the.com/scrimshaw
the doodle whalers carved into corpses to survive the boredom of murder at sea
means The craft of carving or engraving intricate designs into bone, ivory, or shell — especially whale teeth and baleen — or an object so made.
from A sailor's word of murky birth, first surfacing in the early 19th-century whaling trade, when crews on years-long voyages filled the dead hours by etching teeth and bone. Its earliest forms wobble between 'scrimshaw,' 'scrimshander,' and 'skrimshander,' and no one is sure where it came from — guesses point to a surname (Scrimshaw is a real English name) or to a now-lost slang verb meaning to idle or fiddle about. The honest answer is that the whalers gave us the thing and kept the etymology to themselves.
- medium
- Whale teeth and bone, etched with ink or soot
- origin
- Born from idle hands on years-long whaling voyages
- banned
- Most modern ivory scrimshaw is illegal to sell
- presidential
- JFK collected it and was buried with a piece
- toolkit
- Often just a sail needle and tobacco juice
nantucket whaling fleet logs — 19th-century american whalers carved whale teeth and bone during long voyages, creating intricate designs that sold for substantial sums in ports
crimshaw british prison art — british convicts at dartmoor prison in 1800s carved intricate designs on bone and antler, creating a parallel scrimshaw tradition inland