In banishment such melody.
John Hall, 1646.
In order to avoid any imputation that I may be attempting to play Euhemerus[2] to the dolphin’s tale, the facts may be allowed to speak for themselves—always remembering that facts never speak for themselves, but are at the mercy of their interpreters. All, then, that I am concerned to show here, by citing the contemporary evidence, is that, in essence, the so-called myths of the ancients were based on solid facts of observation and not, as has hitherto been supposed, on the imaginings of mythmakers.
Let us begin with a brief account of the most recent and most thoroughly documented story of a free-dwelling dolphin’s social interaction with human beings. This is the story of Opo, a female Tursiops that made its appearance early in 1955 at Opononi, a small township just outside the mouth of Hokianga Harbour, on the western side of the North Island of New Zealand. From allowing itself at first to be rubbed with an oar or mop carried on the fishermen’s launches, it began to glide in near the beach among the bathers. The cheerful putt-putt of a motor-launch or of an outboard motor was an irresistible attraction for Opo, and she would follow the boat like a dog, playing or cruising round it. If she had an urge to wander, starting up the motor would invariably draw her back again. Mr. Piwai Toi, a Maori farmer, who was the first to observe Opo, writes, “She was really and truly a children’s playmate. Although she played with grownups she was really at her charming best with a crowd of children swimming and wading. I have seen her swimming amongst children almost begging to be petted. She had an uncanny knack of finding out those who were gentle among her young admirers, and keeping away from the rougher elements. If they were all gentle then she would give of her best.” (Antony Alpers, The Dolphin, pp. 228-229.)
The child the dolphin favored was a thirteen-year-old girl named Jill Baker. At fourteen Jill wrote the following account of her experience with Opo:
“I think why the dolphin became so friendly with me was because I was always gentle with her and never rushed at her as so many bathers did. No matter how many went in the water playing with her, as soon as I went in for a swim she would leave all the others and go off side-by-side with me. I remember on one occasion I went for a swim much further up the beach than where she was playing, and I was only in the water a short while when she bobbed up just in front of my face and gave me such a fright. On several other occasions when I was standing in the water with my legs apart she would go between them and pick me up and carry me a short distance before dropping me again. At first she didn’t like the feel of my hands and would dart away, but after a while when she realized I would not harm her she would come up to me to be rubbed and patted. She would quite often let me put little children on her back for a moment or two.” (In Antony Alpers, The Dolphin, p. 229.)
Opo’s choice of the gentle Jill Baker for the rides which she gave this thirteen-year-old, suggests not only a sensitive discrimination of the qualities of human beings, but also that the reports of similar incidents which have come down to us from antiquity were based on similarly observed events. The one element in these stories which seemed most difficult to accept, and which is so often represented in ancient art, the boy riding on the back of a dolphin, is now removed from the realm of fancy and placed squarely in the realm of fact. It has been corroborated and sustained.
Mr. Antony Alpers in his book on the dolphin, and especially that part devoted to the eyewitness accounts of Opo’s behavior, goes far toward establishing the fact of the dolphin’s remarkable capacity for rapport with human beings. But for those striking facts I must recommend you to Mr. Alper’s charming book.
The dolphin’s extraordinary interest in and, what we will I am sure not be far wrong in interpreting as, concern for human beings, is dramatically told by George Llano in his report Airmen Against the Sea. This report, written on survival at sea during the Second World War, records the experience of six American airmen, shot down over the Pacific, who found themselves in a seven-man raft being pushed by a porpoise toward land. Unfortunately the land was an island held by the Japanese. The friendly porpoise must have been surprised and hurt when he found himself being dissuaded from his pushing by being beaten off with the oars of the airmen.
Dr. Llano also reports that “Most observers noted that when porpoises appeared sharks disappeared, and they frequently refer to the ‘welcome’ appearance of porpoises, whose company they preferred to that of sharks.” This confirms all earlier reports that sharks are no match for the dolphin kind.