Contradiction in a sentence

Contradiction in a sentence

The passage below is from Fathoms: The World in the Whale Hardcover by Rebecca Giggs.

The plentiful provisioning constituted by a single whale, the precariousness of the weaponry involved, and the fragility of small craft used in pursuit, meant that whales loomed large in mythos, and were often believed to have an adversarial or heroic character. Whale hunters were solemnised, having assumed the mantle of challenging volatile beasts in an inhospitable wavescape. In this context, to speak of whales as ‘supernatural’ animals is appealing, were it not to perpetuate the ethnocentric fallacy that these communities recognised any clear partition between the natural and the otherworldly—the whale could not be supernatural in an environment where nature and the spiritual were so extensively cross-pollinated that their domains did not warrant separation. Charged with seeing through the whale’s eyes to predict its movements and hasten the end, some hunters painted whale masks: the subterfuge of laying one animal’s face upon another, a forceful magic. There were whale dances, whale prayers. Whale shamans, high up in the hills, suffered in proxy.

In this passage the bold-faced sentence seems to have contradictory ideas.

Let me tell you what I mean.

First, on ‘In this context’. However hard I may try, I don’t see what ‘this context’ refers to in the previous part. Could you tell what it is?

Second, on ‘ethnocentric fallacy’. The sentence gives what ‘ethnocentric fallacy’ is, that is, ‘these communities recognised any clear partition between the natural and the otherworldly’. (Am I right?)

Third, the sentence says ‘not to perpetuate the ethnocentric fallacy’ ‘to speak of whales as ‘supernatural’ animals is appealing’.

That means aborigines do not want to perpetuate the ethnocentric fallacy(recognising any clear partition between the natural and the otherworldly), and to serve that purpose they speak of whales as ‘supernatural.’

(Am I right?)

Here the purpose of aborigines calling whales ‘supernatural’ is not to be regarded as parting the natural with the otherworldly(supernatural).

(Am I right?)

If I am right, I think there happens a contradiction between the former half part and the latter half part (after dash part) of the sentence.

The former half part says that not to continue the ethnocentric fallacy to divide the natural with the otherworldly(supernatural) they call whales ‘supernatural’, but the latter half says the whale could not be supernatural where nature and the spiritual were so related that they need not warrant separation.

Don’t these two parts contradictory each other?

In terms of the latter, not to part nature with the spiritual, whales need not be called supernatural.

(Am I right?)

Thanks in advance.