In contrast to Pip's isolation, here (in processing the whale blubber) the men join in a communal effort that is sociable and businesslike. Ishmael finds it a pleasant task to squeeze the crystallized sperm oil. Sometimes his hands meet the hands of his fellows with an "abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling." The camaraderie is palpable; he is overcome with serenity.
The process is imbued with certain rituals. One of the more interesting involves a mixture of fertility rite and religion. The penis of a bull whale, more than six feet in length and a foot in diameter, is cut off, lugged aboard ship, and skinned. The skin is dried, trimmed, and shaped into a rude cassock (a vestment worn by a clergyman) for the mincer, who wears it as he minces large chunks of blubber for the pots. Ishmael compares this to a religious service, the mincer a candidate for an "archbishoprick," the pun clearly intended. This ceremony is similar to some of the harvest rituals or fertility rites of agrarian societies, the whale's reproduction being essential to a continuation of the profession and symbolically honored.
