Hunting: The Poor and Entitled.

King Charlemagne

Remember this: In a person's life circumstances change. The pauper can become the rich and the rich can become the pauper. Hunting is hunting regardless.

The current atmosphere of hunting as a sport of either leisure or food gathering necessity has shined a pinpoint light on the availability of the hunting act on a landscape both private and public influenced by money, law, status and personal ownership.

In America anyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, or financial background can purchase a hunting license. Once you get that hunting license it is up to you whether you hunt public land, your own private land, or another private land owner’s. You can be a homeless vagrant with no job but if you can provide money for the license fee then you can hunt. Where you would get the gun remains to be seen unless you're going Rambo with a knife.

I have spoken to hunter's that are upset because they can't hunt wherever they want without permission from private land owners. There are also comments about public land not being enough. I have also be privy to conversations where a group of hunters or hunter complains that he is unable to go on 'dream hunts' like other more wealthy hunters. This problem of entitlement where a more wealthy hunter has better access to game and hunting conditions because the outfitter that provides the service dictates the price and the amount of luxury going into the itinerary. I assume on both hunters part no matter the amount of money they both work for it just the same: one just has more than the other.

The financially well-off hunter can travel at his leisure while sharing his exploits. Other hunters dream and envy over that person's life. The financially well-off hunter could just keep his bucks to himself and not help subsidize other peoples economy. On the other hand the poorer hunter can save his money and go on a trip of his own. To me its just a rock throwing contest where instead of sharing brothership in the hunt its coveting all the way. Money helps but its not everything.

I got to thinking about the History of Hunting where social cast systems came into play. I googled around just for fun. How could hunting be used as an element of social control?

The North Carolina Act of 1745 was used to push out people that depended on hunting all year long by getting them to move elsewhere, limited hunting to certain times of the year, and restricted practices such as fire-ring hunting and jack light hunting.

Fire-ring hunting used two men in the dark where they set a fire up to five to seven miles wide to run quarry to a smaller group of hunters while jack lighting was used by putting coals or a fire into a cast iron skillet then using it to shine off the eyes of animals.

Also the North Carolina Act of 1745 stated that if you didn't have a home or were jobless that you couldn't hunt. Hunters had to carry an affidavit they planted at least 500 corn hills. At that time depletion of game was a worry so I guess they figured if you're going to shoot them, give them something to eat or at least show you care.

In 1705 in Virginia, the House of Burgess rolled back the open areas to prohibit commoners from hunting on private land without permission. You were exempt if you owned more than six slaves at the time. This meant that wealth indicated if you could trespass on private property to hunt if you didn't have permission. I guess if you destroyed property they would take your slaves as payment (which has been attested to for other debts in that time period).

Of course with all things and starving people you have law breakers so to ensure no one was poaching the House of Burgess laid down a twenty shilling reward for each incidence of poaching that was turned in. I laughed and thought that was easy money seeing how you could just turn someone in.

I can only imagine what it was like in Europe.

I did find in a poem called the Rime of William where the writer penned his unhappiness at William the Conqueror’s idea to let the wild things of the forest run free. This goes back to aristocracy dictating who could hunt and what game would be hunt. I did think about it and to not take it literally because at that time I am sure there was a lot of starving people with poaching on their mind. At the same time maybe King William saw a decrease in wildlife and wanted it controlled. Wars will do a lot to a landscape while making the animals on it disappear to feed soldiers. Agriculture was going on but it made you wonder why they were going after the wildlife if not to enjoy the hunt themselves as serfs. Who knows?

Whether or not this is going to be a problem as hunting areas get smaller or just the competition to get into a landscape to hunt is pursued through hunting tags is yet to be seen. What if people started to argue they didn't feel the tagging system was right because it only allowed so many people to go. What if they argued it was rigged to only cater to certain people?

Now everyone has a camera where they are filming their hunts. Everyone wants to be the expert because that gives them top ranking. With all this fighting over the best 'piece of meat' did hunters stop enjoying themselves?

Would it be better to be a little nobody that enjoys the hunt for themselves without sharing it with the world on some little speck of land in the realm of obscurity than to not enjoy hunting at all?



~Courtesy of the AOFH~

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.

~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?

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

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. 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’.

 ~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Homo Homini Lupus

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

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 magnificent 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 perceive 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 among men. Man is a wolf in heart. Man is a hunter and a predator. Man is man.



~Courtesy of the AOFH~