University of Northern Iowa

A Note on HuntingAuthor(s): Joanne RitterSource: The North American Review, Vol. 272, No. 3, Special Heritage Issue: The WomanQuestion, 1849-1987 (Sep., 1987), p. 107Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25124898 .

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We nibbled blueberries on our

way back from the graveyard, saving only enough for the next morning's pancakes. I woke at five that next

morning, our last on the Cape, and

tiptoed outside to see what the world had to offer. A fox had been down our

lane, leaving dimpled pawprints in the tawny sand. I followed the tracks as they meandered from lane to field of purple beachpeas and saltspray roses, from field to woods of oak and

pine, from woods to lane and back

again to field and woods. There was no hurry in this trail. The fox must have been in a contemplative mood,

as I was. From a brushy hill, where cows once grazed and where tufts of

rye still grew as a reminder of farms, I could see across a half mile of marsh to the bay. I walked to the shore

through lavender light, past conti nents of reeds that waved their blond

plumes higher than my head. Sand

lapped over the buckled blacktop of the road. Poison ivy climbed the

speed limit signs, and vines gripped the telephone poles. On dunes over

looking the beach, the outermost cot

tages perched on stilts, like flightless and gawky birds that would go smash in the first gale. In these reminders that we can make nothing perma

nent, there was a taste of freedom.

Even those boxes we build for shelter and freely enter, even our clothes,

even our jobs and reputations are jails of a sort. We need to escape them

now and again, need to imagine them

falling away from us like old skins, if we are to keep from smothering.

There was a taste of freedom also

in the blueberry pancakes, a wild and

tangy savor. We moved out of The

Jail after breakfast and joined the Sat

urday morning crowd of those who had finished their holidays. Those who were just arriving thronged the

opposite lane of the highway. Seeing the twin streams of cars, one flowing onto the Cape, one flowing off, I could not avoid thinking of other nat ural passages?the tides, the migra tion of alewives and sea birds, the arrival and retreat of sunlight. Doubt less this thought occurs to multitudes each year, as they are stuck in traffic

jams on this skinny peninsula. A crav

ing for escape drives us to these

exposed places?to the margins of oceans and the tops of mountains?

and then chains of duty drag us back home. We go and come as though caught in the inhalation and exhalation of a great breath, without knowing who or what it is that breathes.

September 1987 107

LETTER

A Note on Hunting

To the Editor: Re: On Hunting by Eric Zencey

(June 1987) Dear Mr. Zencey:

If the majority of hunters were like your friend, involved in the ritual and personal sacrifice, introspection, and a willingness to see the self as an

animal?as the hunted would see him?I don't think there would be a

lack of respect for hunters. Your friend isy#r from the norm, however; very few have examined the subject as you have.

I agree with you that the practice of hunting offers the possibility of a

mystical communion with nature which is rare in our culture. It is pre

cisely because it is so rare that hunt

ing is so abhorrent. If the only way a man can get himself interested or

motivated to commune with nature

one week out of 52 is the prospect of

killing something?this does not

speak well of us. Traditional hunters and gatherers spent all their time

communing with nature. Hunting was only a part of it. They knew how

to respect the wilds?they were

grounded and centered. To equate these traditional tribes with modern hunters is erroneous. To state that

only an agricultural tribe could invent

genocide and concentration camps is

misleading?traditional hunters/

gatherers had their share of territorial

disputes. In any case, are you trying to say we should give up agriculture and go back to hunting/gathering totally? I don't know many modern

hunters who would share that view.

The majority of the hunters I have met can be characterized as

overweight, drinking, loud, macho men trying to prove their prowess by sitting in a box with a can of beer and

shooting at a deer as it approaches a

salt lick. These are men who insist

they need meat at every meal?meat

is synonymous with manhood. You'd be hard pressed to find a traditional tribe that ate meat at every meal?or

wanted to. Unlike your friend, the vast majority do not hunt with bows.

They are unable or unwilling to become the true warrior?the well

toned athlete who abstains from alco

hol and meat and strives to achieve

the clarity of mind necessary for the

pure hunt. Most would rather slant the odds in their favor. Their sense of sacrifice comes in spending more

money for a higher-powered gun or

paying for a better-stocked hunting ground.

I don't like hunting because I don't think it's necessary to inflict that pain. We have taken too much from nature already. Every contact

we have with it, it seems we rape the land and kill or drive off the animals.

When will it stop? Just as you cannot

ignore our ancestry, how can you

choose to blatantly ignore our his

tory? When will men take the time to

learn about the nature they are so

eager to dominate? It seems to me

domination is the real name of the

game and this is just another sorry

example of it. I spend a lot of time in the woods and all I can see is more

things to learn about?learning to tell directions from the stars, weather

patterns, names of plants and what

that tells about the land and its his

tory, geology, wildlife and its habits.

Why would you want to kill it? Just being there watching it, trying to become more animal-like in your

habits and behavior?this all causes intense introspection. To sit so still that a deer or an elk grazes nearby? that is enough. That is enough to give you stories to tell your friends about.

(Have you ever read Loren Eisley? There's a lot going on out there).

I recently watched as campers hounded two elk that entered a

campsite?with cameras they stalked

them, not guns, but it was just the

same. That greedy ego that has to

possess some photo, some pelt, some

set of antlers?some materialistic

proof to paste like a gold star on the forehead that says "I communed with nature?aren't I wonderful?" Every one misses the point. Instead of

going for the gold star, they should be

going for the twinkle in the eye?that depth of vision that leads straight to

the soul and says "yes, I saw that deer?and he's still running."

Sincerely, Joanne Ritter Saranac Lake, NY

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