Out of the Hunter’s Sensual Reach.

Remember this: Life is a little drama.

Dubiously I refer to women as huntress but I have difficulties with this verbiage because it does seem to lack a certain lady-like quality. I use it anyway because people know the word and accept it as a descriptive of a woman who hunts whether ladylike or not. I think men like it because it carries the weight of being wild and untamed but being wild and untamed in the male/female relationship goes towards cheap, easy, and disposable. This being said if you’re in a long standing relationship where both parties are comfortable with daring sexual acts by all means-have at it.  Men and women both like romantic amours but society frowns down on promiscuousness. It’s really better to be committed because at least you’re secure to some degree on familiarity. It reminds me of the concept of a trusty pair of well-worn holey shoes you can’t seem to part with.  Men like the idea of this temporary condition but want to have some control over their woman maybe because this makes their role clear even if it makes a woman’s murky. Once again women need to give men a job or a purpose in life and not a hard time (its alienating). Men want the job as protector and boss. That is just how it is. Unless they give up that job and want to cook, clean and have babies (scary thought but the marvels of modern science).

I have always had a general hope for opposite sex relationships (or anyone wanting such a thing). If people want to be together- go for it I say. As I was doing some research on the Southern Belle of Antiquity I was immersed in the construction of a myth: the myth of the Southern Belle. The more bizarre antidote about this is the creator: the Southern Gentleman. How does this pertain to hunting? Let me elaborate.

Back in the golden days, men regarded Southern Women (with breeding) as ladies. Their roles were to navigate the social circles without damaging the family reputation, running the house while the man was away, and being there for family, friends, and husband. We could say all things feminine. Ladies were not in direct competition for the necessities of life but rather sheltered by the Gentleman Hunter a.k.a. the husband or father. Nevertheless the Gentleman Hunter was the all-encompassing provider unless the lady was endowed with money at marriage. These women were stereotyped much like the women of the 40s and 50s. Housewives with no longing for an adventurous life outside the home other than what the significant other could provide. Southern Belles were also placed on a pedestal where they were beyond sexual desire and unblemished. This myth building of an ideal of what that particular woman was stringently defined her lot in life and how she was perceived by society and her significant other.

How does this myth building come into play with Hunting? I asked myself that question after reading up on the antebellum ladies of society.

If the hunter and huntress are at odds because of conflict based on competition for hunting based jobs, position in society and community, and role as the patriarchal authority figure (or provider) over home and hearth this could cause the Gentleman Hunter to react in a very defensive way.

The first thing an animal will do is try to drive off a threat with a defense mechanism brought on by hidden or direct threats. I have seen something akin to this in the Gentleman Hunter community. It is the myth building of the hunter’s ideal woman.

Women that hunt are not perfect physically or mentally. Yet the Gentleman Hunter community without knowing it is advertising their ideal huntress in photos on social media. It literally works as a repellant to the average huntress. This may be so reactive that the Gentleman Hunter does not know consciously that he is literally pushing back against the perceived barrages of female invasions into his hunting space, which is sacred to him. It defines his manliness and he doesn’t want to compete with a woman over manliness. Women are women-not men but they take on male roles to compensate for lack of a partner to fill the void of what would be considered ‘your rock’. Poor Cassiopeia is chained to a rock and the wolves are at the door therefore she acts like a man without a choice.  No man steps up to do the job or save her from chain and rock. Also by pushing pictures of an ideal unattainable woman in the guise of a huntress the Gentleman Hunter is sending subtle signals to the female competition that they are not what he or others desires. This is a complete lie but it’s a defense mechanism because they are threatened when there is no need for it. Men have anxiety too. On the other hand the huntress wants to be with the Gentleman Hunter but in the effort to have something in common confuses the situation more. A sad explanation of this tragedy is lack of home training when it comes to bonding with each other by communication and compromise with a willingness to understand and hold each other in equal regard.

Can the Gentleman Hunter and the Lady that hunts come to terms with this invasion into manly space? I don’t know the answer to that.

Therefore you could say to save himself the Gentleman Hunter has pushed the huntress away from him physically to save himself or his sense of self. The huntress has taken on a role that is not so much hers and relinquished the Gentleman Hunter of his responsibility to be the man. Both have inadvertently separated each other from beyond the sensual reach of the other.

Hunting has been about the eternal struggle of man against beast but in this case its man against woman. I hope it’s a draw for all our sakes.

Really can’t this be overcome or do men and women need one more thing to pull them apart? Hunting should be about forming bonds. What is a greater bond then sharing in something with someone you love? Let’s hope that ship has not sailed yet.

Written by W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Where Did You Go Gentleman Hunter?

Remember this: I have never met a true gentleman. Have you?


"I grant an ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the gentleman, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto be: Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a flip."

Charlotte Bronte; Jane Eyre ch.17.

 “Show me a gentleman devoted to the chase and I will show you, with rare exception, ‘the noblest work of God, and honest man,’ respected for manly virtues, a good husband and father, a zealous friend, and open enemy.  “The rich man’s equal, the poor man’s benefactor”-richly adorning the pages of life with the shining virtues of charity and benevolence—who memory will be a green spot in the dreary waste of sordid worldliness.” Quoted Mississippi Governor Alexander McNutt.

There are a lot of things being posted on the internet nowadays about the conflict between men and women. I have seen a lot of news and conversations from the men’s camp about being a gentleman and a hunter. There is also the concern and questions about this ever growing gap between the two sexes. Whether or not the gentlemen hunter is now feeling like he too may become an obsolete dinosaur, while being castrated figuratively by an unknown assailant, is probably for concern. 

There has always been an issue of control. This control is only balanced when one or the other sex has decided, willingly or unwillingly, to acquiesce to the other sex’s demands and wished. I can attest some do seem like manly gentlemen but you also have not so manly impostors. I have never seen such a creature but I would think it would be quite the spectacle if I ever laid eyes on one. This brings me to the question I had pop up in my mind. Let me set the stage.

A gentleman hunter and a not-so-ladylike huntress are out hunting together (as a couple or not). A gigantic dream buck walks through within bullet range while both have a clear shot. Once the realization the dream buck is in the cross hairs, exactly what would be the outcome? How would the story go down? Oh the horror!

Does either one step back and say, “Go ahead. I’ll step aside so you can shoot that deer” or “Ladies first?” Really, in this virtual simulation who is going to get to shoot the deer?

This was a conundrum I really found interesting because it’s happening right now. Not literally, but figuratively. I wondered exactly how far men were willing to be pushed, in what was considered a traditionally male role, before they balked or fought back for lack of better words.

I dug down into history for this lost gentleman hunter. As far as my investigation has reveals, the gentleman hunter was closely the same but more refined in his endeavors. I read from Nicolas W. Proctor book, Bathed in Blood: Hunting and Mastery in the Old South, a quote the gentleman hunter, “wrote about experiences in the field with the same care and detail they devoted to their business dealings and selected hunting companions as carefully as political representatives.” Most definitely a discerning type of person.

The social construction of the gentleman hunter was exhibited through his peers. The gentleman hunter could gain recognition based on his prowess, self-control, and mastery of skill. These descriptive words were a direct show of his masculinity. Young men would use these mentor types as a measuring stick for their own accomplishment at hunting to validate their ability to exhibit their functioning manliness. This positioned the man in the role of provider. Depending on how good a provider you were would indicate your responsibility level, dependability and ability to provide security as this is what most women worry over. In a strange way, these types of ideals gained through the hunting endeavor was the backbone for the gentleman hunter’s self-esteem, sense of self, and self-worth. The gentleman hunter’s ambiance was defined. There was no reason to question his role, or position in the world.  

This time period in the South prostrated the gentleman hunter by using hunting as the instrument for social cohesion between men and women. The role of sex changed over the centuries. Now hunting participants, unless married, are standing on two difference sides of a chasm that gets bigger with each circumstance of direct competition.

In today’s world, you have a lot of solitary individuals basically taking care of their needs and no one else. If a lone female or male hunters are in direct competition for the food source, the glory and acclaim while validating themselves to hunting peers there is going to be conflict. No everyone in the world is going to partner up and get married to rectify that situation. I hardly doubt either is going to stand aside especially if their livelihood or basic senses of survival are threatened.

I asked myself: Are men feeling the pressure of being emasculated? I think yes. It questions their value and renders them with a perceived decline in power over circumstance. This leaves them to wonder what their options are and if they have to adapt.  They will either embrace it or exert dominance while running the women they come to admire and love away for survival sake. Maybe this is running the men away? If men and women are meant to be together, social structure and its shifting structure are really making it fall to pieces. The appearance is ugly bleeding cracks in the surface.

If women could depend on men to go back to being present and taking responsibility for the family, would the female hunter let them? Would the gentleman hunter be so detached he just decides to become a hunting gigolo?

If the gentleman hunter’s defined role is being tested and stripped away, what is going to be left of him?

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

Hunting and Slavery: A Moment of Freedom.

Remember: The world knows slavery is wrong but it’s interesting that Hunting was an outlet for freedom (especially in the Old South). It would be nice to think of female slaves hunting but ditto on this one. There were also white slaves but discriminating historians left that part out because the more extreme tales of slavery were advertised because of the more potent effect. All accounts were not horrendous. With that being said I have read some pretty murderous and heart wrenching accounts of plantation life for black, white, and Indian slaves.

I was reading an online book by Nicolas W. Proctor called Bathed in Blood: Hunting and Mastery in the Old South. There are many examples of how hunting is negative from the non-hunters standpoint. I was surprised to find the sport of Hunting used as a platform to elevate the role of male slaves in the Old South. Yes, hunting elevated the human condition when it was at one of its worse cases in history. In the form of hunting, hope was alive with the re-enforcement that the male slave was still a man and a provider even in the face of captivity.

There was a section that I will quote that Proctor wrote, “Living in a society predicted upon constant degradation, a simple act of generosity could become a symbol of resistance. The point of view of the slave that hunted was a way to ameliorate their own condition. Re-conceptualizing hunting as an activity that benefited the slave community, these hunters created their own meaning for the labor they performed at the behest of their owners.”

Here you have human beings removed from their homes on foreign shores to come to a place where they are enslaved to do the manual labor of European settlers. While enslaved their routine is dictated for the general benefit of making a profit and making the European settler’s lives easier. Life as a hunter in the motherland was no more but the male slave was put to the task of agriculture.

I can only imagine the day one of the plantation owners decided it was time to hunt. That would be the one time the male slave could act as he had acted at home. He could be a hunter. In most accounts in the South, weapons were given to these select few slaves for them to be able to shoot quarry if it were in their reach and the plantation owner would actually share in the kill so the slaves out hunting could enjoy the fruits of their labors too. This sharing provided a form of social cohesion amongst the slaves. There are numerous accounts of previous slave owners holding slaves and freedmen in high regard for their hunting skills.

Even though that one moment to hunt was a temporary freedom it was a freedom nonetheless. Hunting truly does provide outlets for opportunity to be the person you are even if the circumstance is not ideal. It allows that moment of freedom. That moment of release from bondage and restraint even in today's world where people are workaholics and trapped inside buildings making a dollar for the ‘man’ and family. I think everyone has had that moment where you stare out the window shackled down by responsibility or life worry and think, “This weekend I am going hunting. I will be free.”

As a privileged society we should not take for granted the rights we have. This country was built on the idea of freedom, by thieves and murderers cast out by their motherland, the religiously persecuted, death of indigent tribes, oriental railroad workers, and slaves, black and white. Truly we have not suffered but we dishonor our ancestors for all the pain and hardship they have gone through for their children’s children to be able to call themselves ‘free men’.

Written by W Harley Bloodworth

 ~Couretsy of the AOFH~

Homo Homini Lupus

Remember this: Homo Homini Lupus in Latin means, "Man is a wolf amoung men".


I really must inform you, this is not an 'anti-hunting' treatise where wolves are concerned. There are laws regulating that endeavor which makes it legal, so it's fair game until someone in the Big House decides it's time to give it a rest.
This piece is more how I respect such a thing because I am such a thing (metaphorically speaking).
No,  I do not change at the full moon, run naked, and all the while killing sheep or small children.
The truly understanding reader would be open to this explanation and not one that immediately scoffs to disregard the commentary. They are in denial. Ego has blinded them from what is naturally wild within them. When I say wild, I do not mean savagery. Savagery is beyond control. There is always protocol in the Animal Kingdom,  even where killing is concerned, unless you have the rogue. The rogue beast can have its defining factors of what it will and will not do.  The animal that is without bounds is what one would consider a killing machine; without any kind of prejudice. As a human being, I chose not to be a killing machine, where life is without value.
This is one of the concerns for hunters and huntresses. When does hunting stop being hunting? At what point do you become nothing more than a killing machine? Once you have quested and succeeded with every animal species,  when do you turn to or on man? Could this happen?
I found this quote while researching and its always stayed with me. Aside from the fact that man does not have the same characteristics of the wolf in physical form,  but shares a kind of hierarchy of levels, from dominant alpha to the lower less dominant omega. There are similarities in intellect, mating, and somatics. In life,  we refer to human packs as cliques. A clique in  itself can be benevolent or exceedingly violent. There is always a ring leader and his/her followers, for good or bad. The underlings will do everything the leader wants because there is a limited amount of protection to be had in one. The dire part is being tossed out. Having to find a new way  is probably more beneficial because the atmosphere of your life changes for the better. The 'lone wolf' as it were, is the most free. That person can go their own way without being under the heel as a suppressed person or held back by another person's decisions. They can choose to be with whomever they want but move in and out of territories. I have wondered why people give that kind of power to others who  are beneath them,  but it happens.
I then laugh and say, "Why didn't people in antiquity pick a porcupine?" A porcupine is mean enough and will leave you with presents in the form of quills. It reminds me how kings use lions as their representing mark when a male lion is a dandy. The only thing magnificient about him is his hairy coif.
I have read that Homo Homini Lupus can be translated as man's aggression against one another. This can be seen on the internet and in war, class, or ethnic torn countries. I have also noticed from the online banter,  in a most unfriendly way,  the conversations between hunters and huntresses range from  arguments over hunting technique, imagery, and whose the coolest hunter of them all.
It's my belief anyone that wants to hunt properly is more than adequate.
There are also people that legally know they can't kill but will exert their aggression on another person because violence is achieved to some degree,  if not fully.
Man is known to hunt. Wolves are known to hunt. They could possibly hunt each other in the right circumstance if presented with it.
I always took movies into consideration that were about lycanthropy. On one hand, the moon drives the character crazy. It's almost always about a man that turns into a wolf or has wolf attributes. He loses his humanity, to eat and kill things (mostly sheep and people). When the character is not fully animal, he/she is fighting with the  creature inside. In truth, people are always struggling with some inner turmoil. Even now,  you can see it where people are fighting against societal rules and want to be free. Does that mean free to act as wild animals without defining boundaries? There are people courting anarchy but anarchy leads to even more violence because it's unregulated. People have a problem regulating themselves, where right and wrong exist.
In regards to wolves,  you could see it as another species running through the woods with an open season placed on it for hunting purposes. It has no meaning other than nuisance or quarry. Value comes from its fur,  which I wouldn't eat one,  but I am sure there are people out there that eat anything,  much like a goat.
There are people that need to believe in things, even at the exasperation of others that do not share their beliefs or views. Is it wrong either way? No.
There are people that come to terms with the close association of the other. Humans have the uncanny ability to extend a certain amount of respect to another animal species while knowing that respect will not be returned, acknowledge or seem real to the other. That is man's coming to terms with the sameness in the other animal, even if they come to kill one another. I like to think in terms of the idea that man thinks to itself, "I can take your life but choose not to do so right now." We can mentally chose.
After some previous research the moon has also been  representative of a woman's female parts which has been known to drive men crazy, so maybe some of that is about the relationship of women. Of course there is Cleopatra and Helen of Troy.  All kinds of violence ensued after a man fell in love/lust with them.
You, as the hunter or huntress,  can always choose your behavior. You can choose how you present yourself and treat other people. You may be an animal but you are not a savage.
As far as wolves go,  there are those that look at this animal as a nuisance or just another dog. It has been my long held belief that nothing is above you or below you. Being egotistical by having a condescending attitude,  by devaluing a creature with dismissal, would lead you to devalue the idea of life itself. As long as you can learn something from it to help you understand yourself; to kill a wolf is to kill a hunter. You, as a hunter, could kill yourself metaphorically because not revering something that teaches lessons in the natural realm as you would percieve it in yourself would mean you are denying or killing off that part of you ( that you wish to deny) is thereby its equal. Man is a wolf amoung men. Man is a wolf in heart. Man is a hunter and a predator. Man is man.

~Written by: W Harley Bloodworth~

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

The Huntress and the Sexual Predator.

Remember this: Do not throw stones at people talking from experience. It might save your life.



I am writing this piece more as a warning than a commentary on ruining some outfitter's hunting business. At the rate someone participating in this kind of behavior is pursuing, they are going to harm themselves. Always investigate outfitters from a reputable or irreputable outfitter service.

Sexual predators have been around for a long time. Usually these sorts of people are found in the form of rapists, child molesters, pimps, sex traffickers and overtly-dominant types in relationships. Sexual predators always find an environment where they can take every advantage for themselves by the 'spot and stalk' technique that is prevalent in hunting circles. There is also such a thing as prostitution rings in hunting. This is not a part of hunting, yet a way for a group or person to take advantage of the beloved sport that I have come to love. It even extends into shooting as the escort service type. These types of endeavors are more socially directed than anything to do with hunting itself. It's a way to take advantage of an activity for selfish and polluting purposes. I guess some savvy individual sees a 'need' and offers a 'service'.
Sexual Tourism has become a global problem. International businesses are using self-prostitution as a means to acquire money under the guise of a service. Sex sales because it's on the mainstream  commercials and magazine ads, but it's meant to be titillating. There are those that actually prostrate women out as a advertisement, knowing that it allures to the empty promise of sex with a beautiful, unattainable woman. If that woman isn't getting paid-she's being exploited by a pimp-like individual.
Human beings are sexual beings. It's when that ideal gets exploited for monetary rewards in the form of the age old profession.
How would the sexual predator use hunting as a lure to attract unknowing females or females that want to get into the sport but haven't participated before?
Build a social media page with a corresponding internet business page then connect with strangers on the internet while researching their personal likes and dislikes. Oh happy day when they enter a private page. They then stay silent, watch and wait for opportunity. It's literally a virtual Ghillie suit.
You would have to be an adept hunter who can notice anomalies to spot one of these because it is usually another hunter. Yes, the sexual predator is an actually hunter. Why break from tradition?
Not to long ago, I used a social media site and became connected to a person there that was advertised as a guide. I made the random comment but there was limited response. There was also another safari page I was connected to that the year before solicited me to 'come there and hunt' but my father was ill. I said no, but kept it in the back of my mind so if my situation changed I could look into booking a hunt. Of course, I didn't feel the need to disclose my intentions as it was a business. I also wanted to open a dialogue with the owners so that I could feel comfortable about going to a foreign land by myself without the worry  someone I wasn't sure of was waiting for me.
I deleted that page because I became more concerned the business was shady. Within an hour of the disconnect, the other outfitter sent a request. I took it then re-friended the other page I had just left.
Why would I do that? Like in Hamlet, I thought something was stinking in Denmark. I also thought the likelihood there was a herd behind this unsavory business, I could just relieve myself of the whole mess and block them all. I also figured if I didn't 'nip it in the bud' like Barney Fife said,  I would have an ongoing problem of strangers having fun at my expense.
Later, I would learn these two men (with the help of others) worked together anonymously doing questionable things on the internet at the admission of the other.
In a nutshell this is what happened. I was approached by an individual that was drunk by admission who later sent me a nude photo of himself with the promise that the following month if I were to book a safari with him,  that I could have sex with him the whole time, hunt and have me pay for it. When he found out I wasn't interested based on his behavior,  he proclaimed I was stalking him. He became very angry then the following conversations reeked of a fake remorse at his behavior.
After that conversation with the photos, I decided to investigate the people I thought were involved. It seemed to me they were passing the phone around while they were on a hunt or online because they never could keep up with the conversation or the right language. I am really not sure how many were involved. I spoke to this lovely lady who told me what I suspected the whole time. It was a lure to get unsuspecting females either married or with children to go abroad for sex and hunting at a price. If they were married that would be all the better because then if they consummate the deal in the bed, there is always the threat of blackmail because of adultery and shame to their children or family.
The other aspect to this is, if the trip were planned with the intention to hide some adulterous act, the female couldn't be promised that once she arrived in that foreign land that she would be meeting the person she was suppose to. Even meeting the intended outfitter once she leaves the airport, the fact she may never be seen again is likely. There is also the fear of being sold as a sex slave.
I really don't have to name names because this is real. Other women should know that these things can happen to them. Most will believe it could ever happen to them. There is your first mistake.
It's detrimental to the sport. As women are becoming more involved, you have novices that do not have mentors to see them over rough spots or have their back when they get in this kind of situation.
It's probably single mothers, divorcees, wives, and singletons.
There are also adventure seeking young college students dreaming of fabulous trips to foreign lands and having a good-looking guy as a plus would lure them because in truth they are not worldly,  only intrepid.
It's  like going into the Alaskan tundra inhabited by bears. If you're not savvy enough or knowledgeable, the chance you're going to get eaten by one is almost assured. Unless you're crazy like a fox.
By the time this person or persons got through they asked for my silence or 'not to tell'.

Here I was thinking:

1. I got propositions with nude photos and empty promises.
2. I got insulted because I rejected the offer.
3. The person or persons thought I was a target or wanted to get incriminating info on me.
4. Asked for my silence on their bad behavior.
5. Finally stated they have a physical problem to excuse bad behavior.

I then thought what could possibly happen to a woman that goes abroad by herself to these places:
1. Once she's picked up from the airport she disappears like Natalee Holloway. Never to be seen again. I watched a documentary where women would consort with him even after he was all over the news for murder. He eventually was videotaped trying to start a sex trade operation in Thailand(??) then he killed a Peruvian girl, which ended in his imprisonment.
2. She decides she has been mislead by the person because once she meets them in person, they are not what they advertised. She might get away by leaving for a hotel before going with them.
3. She is suspicious something isn't right but then finds out later when she gets to where they are taking her,  that she is then threatened, raped, or fed to the hippos.
4. She goes, gets emotionally entangled then tossed aside while depleted of her money. Again if the outfitter is nice, she might return and put more money into the business but when she becomes to clingy, is dismissed and threatened with blackmail or shamed into silence.

Sexual predators see their targets as emotionally compromised or to open. This lady I talked to asked the question more to herself, "How did that happen to me?". The guide/outfitter that took advantage of her, probably saw a generally honest and open person then went in for the kill. I would suspect he took his time, learned his quarry, what lured her, set out the bait and waited for her to approach.

It would be quite easy to take advantage of an emotionally compromised person that is having trouble at home. They tend to seek out a trustworthy soul to counsel them through their problems but this is when the predator strikes. When they think you are weak-minded or distracted.

Most animals are naive, will come right up to danger, and be the willing victim by happenstance. They see no danger. The outfitter that is a sexual predator will exploit this by appearing trustworthy and a protector. Once he has you in his clutches in a foreign land, where else is there to go but along with it or fight your way out the bush the best way you can. Once you are there you are in it. Its called Deep Shit.


~Written by: W Harley Bloodworth~

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Hunting: The Sanguine Moon

Remember this: Its the experience that counts. Tell a story.

When I was a little girl, older men would come up to my grandfather's store to sit on Coca Cola crates to tell stories or gossip. Men seem to be the worse at gossip, funny as that sounds. On other days, you could sit around while friends or family pulled peanuts, cropped tobacco, or sat on the porch in the late evening when rain fell like a vail and the breeze was cool.

I realize people no longer tell stories in this manner, unless they are coming up with some hare brained  scheme to write the American Novel, or submit some work for a handsome paycheck, only for the reader to find the book they paid for leaves them lacking.

If someone tried to tell a verbal story to younger people, they would not sit and give their full attention to the hog swallow someone was serving, but walk off or give the person a crazy eye then move away.

Much as I do now.

Creativity suffers because things are not original tales or stories that are passed along from parent to child, even within an ethnic group. Stories lose their color and value because it is not closely associated with something in your life that you know or have experienced for a fact, even if it is a colorful mishmash of  truth things.

It has been documented that stories always took place before, during or after hunts. Stories were a way to heighten the hunting experience by making it an activity that one looked forward to. Stories kept non-hunters and hunters entertained, interested and ready to return to the chase. Stories bonded people, but it had to be the right kind of story for the appropriate time or activity.

I reached a conclusion that with all of the technology hunters have at their disposal, the stories are just as bad as submissions one renders to a publishing house: scripted and uninteresting unless you are an adept storyteller.

Ancient man's life, with all its hardships, was interesting and filled with stories and ideas that we do not have. The ancient hunter was a rich man indeed for all the true or false tales leant a richness to their very being. We only have someone's posts of a picture but nothing to offer on the details other than the generic. It reminds me of weak coffee and I don't drink coffee.

Hunting lacks rituals as well, not that one should sign up to some Moon cult but there should be something to make it relevant.  The reason I say this, I recently read an article in Field & Stream about the Deer Czar but buried down in the well written article was the comment on the part of the Wisconsin hunter's that 'the fun needed to be put back into hunting'. I was greatly disturbed. I have my ideas on this but that is for another post.

I noticed that Hungarian/Romanian people have rituals built around their hunting, which I think is great. Everyone should have something even if it looks strange to the outside viewer. It's the experience that counts.

Should people necessarily dance around with mutilated animal parts-not so much. That behavior becomes ghoulish and disrespectful.

I was standing outside in the cold air because it was the first of the cool days brought on by Hurricane Sandy. I love to hunt when it is cold. The animals come out during the day and the night.  Another benefit is the lack of those aero-devils: the mosquitos. Animals have to move around more to get their blood flowing and to forage.

My brother recently phoned me and told me a story about how the deer were going out to lay around this barrel he was burning things in to be either near the light or the warmth. I do not know.

The Moon in the sky was beginning to phase away from the fullness it previously had. I was taken aback because the shine from it was a rich golden color. I felt hypnotized like the baby owls in the Owls of G'hoole. The Moon's shine was so rich in fact that I couldn't see the stars but had to wait for two hours for the shine to recede. I can't explain my fascination for the Moon but I have one because I think it is beautiful. You can't stare directly into the Sun like that.

This moon is called the Hunter's Moon or Sanguine Moon. Sanguine means blood as most people know. During this time of the year before the autumnal equinox, early people would go out and do a spree killing to stock up on whatever they could get because it was much colder back then. I myself have noticed from childhood to adulthood the weather has gotten warmer and warmer where I live. It was cold in August. Now there either has to exist a weather changing storm or its not really cold until November but I am not talking about global warming here.

I would guess there are people that hunt who are teenagers or even adults that do not know it is called by these names or why.

Now there is no ritual hunting during the hours of the Full Moon or any moon because the law doesn't allow this for conservation purpose. People would only take advantage as they do during the daylight hours.

There is a habit where I come from that when the last hours of the hunting day are ended people will build a fire to socialize outside in the cold to tell stories even if the story are not hunting accompanied by some kind of meal such as chicken bog, barbecue or less elaborate meals such as 'undetermined meat on a twig' jammed in a fire along with another 'undetermined foodery thing' dangling vicariously over flame after a couple few good pokes.

I read a lot of stories about how the Sanguine Moon got its name. Other than hunting, which deals with a lot of creation stories, incestuous rape, menstruation and shape-shifting: totally not appropriate at this time.

As for the Sanguine Moon, it has become another piece of historical folklore that has been passed down through time that doesn't mean what it use to but it is still there all the same.

Stories are important even if you make one up to explain something. It always walks the line of a well told lie. Where the place of story is in the hunting experience remains to be seen, but it should always have a place somewhere between the time you decide to hunt and the moment you finish then on to the next, or even in the mundane hours of your old age when you have a story or two to tell just yet.


Written by: W  Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~