Thanks Deer

 

Andy had just shot his first deer.  The buck had a nice little rack and was fat and healthy.  He’d provide plenty of lean “carne” for our “chili con carne” during the rapidly approaching winter.

I prepared to go get the truck so we could haul the buck to the barnyard where we’d clean it and start the butchering.

But first things first.  I asked my son, “Did you tell him thanks?”

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A lot of anti- and non-hunters think that we latter-day Leather Stockings revel in the taking of a life with high fives and hillbilly yee hahs as some poor beast gasps its last breath and its life blood gurgles out onto the ground.

I admit that I’ve done the high five and yee hah thing but only after ensuring that my prey has breathed its last.  Sorry if I burst anybody’s bubble but spreading pain and torturing animals are not among my goals.

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I was watching an episode of Alaska the Last Frontier recently where the Kilchers were engaged in their never ending effort to provide food for their larder.  One of the men shot a deer, then walked up to the deceased animal, bent down, and said, “I’m sorry,” as he stroked the still warm body.

My first thought was, “Wow, I’m not the only one.”

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It got me thinking.  I’ve known a lot of good, caring people who hunt but our discussions about the sport are usually centered around technique, success, and stories of the hunt.  We don’t generally talk about feelings and emotions, or the reason for them.  I suspected, but had no proof, that some of them do the same thing I do after a kill.

I could call my outdoors-oriented friends and relatives to ask but I figured I’d mostly get responses like those above, so I thought I’d go online and ask the members of some facebook groups I’ve joined.

So I did.

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Fellow Marine Paul Caudill on Southeast Bushcraft Basecamp was the first to answer my question, “I thank them and God for allowing me to feed my family.”

Yes!

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David Kralik, also on Southeast Bushcraft Basecamp, said, “I have a ’gratitude’ ritual that I perform with every deer that I take.”

He also promised to address the issue on a video for his own Youtube channel (David Kralik Outdoors) in the near future.

I look forward to seeing that.  I wonder if his ritual will be something similar to the ritual I once read about that is still performed by some big game hunters in Germany.  A twig is inserted in a corner of the animal’s mouth to represent its final meal.  At some point the ritual included a prayer to St. Hubert, the patron saint of hunters.

Science says such rituals date back in prehistory when stone weapon bearing hunters first gained the intelligence to contemplate what they had gained from the animal’s loss.

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On Woodland Knappers and Ancestral Skills, Lyman Clark takes a slightly different tack, “David, I do not verbally express appreciation for the game I take but I do spend a great deal of my time in preparation for the hunt. I feel it is my obligation to the game to be the best prepared for a clean and effective kill. So, I believe I do honor the game by being the best I can be for the hunt. I am also thankful for the meat that I eat and enjoy it very much.”

Absolutely!

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Next, again on Southeast Bushcraft Basecamp, it was Papabear Bryant who first complemented “A Different Drummer” then settled in to express what sounds like a very personal experience for him.  “I like to thank the Lord for the food but I like to take the time and talk to the animal and thank it for giving itself to my family.

“Why do I do that?  I don’t know; I just think I need to do it.  I know that ain’t no great quote but I feel as if I need to talk and explain why I had to take its life and tell it how beautiful it is.  I like (what I say) to just be between me and the animal I take.  Anyway it is always something different.”

He then closed with a blessing for me and, I suspect, for fellow outdoorsmen and women who care for the game we take.

Amen, Brother.

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My friends Keith and Jen Syers answered on Midwest Woodcraft.  “I leave a food offering every time as a small token…definitely a mixed emotion of reverence and elation. Majority of our meat comes from hunting.”

It sounds like Keith and Jen take hunting seriously.

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In my family it is quite common to quote something from a movie that expresses what we feel, so Phil Davis sounded like a member of the Matthews gang when he said, “It’s Hollywood, but…” and added a link to a clip from the opening scene of Last of the Mohicans (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9oW0Nk7Dm4).  In the scene Hawkeye (played by Daniel Day-Lewis), Chingachgook (Russell Means), and Uncas (Eric Schweig) are hunting.  Hawkeye drops a running elk with a single shot and, as the three approach it Chingachgook speaks to the animal, “We’re sorry to kill you, Brother.  We do honor to your courage and speed, your strength.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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I’ve read about other Native Americans, who dropped pinches of tobacco onto the animal’s body to offer respect, believing that tobacco—crumbled or smoked—connects them to the spirit world.  I also read that the Inuit would blow a breath into the mouth of a seal they had just taken, in respect for that animal’s life.

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Have you noticed a common thread in all this?  Perhaps you picked out words like honor, respect, gratitude, and reverence.  All are words that point out attitudes more lofty than bloodlust.

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I won’t begin to say that I’m speaking for every hunter, but I bet these people and many others would agree with what I say.

I hunt to know that I am providing the healthiest, chemical free, hormone free, genuinely free-range meat there is for my family.

I don’t hunt to kill.  I hunt to feel the breeze, to see the sunrise and the sunset.  I hunt to stride along the mountainsides and know that I’ve come home.  I hunt to sit quietly and listen as the songbird gives voice to the feelings in my heart.  I hunt to breathe the misty air of a country morning.  I hunt to smell the pungent mossy-ness of the dark forest.  I hunt so that I can sit by a warm fire and snuggle up to a hot cup of coffee while bacon sizzles in the smoke.

I hunt to take part in life and not to sit back and watch TV while someone else does my killing for me.  And I don’t delude myself that no animal died to make my Big Mac.

I don’t hunt to kill.  I kill to have hunted.

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Feeling a part of nature instills in me a sense of kinship for my prey, but also the little wren who landed on the screen of my hunting blind this morning and looked at me as if to say, “I’m nesting in here next spring.”  I feel a connection to the other predators who would take the deer if they could.  I feel that the wind in the trees is part of my own life’s-breath.  I feel that the babbling brook is my lifeblood.  We are all interrelated, interwoven like the honeysuckle at the edge of the road that sprouts thousands of blossoms every year but it’s impossible to tell which plant produced which flower.

I say thank you to the deer, not because I think it can hear me, and not even especially because I think I have to apologize for killing it.  I say thank you to the deer as a reminder to myself of the seriousness of life; of the responsibility of taking a life; of the importance of taking an active part in life; and to honor the beautiful creature that died so that we can eat.

I thank the deer, not because I have to, but because I want to.

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This evening I dropped a sleek, fat doe with my crossbow.  When I walked up to her it was obvious that she wasn’t suffering, then I placed my hand gently on her flank and said, “Thank you my sister.”

And thankful I am.

 

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(below) The scene from Last of the Mohicans that Phil Davis and I referenced n my post above.