Didn Yankee sailors invent scrimshaw?
Archeologists in North America have found works of art comparable to scrimshaw made by native peoples from land and marine ivory and bone that date back as far as 100-200 AD, but it was the Yankee whalers of the 1800 s who are actually attributed with creating, popularizing and naming the art form, making it a traditionally American art form. With long periods of time on their hands between one whale and the next on what could be as much as three years or more at sea, Yankee sailors took up the art form as a way to pass the time. But at sea, the only ivory and bone available to them were from the whales they hunted. This nautical expression of the art form soon passed from ship to ship and it wasn t long before scrimshaw was practiced by whalers and sailors from numerous countries around the globe. Hence, scrimshaw has forever after been associated as an art form started and practiced by whalemen, sailors or others associated with nautical pursuits. Unfortunately, this is an lamentable
