Pair of scrimshawed teeth originating from the Davidson family's Kiah whaling station. The scrimshander (or artist) is
unknown.
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| Front (face) engraving on the two whales' teeth. Courtesy of a private collection. |
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| Rear (back) engraving on the pair of whales' teeth. Courtesy of a private collection. |
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| "Bay Whaling off the Boyd Town Light House, Twofold Bay", by O. W. Brierly. Courtesy of the State Library of NSW. |
Scrimshaw,
the art of engraving and carving materials such as bone or ivory, has been
practiced for centuries. Pieces were traditionally created by whalers using by-products
of the catch, including sperm whale bones and teeth, the baleen of other species,
and walrus tusks.
Twofold
Bay, situated as it is on the main migratory route travelled by a number of
commercially valuable whale species, unsurprisingly became the focus for whaling
activity early in colonial times. Thomas Raine established mainland Australia’s
first shore based station at Twofold Bay in 1828, and others soon followed:
among them the Imlay brothers in the 1830s; the Walker family and Scottish-born
entrepreneur Benjamin Boyd in the 1840s.
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| George Davidson (right) with a collection of whaling tools. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia. |
It
was in the wake of Boyd’s financial collapse that Alexander Davidson entered
the industry. After purchasing equipment from Boyd’s bankrupt estate, Alexander
and his son John commenced a business that would span three generations and involve
many members of the extended family.
As
well as European whalers, the Davidson’s also employed indigenous crew members
and the family business soon embraced the close symbiotic relationship that the
local Yuin people had shared with the pods of Twofold Bay killers (or Beowas as
they knew them) for centuries. Although other whaling parties came and went, it
was this co-operative association that always put the Davidson crews ahead of
others in the hunt for the lucrative giants of the sea.
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| One of the Davidson boats whaling in Twofold Bay, with Old Tom alongside. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia. |
The
third generation, George Davidson, commenced his whaling days around the age of
14 and by the 1890s had taken over the family business. However, development of
alternative products led to dwindling demand for whale oil and bone and,
accompanied by the falling number of killers returning annually to the Bay, the
family’s annually catch continued to decline. Finally, the death of “Old Tom”
in 1930 spelled the end of the Davidson’s Twofold Bay operation.
Today,
Davidson’s whaling station is maintained and operated as an historic site by
National Parks and Wildlife Service.
These
local examples of scrimshaw are crude and unsophisticated in style, indicating
that the artist was not particularly proficient in the practice of
scrimshandering when they were made. These pieces are privately owned.
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| Courtesy of a private collection. |
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| Courtesy of a private collection. |
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| Courtesy of a private collection. |
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| Courtesy of a private collection. |
© Angela George. All rights reserved.
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