The tool of choice was a needle, but if the sailor could not lay his hands on one, his trusty pocketknife would do the trick. Using his tools the sailor would scratch and/or carve an image into the polished tooth. As the image began to take shape the sailor would rub pigment into the already cut/etched surface, revealing his design. Since ink was not easy to come by, sailors would use things like soot or ground gunpowder mixed with whale oil to create pigment. General themes included sweethearts from home as well as life at sea, like whaling ships dashing across the waves or Mermaids sunbathing on rocks.
It is important to note that the term or technique has grown to include Eskimo Ivory carvings. There are Eskimo ivory carving that pre and post-date the whaleman’s scrimshaw, which may indicate simultaneous development this art form. It is also hypothesized that the Eskimos borrowed this style of art from Russian traders that were in eastern Siberia as early as the 17th century (Ray, 99). The theory is that the Russians were trading with the Native Alaskans even before the first explorers made it to Alaska’s coasts. However, nothing as graphically-advanced as the whaleman scrimshander’s art would be seen from the Eskimos until after 1835 when the first Whaleman traveled to the islands of Alaska.
Through creative exchange the Whalemen received access to new materials, like mammoth and walrus tusks as well as a revived cultural interested in scrimshaw art. The Eskimos gained new ideas of items, like cribbage boards, pipes, cane handles, and napkin rings, to be created for commercial sale. It was a win-win situation.
New Bedford Whaling Museum, located in Bedford, Massachusetts, has a Scrimshaw Weekend every year dedicated to “the indigenous shipboard art of whalers during the ‘Age of Sail.’” It has several events through out the weekend that you can choose to attend or purchase a weekend pass for all the festivities.
Resources for this blog include:
A Legacy of Artic Art by Dorothy Jean Ray
Scrimshaw and Scrimshanders Whales and Whalemen by E. Norman Flayderman
“This History of Scrimshaw” from Hops Scrimshaw http://www.hopscrimshaw.com/about/scrimhistory.htm
The images used in this article are items that are currently for sale on our website. To see more scrimshaw items please visit our Eskimo collection
source : https://arthurwerickson.com/blogs/news/126279235-let-s-talk-scrimshaw