Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick, 1851, and how a Hawaiian Missionary saved an American sailor from cannibals

American Minute ^ | August 1, 2020 | Bill Federer

[Perseverando]

"There she blows!" cried the lookout, sighting the great white whale, Moby Dick.

The classic book, Moby Dick, was written by New England author Herman Melville, published in 1851.

In the novel, Captain Ahab, driven by revenge, sailed the seas to capture this great white whale who had bitten off his leg in a previous encounter.

The crew of Captain Ahab's ship, the Pequod, included:

Ishmael, the teller of the tale, which begins the line: "Call me Ishmael"-the name of Abraham's son who was sent away;

Chief Mate Starbuck, a Quaker from Nantucket, for whom the Seattle-based coffee franchise took its name;

Second Mate Stubb;

Captain Boomer;

Harpooneer Tashtego, a native American of the Wampanoag Tribe; and

Harpooneer Queequeg, a tattooed Polynesian from a mysterious cannibal island in the South Pacific.

"Tattoo" originated from "tatau" or "tatu," which were body markings originally associated with natives, aborigines, cannibals and headhunters of Southeast Asian islands, such as:

Polynesia, Micronesia, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, New Zealand, New Guinea, Malagasy, and the Marquesas Islands.

"Tattoo" was first mentioned by naturalist Joseph Banks, who accompanied Captain James Cook on the ship HMS Endeavour as he explored the Pacific, 1768-1771:

"I shall now mention the way they mark themselves indelibly, each of them is so marked by their humour or disposition."

Sailors brought tattoos to port cities around the world, where, for a century, they were associated with salty sailors, rough working men, slaves, convicts, and circus sideshows.

In the 1956 film Moby Dick, actor Gregory Peck played Captain Ahab.

Ahab finally caught up with Moby Dick in the Pacific

[elcid1970]

Boy, have I been beaten up for putting the wrong actor in the whaler’s pulpit!

But I remember for a fact how easily he scaled that rope ladder to mount into the pulpit. Welles was 41 at the time and not yet obese.

That’s why I thought it might have been Charlton Heston.

[hanamizu]

That’s probably why I couldn’t get through the book. I just found it boring and uninteresting.

---

I’ve read it twice. I worked on an albacore boat out of San Pedro. I know, it’s not the same as going round the Horn, but we did see whales, lots of whales, up close. Melville writes as if he saw some of the same things I saw.

You don’t say how long ago you tried the book. You might want to give it another try. English teachers do their best to ruin it by saying it’s a great allegory about the place of man and nature—and maybe it is. But Melville always denied the idea.