Riding Alongside One of the World's Last Whaling Tribes

An up-close look at the Lamalerans of Indonesia, one of the last hunter-gatherer societies on the planet. [ view in browser.   add esquire@newsletter.esquire.com to your address book ]             FOLLOW US       Riding Alongside One of the World's Last Whaling Tribes   Baleo! Baleo! — "The hunt is on!" The cry resounded through the village. A minute before, a motorboat had raced into the bay, and its crew had screamed the signal to the men on the beach, who themselves had taken up the cry. Now every man, woman, and child who had heard their alarm was adding a voice to the shouted relay, until all fifteen hundred souls in the ramshackle houses and surrounding jungle chorused that the sperm whales had been sighted. For nearly three hours, the fourteen téna of the Lamaleran fleet chased the spouts of three young bull sperm whales across the Savu Sea, repeatedly closing in only to be saluted by the animals' flukes as they dove. Finally, Ondu Blikololong, the lamafa of Jon's téna, screamed, Nuro menaluf! — "Hunger spoon!" or, colloquially, "Row as fast as you'd spoon rice if you were starving!" Or perhaps most accurately, "Row like you want to feed your families!" A nasal boom echoed as the whale exhaled. Then droplets showered the hunters: mucous and warm, distinct from the chillier spray off the ocean, as if the whale had blown its nose in their faces. Everyone on the téna knew the animal was filling its colossal lungs for a dive that could last half an hour. Time was short. READ MORE       The Outdoor Boot That'll Live As Long as You Do   If there's any type of clothing that is worth investing in, footwear is first on that list. Finding shoes that can actually withstand wear—through both weather and time—give your entire wardrobe a solid foundation. You'll never feel like you don't have the right gear. You'll always have a go-to pair of shoes that you don't have to think twice about wearing. A good place to start: boots. A better place? Red Wing Heritage boots. They're exactly the kind of boot that'll last you for years to come. Read On         The Sopranos Was Violent Because These Gangsters Were Not Heroes. They Were Monsters.   "I guess maybe the reason a lot of the violence on this show seems funny is because of a notion that we've all done bad things, we're all jerks in some way or another, but here you see somebody get their comeuppance," Sopranos creator David Chase says this in this exclusive excerpt from the book, The Sopranos Sessions, in which he reflects on the show's violence. Read On         The 21 Best Podcasts of 2018   It's safe to say we're living in the golden age of podcasting. As such, the sheer volume of quality audio content out there can feel overwhelming. We're here to help narrow things down. Read On         How Psilocybin—A.K.A. Shrooms—Could Become the Next Legalized Drug   Twenty-nineteen could be the Year of the Magic Mushroom. In Colorado and Oregon, efforts are currently underway to get voters acquainted with and in support of psilocybin, the compound that makes magic shrooms, well, magical. Research has begun, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has registered its interest. Read On         David Beckham Makes Green Eye Shadow Good   In eighth grade, Esquire's Christine Flammia made up her mind that both math and green eyeshadow were decidedly bad. "Both of these facts have been integral parts of my identity ever since," she writes. "So you can imagine how distraught I've been since learning that David Beckham was styled for The Love Magazine while wearing green eyeshadow. And that he looked plainly hot as hell doing it." Read On       Unsubscribe •  Privacy Notice   esquire.com ©2019 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019