Queequeg
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Queequeg is a fictional character presented in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by U.S. author Herman Melville. He is the first principal character encountered by the narrator Ishmael, serves as the chief harpooner aboard the Pequod, and plays a recurring important role in much of the events of the book both in port and during the whaling voyage. Although a "savage" cannibal, he is described with great sympathy and much admiration by Ishmael, who is befriends by him early in the book.
Description
Queequeg is a native of a fictional island in the South Pacific Ocean named Kokovoko or Rokovoko. The island is the home to his primitive tribe who practice cannibalism, in particular devouring the flesh of enemies slain in battle. Queeqeug claims that the only case indigestion he has suffered was after a feast in which fifty slain enemies were eaten. He displays no shame regarding the practice, describing his people in a matter-of-fact fashion. In port he prefers a diet of rare red meat, but will settle for whatever is on the menu, such as clam chowder.
Although the son of the chief, he chose to leave his island out of curiosity see more of the world and to experience and evaluate the different (and possibly superior) civilization of the Christian world. At first rejected by the whaler that landed on his island, he skillfully jumps from a canoe and clamps to the side of the boat as it in leaving for the open sea, at which point the captain relents. At the opening of the novel, he has been in port in New Beford, having returned from a whaling voyage. It is Ishmael who convinces him, based on their friendship, to ship on another whaling expedition with him. At the time of the novel, he has been away from his home island for many years, so much that it is possible that his father is dead and that he would become the chief if he returned.
He's a young man, in the prime of life, tall and powerfully athletic, an excellent swimmer who does not hesitate an instant to dive into cold water to save the life a troublesome passenger about the ferry from New Bedford to Nantucket.
He practices a form of animism using a small idol named Rojo for which he builds small ceremonial fires. As part of his religion, he practices a prolonged period of fasting and silence (which Ishmael calls his "Ramadan"), at one time locking himself in his room in Natucket. Even after Ishmael enters the room, he keeps his fast and silence without acknowledging the presence of others. Nevertheless he spontaneously attends a Christian sermon of Father Mapple in New Bedford, although he slips out before the end.
He is unflappable and extremely easy going among white society, never gruding and insult. He immediately takes to Ishmael and decides (based on advice from his idol) that Ishmael should decide on the ship for both of them together.
He is an extraordinary harpooner, impressing the money-tight owners of the Pequod so much that they immediately offer him a high 1/90 portion (nintieth lay) of the ship's profit in exchange for his signing on as harpooner. In port carries his sharpened harpoon with him at all times, unless prevented from doing so. He shaves with his harpoon as well. He smokes regularly from a tomahawk that he carries with him.