I remember reading this headline years ago, though at that time it had been much longer since the previous hunt. I had not been aware that the Makah only manage

I remember reading this headline years ago, though at that time it had been much longer since the previous hunt. I had not been aware that the Makah only managed that one hunt before returning to legal limbo - I suppose I imagined that subsequent hunts were not newsworthy, or that the tribe did not care to hunt whales very often. While the idea of a whale hunt is hard to stomach, it seems clear that the Makah must have the right to do it if the treaties with Native American tribes mean anything at all. I have visited the Makah reservation a few times, and they don't have much to go on but the ocean and their culture of fishing. It's easy to see why such a marginalized community might insist on their traditions and seek to claim every scrap of privilege from their treaties - abusively limiting as they generally were - even when the rest of us wish they wouldn't. We can hope that the resumption of whale hunting will bring the Makah a feeling of cultural restoration. Perhaps, after they have successfully asserted themselves for some years, and feel a secure sense of pride in their heritage, they will find that they can adopt some symbolic substitute for the whale hunt of their own free choice.