Chapter 2 discusses the economic and religious importance of beached whales in northeastern Japan. Making use of folktales regarding the sea god Ebisu and domanial records on whale strandings, it is argued that stranded whales had a considerable impact on the culture and economy of northeastern communities that led to a different interpretation of whales than the communities in western Japan that engaged in active whaling. As is shown in this chapter, the reason why a non-whaling culture developed in Northeast Japan but not in western Japan is connected to how whales behave on their migration routes along the Japanese coast. Baleen whales passed through western Japanese waters in the winter months without foraging and with little disturbance to the coastal ecosystem. Therefore, whalers could hunt whales with only a small risk of damaging fisheries. However, further north, whales exhibited different behaviour as they hunted small fish for several weeks during the spring. The fishermen there had learned that having whales around benefited them as they indicated the presence of fish and could even bring the fish closer to the shore. This knowledge was thus transmitted in folktales and through material objects such as ‘whale stones’.

Chapter 3 focuses on the earliest sources of anti-whaling protests in northeastern Japan in the late seventeenth century. It analyses a conflict between Kii whalers and local fishermen that occurred in 1677 and shows how whales and proto-industrial fishing were intertwined in the early modern period. The observation that whales would bring fish, such as sardines, closer to the shore played a key role here. Without whales, the local fishermen believed, fish would stay out in the open sea, and they could not catch them. While fishermen made use of stranded whales and even ate whale meat occasionally, they saw the active hunting of whales as a danger to the sardine and bonito proto-industries. Moreover, hunting whales also caused environmental pollution, threatening the fauna and flora near the coast, the economic foundation of the fishermen who relied on gathering coastal flora and fauna. It was in the interest of the locals to protect the community from outside threats such as whaling.

Chapter 4 discusses the failed attempt to introduce whaling in Northeast Japan in the early nineteenth century. The frequent strandings of whales had piqued the interest of whale scholars, such as Ōtsuki Heisen and his cousin Ōtsuki Gentaku, who both promoted the establishment of proto-industrial whaling in the North. In their eyes, whaling would not only bring economic wealth to the northern domains, but whalers could also function as a part-time navy that could protect the Japanese border against intrusion from European powers such as Russia. Based on the works of these whale scholars, new attempts to introduce whaling in northeastern Japan were conducted in the early nineteenth century to combat the Tenpō famine (1833–7). However, due to the increased whaling activities of the American pelagic and Japanese coastal whalers, as well as the reduced abundance of zooplankton and small fishes like sardines, whales were probably scarcer in northeastern Japan, making it almost impossible to conduct a profitable whaling venture at that time.