ABSTRACT
One of the main institutions linking the two sets of whaling activities (i.e. hunting and processing) as well as the three forms of whaling (i.e. pelagic, LTCW, and STCW) is that of the whaling company. This linking was achieved on several levels. Firstly, the various whaling companies have been linked with one other through financial arrangements, at times operating jointly on whaling grounds, and all participating in the same industrial associations. Secondly, a large number of people from various places were brought together as a result of the systems of recruitment employed. Employees were firmly integrated into the company through such organizational strategies as rituals, songs, company newspapers, and former employees’ associations, and together these created the kind of in-group feeling that is so often a feature of institutions (and, of course, of companies in general) in Japanese society. Finally, the company has helped transfer knowledge of whaling both spatially and temporally-from one region to another, and from one generation to the next. In this respect the whaling company has, of course, been central in the training of whalers.
