Man Will Be Nature's Equal

Remember this: The thing that a lot of people cannot comprehend is that Mother Nature doesn't have a bullet with your name on it, she has millions of bullets inscribed with "to whom it may concern.

~Anonymous Sage~

Thank the Great Unknown, all the scientists, geeks, and nerds for our technology. As hunters, we rely on the meteorologists of the world, cell phone apps, and gadgetry to tell us when it will forecast rain, blazing sun, icy snow, sun rise/set, and when the tides are high or low. At times, we use the old finger-lick technique to see which way the wind is blowing. I guess you could fart and see if you could smell it by the wind coming up from behind.

There are certain initial weather conditions that we can determine beforehand and the secondary fallout from such blights of natural disaster via meteorologic information. In some cases, tornadoes, twisters, tsunamis, etc. just seem to appear out of nowhere with little warning. There are also long burning forest fires from lightning and dry conditions, snow storms, flooding, disease pandemics, and other surprises on the horizon. Nature's good graces and wrath are upon the landscape of Earth in varying degrees.


Rain was pelting my window, slowly lulling me to sleep as I watched television. The reason for this foray into Nature's weather was based from a boot commercial running in between hunting shows. It wasn't a boot issue for sure. The commentator stated something to the effect, “...Man will be Nature's equal”. I heard the sour sound of a bad string being plucked on my inner banjo. Not wanting to be nit-picky, I cleared my mind to focus on the question: how could this partial statement be interpreted?

As Hurricane Arthur breezed its way passed, people breathed a sigh of relief. I thought about the relationship between hunting participants and Nature, as it stands from a human perspective. Hurricanes definitely can serve up a terrible dose of Mother Nature's wrath if you've never experienced one. Unprecedented damage to life and limb, displacement of families and animals, rebuilding and problem-solving for communities for years to come. If you have long endured such a beast during your lifetime, you learn what to do and not to do. The most you can do if you are a local is: ride it out like a big kahuna wave and hope you don't crash under the wave itself.

What could be the possible human perspectives of living as a part or separate from Nature? The human perspective is: you live with Nature as a functioning contributor, live outside/inside of Nature as the competitor, or live life as the spectator who just exists. There are probably otherways not mentioned.

These ideas on the approach of the hunting participant's role in Nature is a pie chart. A little of this and a little of that. These divisible parts show a trend to temporarily visit as a lifestyle choice instead of a way of living as a mutually benefiting organism. The wordage of lifestyle choice makes it sound just that; a choice which can be picked up or thrown down at will depending on your fancy. A portion of hunting participants do consider Nature to be the enemy that one must overcome and vex to feel like a hunter/adventurer. I scratch my head at this. Yet there are hunting participants that want to be a part of the hunting act, involving their need for the intimacy of nature and not its conqueror. There are hunting participants who are integral parts of the maintenance and upkeep of Nature. The list of differing roles goes on. People exist that do not hunt but act the same way. You don't have to look to far; oil spills, deforestation, and displacement of indigenous peoples to assimilate into the civilized world.

The concept idea for marketing this boot lead me into my next critique of how true this statement is. Can Man every truly be equal to Nature? Is there anything right or wrong about this endeavor? Why do divisions of humanity strive to conquer all in a sundry?

There is also the view that Nature is the enemy and fractions of hunting participants exists outside of Nature instead of being a crucial part of the narrative. This seemed to be the idea the commercial was selling. A canine with blue eyes that I observed was to represent a wolf or agent of Nature. Was I to believe that to kill a wolf was to conquer Nature? Maybe it should have been a double twister with the hunter running for his life. He'd be running in the boots. It is truly proven that this animal type, the wolf, can be hunted and killed. There is also the suggestion to employ dogs to hunt wolves. I wondered why hunting as is, was not good enough. Whoever participates in this hunting activity might better think of spay or neutering their dogs. Once in estrus, they are going to be mongrels bred up in them there hills. Dogs will tie up through a kennel fence, as I have seen this. Nothing to stop them out in the bushes chasing after their own kind. On a funnier note, I once saw a chihuahua breeding a female rottweiler who laid down on the ground for him. Naughty. Naughty. That is a hard urge to ignore.

I figure to help with the economy, if someone is going to do a hunt with dogs on wolves, it should be monitored by the DNR through listing the dogs used. The dogs used should then be taken to a veterinary with a 24-48 hour period to be checked for excessive wounds and treatment with follow-up care. This paperwork should be submitted by the veterinary; not the hunter. Ethically, if you're going to endanger your hunting dog, you should not toss the dog in the pen after they do the work. Bite puncture wounds do get infected and turn into abscesses. These hunting dogs should also be pre-monitored by the DNR through submitted paperwork by the hunter listing all vaccinations, neuter, spaying and deworming. The DNR should also charge an extra fee for the administration of this function to ensure hunter ethics, hound health, and wolf hunting regulations. Pen it down as going to conservation and Angelia's love/hate relationship with veterinary medicine. Now write the check.

Humanity's relationship with Nature in the past was, man survives Nature's wrath. Things have not changed, except we can make it rain by dumping particles in the clouds with planes. Covert operations could possibly bring about an earthquake, plague through biological warfare, and let us not forget the secret death ray in outer space (tips hat to conspiracy theorists). I forgot the Aliens. These are man-made versions of Mother Nature's wrath by our own hand.

There are probably times when hunters go into the mountains or the woods to hunt only to find the weather is shifting moods. Clear now. Foggy later. You could start out sunny and dry then end up wet, naked, cold, and afraid. Add the unseen in the dark, staring at you like a piece of bacon then you're in for a treat. Going into unknown terrain would dictate that the guide be knowledgeable of the changing weather patterns, how it will affect the hunt, and the possibilities of waylaying the goal of procuring the animal. I am sure there is not one client that feels uneasy when stuck out in bad weather while wondering if they are going to get trapped out in the bush.

We could even observe commercial fishermen out on the ocean. Introduce a bad storm or some other atmospheric anomalie and you're Mark Walhberg's character in The Perfect Storm, drifting to your death in monster waves. Commercial fishermen experience this all the time when the ship topples over, gets stuck in an ice bank, the waves could push the workers over board, or strand them out to sea. There are just things you don't see coming.

My survey of life infernal on the planet is: a good portion of its inhabitants are actually working on ways to co-exist with nature instead of against or to conquer Nature. This exertion of energy would be more beneficial to all inhabitants. Why has this taken so long?

People don't want to die. The impending threat of extinction on humanity's part is enough to scare people to action and clean up their act. When the Grim Reaper is reporting for duty, people will pray for a miracle, sell their soul, sacrifice chickens, or check-out emotionally. Others will dance in the street having a party. I guess if you have to die; die happy.

I penned this commercial down as a poorly worded advertising slogan. There are people that do have the mentality Nature is a thing to overcome. Participants in Nature's cycles, who have this relationship with Nature as the enemy to be conquered, are arrogant.

I will interject that I disclude adventurers who have goals to do things like climb Mt. Everest. These goals do not intel changing the world but changing or manifesting some need inside. There is little carbon foot print on the Earth or the taking of life; unless they lose their own during the expedition.The implication is not to overcome Nature but issues that block them from finishing goals from within.

Humanity's unchecked fingers produce products and services with poor minds sets that bring about global dysfunction. It breeds pollution on the landscape of Nature and we have debilitated the functioning of the Earth to some degree. There are global changes that humanity will not have control over. We must be accountable for trespasses and find solutions to clean up our leftover, messy wake.

Nature reminds us how strong and fragile we are. There is no need to conquer the wilderness. As hunting participants, we need the landscape to exercise our technical and spiritual skills. These skills carry one through life. Propagate that. There is no conquering Nature or being its equal. To do so could possibly cause a dynamic shift in our perception of the wilderness as a thing to trample under foot instead of protect. People say we have conquered space. The universe is big and we have conquered nothing because we barely understand or know where the boundaries are.

Participants in this life can be stewards of Earth and its creatures. We can learn to manage components of the ecosystems to the benefit of inhabitants. Utilizing sustainability to continue cycles and propagate life is a better endeavor than conquering it.

Participants that strive to be God-like by manipulating the course of life, as it is, should be weary of the outcome. Usually we perceive a goal but the different outcomes could be beneficial or tragic. We can't control everything. Just as Jeff Goldblum's character stated in Jurassic Park, “Life will find a way.”

Man will be equal to Nature doesn't seem so relevant. Once humanity is done there will be nothing but a bare, raped landscape filled with deserts, death, and void of its animals. There again, shifting ideology and behavior is going toward the improvement of the environment. Where does one stand in the throws of Nature's wrath? Where ever it is, it had better be humbled. I subscribe more to Cody Lundin's stance of keeping my ass alive; socks or not. All you can do in the end is survive it.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Antelope: Incantations of a Archaic Pygmy Woman.

 

 

Remember this: Women’s Place was not always allocated to a non-hunting role. Even if woman didn’t hunt she was important to be mediator between animal or the cosmos for the ‘good hunt’.

 

“During a 1905 African expedition, he met a hunting tribe of Pygmies that had been driven from the plateau and had taken refuge in the jungle of the Congo. The men and a woman from this tribe were recruited to guide the expedition and soon developed a friendly relationship with Frobenius and other members of the group. One day, when food supplies were depleted, Frobenius asked one of them to shoot an antelope. He and his comrades seemed astounded, and he then replied that it could not be done that day because no preparation had been made. After much discussion among themselves, the Pygmies conveyed their intention to make preparations at sunrise the next morning. They then went off, as though searching for an appropriate site, and eventually agreed on a high place on a nearby hill. Frobenius described the subsequent events.

As I was eager to learn what their preparations consisted of, I left camp before dawn and crept through the bush to the open place which they had sought out the night before. The Pygmies appeared in the twilight, the woman with them. The men crouched on the ground, plucked a small square free of weeds and smoothed it over with their hands. One of them drew something in the cleared spaces with his forefinger, while his companions murmured some kind of formula or incantation, then a waiting silence. The sun rose on the horizon. One of the men, an arrow on his bowstring, took his place beside the square. A few minutes later the rays of the sun fell on the drawing at his feet. In the same second the woman stretched out her arms to the sun, shouting words I did not understand, the man shot his arrow and the woman cried again. Then the three men bounded off through the bush while the woman stood for a few minutes and then went slowly towards our camp. As she disappeared I came forward and looking down at the smoothed square of sand, saw the drawing of an antelope four hands long. From the antelope’s neck protruded the Pygmies arrow. " (Grey  1993-9)

As I was reading this excerpt from Gary Gray’s book entitled, Wildlife and People: The Human Dimensions of Wildlife Ecology, I wanted to inspect my thoughts on the passages as read. Here were Pygmy men performing some kind of hunting ritual where the Pygmy woman was the center point over a drawing of the intended  antelope target. I could only imagine what the cosmology was here. I have also tried looking for information on Pygmy Hunting rituals where they concern women but the updated version fast forwarded to the 20^th century has most of them gathering fish or browse.  For the Pygmy men to hunt this antelope (or were they hunting something else?) it was important for them to do the ritual at a certain time of day, certain location, with graphics, incantations, the act of shooting an arrow into the antelope drawing and the woman.  All those things compromised the ritual and how this documentation from Frobenius indicated the shedding away of previous rituals that involved women as primary participants. Even though the Pygmy woman did not hunt but instead went back to camp, her role in the mental strategy of the men bolstered their ability to hope for a good expedition. I assume the antelope was the target. Whether this was some form of hunting ritual or witchcraft remains to be seen. Either way it could have been a way not to offend the animal itself.  Or the animal could have come back for its revenge? Again the Pygmies could have been calling on the spirits of the antelope to make them swift in the chase………

Shamanic ritual aside the hunting ritual could have been one of social behavior. I would wonder if women’s role in society began to slowly be phased out or become obsolete as roles began to change or take a new shape based on social or even ecological changes. A reoccurring theme I see in mentalities and writings is the exclusion of women from the hunting activity much like Hatshepsut being erased from walls in Egypt.

It’s the idea that women were once important in the hunt but maybe after a couple of bad hunts the Pygmy men felt the Gods or whomever were frowning down on them or women had just lost their mojo.

In conclusion this was a little gem to find but made me think on other things particularly my role in hunting, what I contribute and how other huntresses are perceived or challenged in the face of the changing world of hunting which has been a male activity. If it weren’t why would it be a big deal now to advertise women or encourage them in the sport?

 

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

 

~Courtesy of the AOFH~