Enchantment of the dolphin

Abstract

In mid-May 2013, word began to spread around the internet that India had declared dolphins to be “non-human persons”. These words did indeed appear in a circular issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests Central Zoo Authority as part of a text banning dolphinaria, although its interpretation is anything but easy: “Whereas…various scientists who have researched dolphin behavior have suggested that the unusually high intelligence as compared to other animals means that dolphins should be seen as non-human persons…the States Governments are advised to reject any such proposal for [dolphinaria]…”. Whatever meaning was intended, India has granted no such constitutional status to dolphins, nor indeed has anywhere else. Long ago, however, before science and the media could contribute toward any consideration of the cetacean condition, cultures around the world went farther and embraced the “humanness” of dolphins. Visitors to the Channel Islands National Park in California will no doubt have heard of how the Chumash Native Americans, who believe their ancestors originated on the island of Santa Cruz, regard dolphins as their brothers. Upon seeing their island becoming overpopulated, Hutash, the Earth Mother, decided to help the Chumash cross to the mainland via a rainbow bridge. As they crossed, some people fell into the ocean below. Hutash, fearing they might drown, saved them by turning them into dolphins, there-by making the Chumash and dolphins members of the same family. Jason Cressey (Rapa Nui Journal 1998; 12: 75–84) collected an astonishing anthology of beliefs and myths from across the Pacific in which humans and dolphins exchange their forms. For example, a belief of the Wurundjeri people of southeastern Australia maintains that after death their spirits transform into dolphins, who from the sea guide and assist their kin on land. Certain Maori tribes in southern New Zealand traditionally hold a similar belief. And in a myth told by the people of Groote Eylandt off the northern Australian coast, the reverse happens: dolphin souls become humans. Dinginjabana, the dolphin leader, jealous over his consort Ganadja's regard for the intellectually gifted shellfish, taunts them cruelly. Yet the wise mollusks enlist the protection of the tiger sharks. The souls of the dolphins killed in the sharks' attack – including Dinginjabana himself – turn into humans. Years later, Ganadja is overjoyed when she sees “human Dinginjabana” wading in the shallows, and she takes human form too, to be with him. A boto on his way to a dance. Cressey also found Micronesia to be replete with tales of dolphins taking human form. In a myth from Onotoa Island, some female dolphins, intoxicated by the perfume of a young man's hair oil, come to the beach in search of him. But things go wrong and the local men start killing the dolphins for food. The good-smelling lad spares one of the dolphins under his spear, and hides her, whereupon she transforms into a beautiful girl and eventually they fall in love. The village elders, concerned about this romance once it is discovered, are persuaded by the young dolphin-girl that all dolphins were once human, and the two are allowed to marry. The oddest tales, however, surround the pink dolphin (Inia geoffrensis; locally known as the boto), whose home is the Amazon, Orinoco, Araguaia, and Tocantins river systems. Mark Cravalho (Ethnology 1999; 38: 47–58) and Candace Slater (Dance of the Dolphin 1994; Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press) both tell of a cross-cultural belief still held in the Amazon that “enchanted” male botos can, at night, take human form and appear at village fiestas. Dashingly dressed in white and excellent dancers, they set out to seduce young women, who find their charms irresistible. Even now, children born out of wedlock along those rivers, where wary mothers warn their daughters not to walk the shoreline, are said to be the offspring of the boto. Many cultures, of course, have regarded dolphins as no more than animals, and have regularly hunted them for food. Such dichotomy in human thinking is made nowhere more apparent than in Taiji Cove, Japan, where fishermen annually hunt dolphins, to the indignation of millions, many of whom see in the dolphin something more than just another animal. Perhaps this conflict, in which so much grief and anger is invested, is a signal that the time is fast approaching when we will have to sit down together as a global culture and decide what dolphins are and what they mean to us. I cannot help thinking that the creature that rolled on its side, and looked me in the eye as I peered over the front of a sailboat cutting through the summer sea, would have an opinion to share.