From the 1840s killer whales at Eden, New South Wales, hunted with the shore whalers: they herded baleen whales into the bay and called the boats out, and were left the tongue and lips of each catch, a bargain later called the Law of the Tongue. Aboriginal people began the partnership before Europeans came, and Thaua men rowed in the Davidson family's boats. Old Tom, about 6.7 metres with a very tall fin, is said to have flopped his tail at the mouth of the Kiah River to call the Davidsons out, and to have towed their boats by the line in his teeth. A local story says that around 1923 a neighbour towed a whale away from him and he lost teeth. His body was found floating in the bay on 17 September 1930. George Davidson towed him in, and his skeleton is in the Eden Killer Whale Museum.

Told the way Aleksandr Petrov's The Old Man and the Sea (1999) tells its story: paint on glass lit from behind, memory and the present flowing into each other without a cut.

Was there an animal who always came when you called?

Sources: the Eden Killer Whale Museum; Reeves and others, Journal of Heredity, 2023; the Eden community history site; the Eden Magnet; Australian Geographic; Wikipedia on the killer whales of Eden and on Petrov's film.

Film and music: ours, an homage made independently of the makers of The Old Man and the Sea. Sounds: recordings by Bandslam33, kyles, Rmutt, phonoflora, Fenodyrie, geraldfiebig, kaekhor, qubodup, paulprit, TRP, Ali_6868, Soojay, greysound, borralbi and nvmbky (CC0), raiden04 and jrosin (CC BY 4.0) and juanlopz08 (CC BY 3.0) on Freesound, and by Joseph Sardin and Axeline T. (CC0) on BigSoundBank. Piano samples: Apple Logic; orchestra: Apple GarageBand; cello: University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios. Font: Courier Prime (OFL).