As Macy says: “The Indians were instructed in the mode of fishing practised by the whites, and, in return, the whites were assisted by the Indians in pursuing the business.” Another writer says: “There is no doubt that the Natick Indians hunted the whale in canoes, in a manner somewhat similar to that practised today by the Bow-Meaders of the north coast of Siberia.” Moreover, I have been personally informed by a gentleman of much culture and experience who knows as much about the Nantucket Whaling industry as any man now alive, that “hunting the whale was well-known and long practised by the Nantucket Indians.” If any further evidence is deemed necessary it may be found in the following quotation from =Weymouth’s Voyage=: “One especial thing in their manner of killing a whale which they (the Indians) call =powdawe=, and will describe his form, how he bloweth up the water, and that he is twelve fathoms long, and that they go in company with their King, with a multitude of their boats, and strike him with a bone made in the fashion of a harping iron, fastened to a rope, which they make great and strong of the bark of trees which they veer out after him; that all their boats come about him, and as he riseth above water, with their arrows they shoot him to death. When they have killed him and dragged him to shore, they call all their chief lords together, and sing a song of joy, and these chief lords, whom they call sagamores, divide the spoil and give to every man a share; which pieces so distributed they hang up about their houses for provision, and when they boil them they blow off the fat, and put in their pease, maize and other pulse which they eat.” There can be no doubt that the Nantucket Indians joined gladly in the chase of whales, and that they were fully as dexterous as the whites, not only in securing, but in dealing with the carcasses afterwards. The year 1763–4 was, indeed, a sad one for the Indians of Nantucket, inasmuch as, from August in the former year to February in the latter, they suffered from a malignant form of epidemic which, even yet, has not been identified, although the probability is that it was either typhus or typhoid fever, small-pox or yellow fever. Curiously enough, of the English who visited them daily, caring for and nursing the afflicted natives, not one was affected by the pestilence, which ceased suddenly, without previous abatement, on the 16th of February, 1764. Before the epidemic broke out there were 358 Indians on the island, of whom 222 perished, leaving only 136 natives to represent the race.[17] [17] Obed, Macy; =opus cit.= In 1791 there were but four male Indians and sixteen females left on the island, and in 1809 there were only three or four persons of pure blood and a few of mixed race.