Everything will be consumed, one way of another. Much of the meat and oil will be distributed within the community and all will be consumed here, Dailey said. Some will be eaten fresh, some will be frozen and stored, and some will be smoked - many Makah have smokehouses. There are ceremonial parts of the whale, parts for chiefs, parts for feasting, and tribal protocol for handling all of these, says Dailey, a fisheries biologist who has been involved for five years in the Makah effort to resume the whale hunts that for centuries defined the tribe on this remote Pacific Northwest coast. She will need help tending the beach fires and stoves as the whale blubber is rendered into oil - she estimates 1,900 gallons of oil from a southbound female gray whale.
People here are good about helping, whether it's a happy time or a crisis.
Otherwise I wouldn't do this. The tribe plans to put together the bones of its first whale for a museum display of the huge creature. Gray whales can be up to 50 feet long and weigh as much as 40 tons. A whale that beached here in 1996 offered an opportunity for experimentation in local kitchens, Dailey says, though much of the meat had turned and was unfit for human consumption. She's also tried using it in spaghetti sauce.