jefff@cadovax.UUCP (Jeffery H. Fields) (07/16/85)
There has been much discussion lately regarding the morality of hunting wild game. I believe that the controversy over this issue stems from the fact that we all live in a post-industrial agrarian society. I would like to introduce the perspective of a hunter- gatherer as it pertains to the morality of hunting. I know a member of the Salish-Kootenai tribe in western Montana named Richard. One summer day he told me he was going deer-hunting. I asked him how it was legal to hunt out of season. He said he was going hunting on the Flathead Indian Reservation as members of the tribe can hunt there any time they wish. I then asked him what he thought of poachers and hunters in general. He told me that he thought poachers and hunters were generally conscientious people, but that some should not be allowed to own a rifle. He has no objection to poaching, if it is done with with respect for the prey. It angers him when he sees a hunter sloshed to the gills on booze and tramping through the country looking for something to kill. Richard told me that the most important thing about hunting is the spirit in which it is done. The Native North Americans, as all hunter-gatherer societies, have a religious reverence for the earth and its inhabitants. When Richard goes hunting he prays to the spirit of the animal. He prays so that the animal can prepare itself for death. He prays that his aim will be true and that the animal will die with a minimum amount of pain. He prays for permission to kill the animal in order that he may live. Once the animal is killed, it is customary in Richard's tribe to remove the still-beating heart and to divide it equally among the hunting party who eat it. From a western white middle-class view point this may seem primitive and barbaric, but for Richard it is a symbolic ritual that signifies the rebirth of the spirit of the dead animal. The spirit becomes one with the hunter who is strengthened spiritually and physically. In our high tech society we have become divorced from this spirit. This separation began long ago, when we started to till the soil and domesticate animals. It is from this separation that our perceptions of the living earth have become clouded. Please remember this the next store-bought meal you eat. -- Jeff Fields {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!jefff Pax vobiscum.
foy@aero.ARPA (Richard Foy ) (08/08/85)
In article <709@cadovax.UUCP> jefff@cadovax.UUCP (Jeffery H. Fields) writes: > >Richard told me that the most important thing about hunting is the >spirit in which it is done. The Native North Americans, as all >hunter-gatherer societies, have a religious reverence for the earth >and its inhabitants. When Richard goes hunting he prays to the spirit >of the animal. He prays so that the animal can prepare itself for >death. He prays that his aim will be true and that the animal will >die with a minimum amount of pain. He prays for permission to kill >the animal in order that he may live. > It is interesting to compare and contrast this attitude with ours as portrayed in the movie The Emerals Forrest.