and blubber for herself. She cooked the meat in front of the boy, but wouldn’t let him eat any of it. She took the blubber and put it into her hair, forming a twisted, braided knot that came out the top of her head. The mother was very proud of her new hair style, showing it off to the people around the village whenever she could. The boy never got praised, and were it not for the friendly loon that would occasionally come and drop food for the boy, he might have starved to death. One day the friendly loon came to visit the boy, but it didn’t bring any food. Instead it picked up the boy and flew off to its nest, where the boy and loon laughed and played all day. When they were finished, the loon picked up the boy again to take him home. However, the boy slipped from the loon’s grasp and fell into the frigid water below. The water was cold and the boy couldn’t breathe to smell which way was up from down. He struggled for a while, but couldn’t swim the right direction. He slowly closed his eyes and fell asleep. When he awoke later, he was back in the loon’s nest. The friendly loon had dived into water after the boy and retrieved him. The boy opened his eyes and was shocked to be able to see the loon in front of him. The water had turned into ice inside his eyes, restoring his vision. Better yet, his vision was vastly superior, allowing him to see great distances, spotting his home all the way from the loon’s nest. When he returned home to tell his mother about his vision, she was only happy that the boy could now hunt for narwhal in the water for her. On their first outing to go narwhal hunting, the boy was tasked with harpooning small narwhals so that she could use the blubber for her hair. The harpoon was tied to a rope which was tied to his mother’s waist, so she could pull them in. The boy spotted his first narwhal, but thought that it was too big for the mother to pull. The mother chastised the boy and told him to throw the harpoon. The harpoon struck deep, but the narwhal wouldn’t let the mother reel it in. It pulled and struggled so much that the mother fell into the water. Before the boy could do anything, the mother was dragged deep below, never to be seen again. Her long, twisted, braided knot was the last thing to go under the water. Narwhals back then didn’t have horns, but ever since that day people have seen narwhals with twisted spiraled horns coming out the top of their heads. u NARWHALS IN POP CULTURE Now that you know the facts and the legendary fiction, if you dare, check out this video for a glimpse of narwhals in pop culture. Origins Scientific Research Society
Page 2: Issue 9 | Summer 2014 © 2012-2014
Page 6 and 7: Burnt Books and Preserved Pots The
Page 9: GLENN WILLIAMS | PD Creature Featur
Page 13 and 14: Discovering Prehistoric tice Marker
Page 15 and 16: DISCOVERING A PREHISTORIC SOLSTICE
Page 18 and 19: Sure enough, on June 21st, at 11:45
Page 20 and 21: 20 | ORIGINS THEN, the greatest sur
Page 22 and 23: PAGE 22 OF 48 To write history is t
Page 24 and 25: The evidence suggests that people t
Page 26 and 27: 26 | ORIGINS Banned Books Karen Mez
Page 28 and 29: By the Blood of the Sword and the M
Page 30 and 31: 30 | ORIGINS The Early Years Christ
Page 32 and 33: 32 | ORIGINS al-Din, the successor
Page 36 and 37: Søren Niedziella & Mate Marschalko
Page 38 and 39: 38 | ORIGINS was systematically des
Page 40 and 41: Hermann Göll, 1876. | PD-US
Page 42 and 43: 42 | ORIGINS The famous Library of
Page 44 and 45: 44 | ORIGINS Pagans from the Librar

Issue 9: Burning History & the Ashing of Science

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?