Ladyfisher:  There is so much wisdom contained in your words!  I hope people reading them can 'hear' them well and learn from them.  There are many ways to take a great animal like the whale but a rifle is not one of them.  Also, with so many years left in the life of this whale, I seriously doubt, like the one Elder said, that the whale 'gave himself to this one particular village.  This was simply NOT a subsistence​ killing!