Along New South Wales’ rugged coastline in Australia lies the small coastal town of Eden. The area has one of the deepest natural harbors in the Southern Hemisphere, attracting wildlife, including baleen whales and orcas (also known as killer whales).
In Eden, the story of an orca named Old Tom embodies a remarkable relationship between humans and orcas that’s probably existed for over 10,000 years.
In the early 1900s, Old Tom and other orcas would trap a baleen whale for the whalers to harpoon. The whalers would then let the orcas eat their favorite parts (tongue and lips), and the orcas — on their part — would leave valuable blubber and bones for the whalers.
This unspoken form of the agreement became known as the “Law of the Tongue.”.
Cultural significance of orcas among the Indigenous people
This tacit “agreement” happened thousands of years before European whalers set up shop in Eden in the mid-1800s.
The partnership between orcas and the indigenous Australian people holds profound cultural significance. The indigenous Yuin people view the orcas as kin that hold their ancestors’ spirits. These ancestors would bring the locals food and gifts, and the people would give them gifts in return.
The ‘Law of the Tongue’
Today, little is known about the “contract” between the indigenous Yuin and the orcas. But when the European settlers came to Eden and the shores of TwoFold Bay, the law of the tongue became much more straightforward.
The new settlers established shore-based whaling settlements around the bay to get the much-sought whale oil and bones. At first, the whalers saw the orcas as competitors or an impediment to their hunting expeditions. However, one family of Scottish whalers called the Davidsons hired local Yuin as whalers — the Yuin locals let them in on a millennia-old secret of hunting baleen whales with orcas.
“If it hadn’t been for the Indigenous crews on those boats, I don’t think that relationship would have evolved. And the Europeans would have just killed the killer whales because they were getting in the way,” says Danielle Clode, a zoologist at Flinders University in Australia and author of Killers of Eden.
As mentioned, the group of orcas would corner baleen whales, such as humpbacks, into the shallow bay areas, and the hunters would harpoon the whale. Orcas are picky eaters, so they would only feed on the whale’s tongue and leave the rest for the whalers.
The Davidsons and local Yuin people knew the orcas that helped them by sight and personality. It was a pod of 15 to 20 whales, with names such as Jimmy, Skinner, Stranger, and, the most famous of them all, Old Tom.
The spectacular Old Tom
Old Tom particularly stood out because of his large dorsal fin and “dog-like nature.” The story goes that whenever Old Tom or other members of his pod cornered a humpback or any other whale at the bay, he would break off from his pod to go and alert the Davidsons. Old Tom would throw and slap his tail around the surface until he got the whalers’ attention. Davidson and his men would then follow the orca to the bounty.
There’s even a fanciful story of the orcas dragging Davidson’s whaling boats toward their bounty so that he could reach there before other whalers. And if a whaler fell overboard, the orcas would protect him from sharks until he was rescued.
Why would orcas need humans to hunt baleen whales?
Whales, dolphins, and porpoises are closely related to carnivorous mammals. Some, like orcas, are toothed whales, meaning they bite their food. On the other hand, baleen whales, such as humpbacks and blue whales, swallow huge gulps of water and then filter out fish and krill.
Average male orcas weigh about 9 tons, while females weigh about 4 tons. In comparison, baleen whales, like female humpbacks, weigh about 40 tons, while adult female blue whales can reach 200 tons!
The orcas could kill a baleen whale, but the hunting method is risky, energy-consuming, and time-consuming. It involves pushing the enormous whale beneath the water to drown it, biting its vulnerable parts, and battering it with their tails. Ultimately, the baleen whale tires and drowns. Still, it would take the entire pod of orcas working tirelessly for long periods.
So it was just easier to guide the whale to the more adept humans.
The tragic end of Old Tom
The cooperation between whalers and orcas lasted almost a century — from the mid-19th to the early 20th century. But one fall afternoon in 1923, things turned sour, and this partnership faded.
Old Tom had cornered a small whale that day and alerted the whalers as usual. But on this day, a storm was brewing, and fearing it may catch them at sea, the whalers decided to take their bounty to shore — without honoring the law of the tongue.
Old Tom wanted his part of the bounty, and a struggle ensued. Old Tom lost some teeth in this tug of war as he tried to bite and hold onto the tow rope. Margaret Brooks, who had accompanied her father, John Logan, on this whaling expedition, said that on seeing the damage on Old Tom’s teeth, her father exclaimed, “Oh God, what have I done?”
Orcas’ teeth do not grow back, which hampers their hunting and may lead to an infection. Old Tom did not die shortly after, as many accounts say, but washed ashore seven years later in September 1930. Some people say he died of unknown causes or old age, while others say he died of starvation.
The death of a partnership
When Old Tom washed ashore almost 93 years ago, the pod of orcas (killer whales) that used to guide the whalers at Eden stopped visiting. It is unknown whether they did so because of the death of Old Tom or because other whalers hunted them alongside baleen whales. Still, Old Tom’s end marked the end of the partnership and the Davidsons’ ability to hunt for whales using small row boats.
John Logan honored Old Tom’s memory by financing the Eden Killer Whale Museum. You can see Old Tom’s remains at the museum and learn more about the ancient days of human-orca partnership.
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