diff --git a/whales.tex b/whales.tex index 4204cc051de0c4e09a6472cfcf1f20ffea9d27bd..f6170b1c2ab419e5289b4466ca590d09d9e5eb30 100644 --- a/whales.tex +++ b/whales.tex @@ -20,12 +20,26 @@ So `spermacite whale' means `whale sperm whale'. `Spermacite' is a thick, waxy substance that is speculated to aid with bouyancy, however it cannot be confirmed because sperm whales hate us now. But it definitely isn't sperm. -\subsubsection{Whale Products} +\subsubsection{Whalers} -Once a whale is caught, whalers peel its skin like an orange, and boil the blubber into whale oil. -Whale meat gets harvested for food. -Bones are sometimes ground into fertilizer +Killing a whale is not a fun day. +Everyone who does it has to do it. +Bastards and other surplus -- men who have no apprenticeship, or inheritance -- have one clear path to make their living. +They board a whaling boat, and sail. + +Once they have a whale in sight, they propel harpoons using gunpowder weapons, or their arms. +The side of their boat swivels out to provide a netted `shelf' for the whale's processing. + +Once a whale is caught, the whalers must work fast and harvest as much as they can before the whale dies, and rot begins. +Some must walk on top of it, and hope to balance well enough to not fall into the icy-cold waters. +The whalers peel its skin like an orange, then extract and boil the blubber into whale oil. + +Some whalers collect toothed whales' teeth and carve them to pass the time (it's either that or homoeroticism). +\subsubsection{Bountiful Corpses} + +Whale meat gets harvested for food. +Bones are sometimes ground into fertilizer. Sperm whales get scalped and have spermacite extracted from the junk (`junk' is the actual name of the part of their heads that house the liquid). Spermacite is brought to land, where it's chilled over Winter, and later squeezed into sperm oil. @@ -35,8 +49,6 @@ Baleen is also called `whalebone', despite being closer to nails or hair than bo Baleen is harvested from the whale's mouth, and used wherever a thin flexible material can be used. Most famously, it was used for clothes' construction -- corsets, stays, bustles, crinolines, et c. -Whalers collect toothed whales' teeth and carve them to pass the time (it's either that or homoeroticism). - Ambergris is fossilized bowel secretions of sperm whales. It's speculated to be a reaction to bowel irritations.