Unhappy whalers [1]
Thursday, July 1, 1999 - 12:00. Updated on Monday, January 11, 2016 - 09:55.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 3, July 1999.
Three native American whalers, Tom Happynook, his son Brian, and a cousin, Larry Johnson visited Nuku‘alofa during the second week of July, after visiting Australia and New Zealand.
Tom, Brian and Larry are native Americans from the AUU-AG-Aht First Nation, which settled on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, on the border between Canada and the United States.
In Australia, the three attended a conference on the rights of world indigenous people. Tom said that whaling is very much part of his life, and he played an important role in the life of his people, because whale’s meat is an important part of their staple diet.
Cruel
In Nuku‘alofa they were excited to hear that a whale was landed and butchered in Tonga for the first time in nearly 30 years. Whaling is banned in Tongan waters but Tom hoped that the Tongan government would be brave enough to allow Tongan whalers to kill a few whales for local consumption each year. He thought it was cruel to stop people from eating their favourite food.