It’s hunting
season in Arivaca, a yearly ritual of anticipation, tags, fees and designated
locales that bring hundreds of men and a few women into our village. The autumn
wave of camouflage is a welcome economic boon to our few stores and campgrounds.
Pick-up trucks multiply; rare lines form at the only two gas pumps.
Night comes. Men
in camo head for La Gitana, the local cantina, entrance granted only to the
gunless in a town that contends with borderland militias. They take a place at
the old wooden bar and order up. Hunter humor beams from tired eyes and
unshaven faces. They mix it up with the locals and are glad to be here. Depending
on the hunting season, they travel to our spacious outback to shoot a grazing
mule deer; a wary whitetail.
Deer drape our
high-desert grasslands. So do a few Pronghorn. A special species that belongs
only to North America, they are not as plentiful as deer. Their prairie grassland
evolution did not equip them to jump fences. Manifest destiny and the
introduction of barbed wire delivered them to near-extinction as their numbers plummeted
from over 15 million across the west to 13 thousand a century ago. There are
now 10 thousand in Arizona, and a short hunting season by lottery. Deer, on the
other hand, are ubiquitous, bedding down in tall grasses, wearing down game
trails to waterholes. They browse woody plants. Think mesquite leaves and beans
--- profuse around here.
I have witnessed deer,
pronghorn and the mountain lion that preys upon them. Get too close to a deer
and you will hear it stomp and snort. They will attack as well. Most anything
can happen during rut. As for the elegant pronghorn, I once watched a one give
birth outside my cabin. That wobbly baby was up and trotting with mom in
minutes, followed within seconds by a coyote to chow down on the afterbirth. Close
in on a pronghorn and you will be awed by its take-off and speeds nearing 70
mph, as fast as a cheetah. As for lion, I have watched a mother and her three
yearlings eschew my sudden presence and leap across a creek on the strength of
their thick tails. Yearlings first, then mom, who cast me an incisor snarl. Whether deer, pronghorn or lion, their
presence catapults one to another reality; grants an opportunity to witness
grace and power; evolution’s perfection.
The hunters exit
the cantina and return to RVs that dot the surrounding public lands. They rise in the early morn, eat a hearty breakfast and go in search of a doe or buck.
They do not hunt out of hunger. At least not physical hunger. The hunters scout
ravines with scopes and high-powered rifles along our winding roads. They drive
to get closer; crouch and wait. With rare exceptions, they shoot from an
assassin’s distance, sometimes 300 yards. That’s three football fields. Their prey browses
one moment, falls the next. One can only imagine the four-legged’s split-second
explosion of confusion at what fluke of nature overtook their evolution; what
sensory failure allowed for their demise.
Modern hunting
ritual begs the question: How has it evolved not so much to kill a deer, but to
kill grace --- eons of evolution --- through acts that holds no risk? There is
nothing brave in taking down an animal that cannot catch your scent. No
challenge in filling the ATV gas tank at the Mercantile. Hunting has transformed
from an intimate knowledge of landscape and a skilled act of survival to feed
family and community into a video game played outdoors. Like the teen who sits for
hours at the computer screen and fights off dragons and demons, there is no real risk. Without risk one does not
learn how to live. One takes without sacrifice, avoiding a central tenet of a
healthy society.
The ritual of the
hunt begins with reverence for the hunted and their landscape. Deference to the
those who track, stalk and shoot from short distances, gun or bow. Who crawl on
their bellies and risk exposure to prey and the elements in a complicated rite of
equals. Ever aware of their place in the food chain, they wander rugged terrain
in search of a sustenance, exchanging sacrifice for sacrifice. They sit down to
their savory venison meal knowing ritual without risk has no validity. That killing grace
deserves better.
____________________________
This piece was previously published in the Connection and the Crestone Eagle. With thanks.
Photos by Christina Nealson
Photos by Christina Nealson
Hunting for deer, elk, and antelope was very much part of my upbringing and culture. There was a love of the ritual that was in a sense an initiation into manhood at 12 years of age - planning with the men, and of providing sustenance at our dinner table. We appreciated the abundance and gave thanks. On my first hunt back from Vietnam, I had an easy shot opportunity at a buck that stood there waiting. I looked at it through my rifle scope. I told my brother who was waiting that I couldn't do it. We turned and walked away. That was my last hunting experience of any kind.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your story. How long it will take humans to evolve to the point of understanding that we are kin with every living thing.
DeleteYou evolved when you walked away
ReplyDeleteA noble thing of maturity
I think humans need to teach their young in the skills of being a warrior &/or Hunter. They are distinct but similar skill sets. Christian military warriors like bringing up the "Sheep Dog" thing which to me is arrogant. Trophy hunting is for Cunts. And killing other predators that are not affecting one's livestock is criminal and arrogant. A predator (including Humans) doing what they do should be left alone and no attempt at culling or de-clawing is allowed by both our Constitution and Human Nature. I saw a story about the biggest Buck being shot in Ohio or Illinois.... I'm thinking I know hunters that would not shoot such an animal because they think more of it's off-spring and what it means for the future... But there's always some asshole that think in the negative "If I don't get it, someone else will". I think the "Art" of hinting got Bastardized with the rise of Christianity and "Manifest Destiny".
ReplyDeleteOh, last comment was from asmoody
DeleteManifest destiny, yes, where men looked at the wild through the sites of a rifle ... and still do. Dan Flores' book, The American Serengeti speaks powerfully on this subject.
Delete