I've been thinking about whales lately. (I've had an image in my mind of a big whale floating in a little boat, as though to a different time, different waters.)

My dad at lunch today said he's been thinking about buffalo.

He wasn't sure that tremendous herds of buffalo could have really existed because, how could we have killed that many?

In Wiki under American Bison, there are graphic maps that indicate the range of the bison dropped from the length and breadth of central north America to just a few islands of territory in a span of 20 years - between 1870 and 1889. I remember reading about people riding cross-country on the new railways, shooting herds of bison for sport.

There was an expansive article in National Geographic some years back that explored the hunting of whales. The maps showed where different countries had 'whaling stations' in the oceans around the world, and how many hundreds of thousands of whales were hunted and processed each year.

It seems to me, at some point in each case, we humans switched from hunting to slaughter, to an almost coordinated, soulless effort to eradicate these animals who had phenomenal presence and power.

In Wiki under Whale, there are references to some of the many ancient myths regarding whales. It states (with limited references) that the Inuits told a story about 'Big Raven' finding a beached whale. The Great Spirit guides Raven to a place in the forest where the moonlight reveals mushrooms. Raven eats the mushrooms, and becomes very strong, strong enough to return Whale to the sea. This restores balance to the world.

I followed a link to creation myths, and found an image of a painting.

Here is a link to 'The Creation' by James Tissot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tissot_The_Creation.jpg