The specific practices, the prayers, the protocols for the whale hunt’s conduct and for the treatment of the whale after its death: all of these were cultural knowledge that lived in the oral tradition rather than in any material form that would survive archaeologically.

When the material technology of whaling is recovered at a site like Ozette, the objects document the what and the how of the mechanical process.

The harpoon shaft had these dimensions; the float had this construction; the line was made from this material.

But the objects cannot directly document the why and the when and the who of the ceremonial framework.

That dimension of the whale hunt is preserved not in the mud but in the cultural knowledge that Makah elders and ceremonial specialists have maintained.