ABSTRACT
In 1992, an American marine environment researcher observed a distinctive white humpback whale off the Queensland coast and named it ‘Migaloo’. The nickname is a term meaning Whitefella among Aboriginal people in Queensland. It was suggested by a local Indigenous man and his aunt (the latter was said to be a ‘revered aboriginal elder’) after the whale researcher contacted them to express interest in finding an appropriate Aboriginal name. The website of the Pacific Whale Foundation now suggests to a world hungry for information about what has become a highly charismatic animal that Aboriginal people regard all ‘albinos’ – whether humans, kangaroos, crocodiles or whales – as ‘special beings’, ‘perhaps signs or tokens from the spirit world’. 1 Thus, Migaloo the white cetacean has become an object of desire for those who celebrate whales as an inspiring species of nature; its name, deemed to be from everyday speech among Aboriginal people, may be understood to mean that Migaloo belongs in the marine environments of Australia. 2
