Music on Whaleships

Because how else will you power through the boredom AND the horrors!?

Two men aboard the Wanderer, photographed by Pardon B. Gifford in 1906 (New Bedford Whaling Museum)

Music featured quite frequently on whalers, though not necessarily in the same way as it might on a merchant vessel. The quintessential musical contribution of sailors—the sea shanty—didn’t hold as prominent a place aboard a whaler as it did on other types of ships. Some captains were particularly strict about keeping noise down while cruising to prevent gallying any nearby whales. Shanties were also less necessary for performing the work: Whaleships tended not to carry a great deal of sail, had a lot of hands aboard available to handle it, and were quite leisurely in their pace as they lolled around the globe for years at a time. This was unlike merchant ships that tended to have smaller crews, larger ships, and tighter schedules, all for which shanties were used more often to coordinate that work effort. However, music was still vital to maintaining good morale during a whalers' work that was, in turns, extremely demanding and dangerous, and extremely dull and mind-numbing. Both of which could really plague a fellow's soul if there was no relief. A panacea for a whaleship's ills, music rang out in the fo'c'sle during idle hours, was sought out during shore leaves, was copied down in remembered songs in the backs of men's journals, and any fellow who hazarded to pick up an instrument or lift his voice was a prized member of the crew.

Read on, under the readmore, since this is also quite a long one with many a photo, journal entry, recorded music, and whalers' original written songs! I really REALLY enjoyed pulling this one together.

One of the things I resent most about being Animal Brain Apex Predator trapped in Maximum Productivity Society is that I have to work when the weather is gross, instead of following my natural instinct to burrow myself into something dry and soft and sleep until Optimal Foraging Conditions

It is dark and cold and wet and miserable and I have a warm dark quiet hideaway full of food and drinking water that is safe from interlopers and for some ungodly reason instead of holing up there to conserve my energy, I am standing up in a brightly lit beige room for several hours. A possum wouldn't put up with this shit. I'm going to bite someone

I'm a law abiding citizen but something about working six times harder than my grandparents for a sixth of what they had is persuasive

sign brendan saw last night

my adblocker prevented the nyt from loading the paywall banner so all i got was this

do not understand people who get bored of seeing common animals. understand even less when they act with annoyance or hostility just because they're common animals. a deer or a sparrow or a field mouse is like a sunset to me

I agree, but with 1 exception...goddamned Canadian geese. I hate those fuckers & will square up given the chance.

🫵👎.

imagine being unable to recognize true beauty

hi i just created an excel sheet where i can pick a meal and have it autopopulate the ingredients i'll need as a shopping list

i have never felt so smart

OH MY GOD I CAN MAKE THEM DROP DOWN LISTS

THIS IS TRUE POWER

I NEVER HAVE TO DECIDE WHAT TO EAT OR MAKE A GROCERY LIST AGAIN

I CAN MAKE THE MACHINE DO IT FOR ME, AND ALL I HAVE TO DO IS PICK A FOOD FROM A DROPDOWN LIST

OH MY GOD I'M THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE GAME

HI IF YOU WANNA MAKE THIS

I DID IT IN GOOGLE'S EXCEL BC THAT'S WHAT I HAVE ACCESS TO ON MY PERSONAL DEVICE. I IMAGINE EXCEL EXCEL IS PROB SIMILAR.

hi, to make this easier, i made a google account just to make a shareable link for the original i made.

it's viewer only mode, so you can't edit the link itself, but i tested it out, and all you have to do is copy/paste it into a doc of your own, and then you'll be able to edit it no problem.

this way, the only thing you'll need to do is input your own dishes and ingredients and all the formulas will already be good to go.

What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

And then I think about:

How we hunted the beavers to near extinction, and a beaver pond increases the soil moisture level, creates/expands wetlands, etc.

How we banned intentional fires, and now are dealing with bigger, hotter, more dangerous fires. And that one of the tools in invasive species management is intentional fires.

How we have all these invasive plant species invading everywhere, and if people were still allowed/encouraged to "forage" like they did pre-colonialization, that would include removing those invasive species. And people would have eyes everywhere, so the populations of invasive species would not have had the chance to get established.

The land needs people. Leaving it "wild" and "untouched" is actually neglect.

I’m losing my fucking mind there’s a whole god damn online database full of illustrations for illuminated manuscripts, you don’t need a subscription or anything. And it has a search function so you can enter key words for whatever you want to see. Right now I’m looking for fucked up illustrations of the apocalypse in Revelations, like so;

If you click the images on the website they come out super high def too. They also have a couple bestiaries, as well as some illustrations of the Divine Comedy. This is my new best friend I’m so fucking excited

yes. excellent.

I think there must be lots of people who need this?

I am, like, a long running proponent of the "eat something and you'll feel better" crowd and am often one of the first people to suggest "maybe it's time for a snack before I get whipped into a frenzy" but I really do resent how instantaneous it is. like it'll feel like I'm having my worst day in months and then I'll start eating and literally before I even finish I'm like oh yeah the world is beautiful

This Friday's meme is: hide your children

"you should be at the club" i should be in the woods. performing the ritual.

"who radicalized you" ever since i was a child i wanted other people to be treated nicely and fairly because i didnt understand why theyd deserve otherwise and it fills me with disgust seeing how people treat their fellow human beings sometimes