ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 scrutinizes People of the Whale, a novel whose plot is based on the 1997 resumption of the whale hunt by the Makah tribe of the American Northwest. The action is set in the liminal area where tradition and sovereign rights clash with big business deals, the protection of endangered species, and a fundamental impulse of compassion for a majestic and suffering creature. In Hogan's handling of the theme, respecting human obligations to animal ancestors is seen as a condition sine qua non of Indigenous survival. This novel ends on a hopeful note: a newborn child announces the triumph of life over death and spells a new chance for humanity. The future, however, is most explicitly associated with transformational beings who assist at its birth and a maternal presence who watches over it. Birthed by ancestor whale—a mammal who once walked the earth as humans do now but returned to the water to live like a fish—the new humanity must be transformational, humanimal itself.
