In the mythic/poetic reality, the most true reality, in the truth of the Prophet Herman Melville, (see Righteous Mutiny www.libbyhome.blogspot.com) Ahab's ship 'Pequod' encounters another whaling ship from Nantucket, the 'Town Ho'.
Ahab hails this ship, as he hails all whaling ships by asking if they have any news of the Great White Whale. If the ship were to answer that they did not, then Ahab would tell 'em to fuck off and rudely sail away. But the captain of the 'Town-Ho' says he does have news of The Great White Whale.
There is an exchange of mail and a gam, a rendez-vous of the whaling ships. The two captains confer on one ship. The first mates confer on the other ship. Crew members move freely between the two ships.
Most of the crew of the 'Town-Ho' are Polynesians who have only recently left their Pacific islands to become whalers. But there are a few white crew members who were perhaps on the ship during the time of the Steelkilt Mutiny, or had joined the crew when the memory of the mutiny was still fresh.
Tashtego, the Wampanouag harpooner from Martha's Vineyard, after swearing elaborate, arcane oaths of secrecy is told the story of the mutiny.
He must take these elaborate, arcane oaths of secrecy because the implications of the narrative of the mutiny are considered to be dangerous by the narrators because they are so revolutionary, so heretical, so fundamentally opposed to the business-as-usual (bau) of the whale fishery, of the (bau) of the world.
Tashtego talks in his sleep. Many hear his dream narrative. They awaken him so he can tell the story consciously.
Tashtego refuses to tell the story until everyone swears the same elaborate, arcane oaths that he took. All the crew take these oaths seriously. Ahab, nor any other officer of the 'Pequod' learn of the Steelkilt Mutiny.
The 'Town-Ho' chapter of 'Moby Dick' is the only part of the book that happens after The Great White Whale and the hemp kills Ahab. It is told after the 'Pequod' has been staved in and sunk with the loss of all the crew except one who lives to tell the story.
It is being told by Ishmael/Jonah in an American Indian (Incan) place/context, the Golden Inn in Lima, Peru. Ishmael makes a special point of noting that he is telling the story just as he told it to his friends Don Sebastian, and Don Pedro, who he identifies as Spanish Grandees, but who are, in fact, descendants of Incan Royalty. All are drinking chicha, corn beer which is fermented by the saliva of women. The Incan aristocracy did not drink the spit of any woman. They only drank the spit of the Ahkolona, the chosen women.
The narrative is being told by Ishmael/Jonah in a narrative style very different from that of the rest of the book. It is being told with the confidence and authority of a prophet who has been in the belly of the whale on the bottom of the sea, who has been naked in the face of oceanic mystery, who now brings prophecy to an orthodox, idol-worshipping, wicked Ninevah/Lima.
And the reader never finds out the information that the captain of the 'Town-Ho' imparted to Ahab re: The Great White Whale.
(stay tuned for the next 'narrative of the voyage of the bloody, snake chariot,' the doctrine of the mutiny' - www.libbyhome.blogspot.com )
[read blog-style -- first entry at bottom of page]