NEAH BAY, Wash. — The hunters paddled frantically, closing in on their target. When they drew near, one of them stood in the cedar canoe and thrust a harpoon into the spine of the 30-foot gray whale.

With the help of fishing boats, the men towed their catch into a small cove in Neah Bay on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington , where hundreds of fellow Makah tribal members greeted them like heroes. People hugged and cried. They celebrated what felt like the return of better days.

It was 1999, and the tribe’s first successful whale hunt in seven decades. It was also their last.

The Makah are the only Native Americans who have a treaty with the United States government that explicitly allows them to hunt whales. But they have not because of a protracted administrative and legal battle waged by conservationists and animal rights activists, who call the practice “barbaric” and have generated a wave of negative sentiment against the tribe.

The two-decade tussle could flare in the coming weeks over a proposal that would allow the Makah to resume whaling as early as next year. Tribal members say the struggle goes beyond their right to hunt, and see it as a fight over restoring Native identity, honoring indigenous treaty rights and respecting age-old traditions.