The Cassock — Moby-Dick

While the crew cuts up Stubb's whale, a strange black cone lies on deck near the windlass. Sailors call it the grandissimus. It is taller than a Kentucky man, about a foot wide at the base, and jet-black like Queequeg's idol Yojo. Ishmael says it would shock you more than the whale's head, jaw, or tail. He even compares it to old idols that kings burned as evil.

A sailor called the mincer comes with two helpers. They haul the grandissimus like soldiers carrying a dead friend. On the forecastle deck the mincer skins it, turns the hide inside out, stretches it wide, and hangs it to dry. Then he cuts arm holes and climbs inside the dried skin. Sailors have worn this cassock for ages. It is the only thing that protects him while he works.

His job is to mince chunks of blubber called horse-pieces at a wooden horse set against the ship's rail. The thin slices fall into a tub below like pages from a preacher's desk. Ishmael jokes that the mincer looks like a priest in black at a pulpit. The mates keep shouting Bible leaves. That means cut thinner, so the oil boils faster and they get more of it.