Scrimshaw Sperm Whale Pan Bone Plaque, Mid-19th Century
notes: label: Description
content: This section of oval bone was sliced from a large sperm whale’s pan or jaw bone, then shaved thin, smoothed, and polished. It is extremely unusual, in that the carved scene details a specific event with names and a date. An engraved three-line inscription across the top of the plaque reads:
label: Description
content: Joachn Pereiz July 20th 1839,
label: Description
content: Fast to a whale got a foul line which took the boat down
label: Description
content: American ship Averick in sight
label: Description
content: Below the inscription the large whaler Averick sails with four whaleboats in the foreground. The boat on the right is halfway underwater. On the left, smaller, more distant whaleship sails in the background behind a pod of five whales. The inscription describes a common mishap aboard whaleboats sent out from the mother ship to dart and kill a whale. After a whale was hooked with a harpoon, it would commonly sound, or dive deep, to get away from the whaleboat. Aboard the whaleboat, the harpoon line had to run free as long as the whale was active. In this incident, the line fouled and the sounding whale dragged the boat underwater. Since few whalemen knew how to swim in the 19thcentury, this sort of accident meant almost certain drowning. However, the proximity of the Averick and the other whaleboats, along with the existence of the plaque commemorating the incident, suggest a happier ending for the story. In the absence of other information, Joachn Pereiz is presumed to be a boat crew of the Averick in the center of the picture. The Averick belonged to John Avery Parker & Son of New Bedford, MA and is best known for transporting the Fifth Company of Boston Protestant missionaries to Hawaii in June 1832. It was sold into the Chilean whaling fleet in 1845.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Maritime
label: See more items in
content: Scrimshaw
label: See more items in
content: Cultures & Communities
label: See more items in
content: Transportation
label: See more items in
content: Art
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Nan Jeffries Antonsanti
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.385967
label: catalog number
content: 385967
label: accession number
content: 177718
objectType: label: Object Name
content: panel
label: Object Name
content: scrimshaw whale bone panel
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: whale bone (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 in x 9 5/8 in x 3/16 in; 17.78 cm x 24.4475 cm x .47625 cm