Sperm whale has the largest brain on Earth, more than five times heavier than a human's. Sperm whales can live for more than 60 years. Spermaceti (sperm oil), from which the whale derives its name, was a prime target of the whaling industry, and was sought after for use in oil lamps, lubricants, and candles. Ambergris, a solid waxy waste product sometimes present in its digestive system, is still highly valued as a fixative in perfumes, among other uses. Beachcombers look out for ambergris as flotsam. Sperm whaling was a major industry in the nineteenth century, immortalised in the novel "Moby Dick".
On Top of the Whale any such encounter is inevitably a game in which the 'objects' of ethnographic inquire are dissimulating themselves and this dissimulation is inevitably subject to further distortions in its interpretations". Several themes that come forth in "On Top of the Whale" include Life, Survival, Love, Reality, Illusion, Marxism and Civilization. It could be treated as a parodic version of a problematic cross-cultural "first contact", in colonial settings. Its emphasis is on the anthropologists attempt to understand native culture and unintentionally harming it as a result. On Top of the Whale On Top of the Whale () is a 1982 Dutch surreal