A Whale of a Difference: Southern Right Whale Culture and the Tasman World's Living Terrain of Encounter

This article examines the cross-cultural histories that developed around the bay whale fisheries of the Tasman World (Australia and New Zealand) in the early nineteenth century. Using new insights about whale culture from marine biology and data gleaned from whaling logs, it posits that changing right whale cultures significantly influenced the ways that Aboriginals and Māori participated in the industry, and thus deeply shaped colonial histories there. This case study presents evidence that historians need to consider animal cultures as important parts of human histories and that doing so can provide unexpected answers to large historical questions.