Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Whale's Fin

Whale's Fin is a Shinnecock sacred and cultural place near Shinnecock Inlet, remembered in oral history through whaling, whales coming ashore, and the changing barrier-beach landscape. Whale's Fin connects Shinnecock maritime knowledge with a living cultural landscape. It carries histories of whaling skill, coastal change, and continuing relationships among Shinnecock people, whales, the bay, and the ocean. Shinnecock historian David Bunn Martine remembered Whale's Fin as a place connected with both whale hunting and whales coming ashore. He described it as a place "that they hunted the whales from or whales beached themselves at." His account places the history before the modern inlet formed in the hurricane of 1938 and emphasizes the skill required to launch whale canoes through the surf. 1 James Hammond's 1903 Natick Dictionary records potab and related spellings for whale, and...