Tradition: Killing Whales

Hi everyone, my entry this week would be based on the article here. To sum up the article, it is referring to the Traditional Eskimo Whaling of the Western Arctic and they article talks about why Eskimo hunters kill whales. 

To the Eskimo hunters, killing whales are part of their culture. Quoting from the article, it states:  "All aspects of whaling fall under the control of ceremonial rituals and belief systems as well as customary patterns having to do with the attraction of whales to the crews, permitting themselves to be taken for food for the village, the hunting and butchering process, and the various uses to which the whale's resources are put." Because hunting and killing whales are part of their culture, they do not see anything wrong with it and do not understand why there are protests made from all over the world to stop them from doing so. Eskimo hunters also believe that whales are attracted to the crew and thus they are permitting themselves to be taken for food for the village. From an outsider's point of view, I feel that this is merely an excuse to try and legalise what they are doing. The website also states that the whale hunting technique is handed down from generation to generation. This is a clear example of how people use culture to glorify their acts. In this case, the Eskimo hunters use the excuse that it is a tradition passed down from their ancestors and also that whales are attracted to them, they did not intentionally hunt them down to kill them. Even though I agree that whale hunting is part of their culture and their ancestors have practiced it in the past, I do not agree the whale hunting should be condoned just because they have to do it for their cultural beliefs. 

This would bring me to the point where the Eskimo hunters are practicing collectivist society because as a whole, they believe that whale hunting should be a legitimate activity whereas people protecting the whales and believe that these sort of hunting should stop belong to a individualist society as they differ from what they know is wrong or right. I feel that whale hunting should be stopped in all parts of the world as we all know that the number of whales are decreasing dramatically. Also, I do not agree that whale hunting should be made legitimate to a certain group of people just because of their cultures as this would lead to extinction of a lot of species. For example, other cultural groups may capture sharks and some other cultural groups may go around killing monkeys. The bottom line is, culture defines who we are, but we should not make use of our culture to prove that our doings are right.