The article of Sara Kruszona entitled The Theater of Death treats the spectacular-theatrical character of collective hunts. The author puts forward the thesis that these hunts can be read as a form of a spectacle. The starting point for consideration was the article Customs and hunting ceremonies in collective hunts, derived from the website of the Hunting Signals Group, “Hagard”. This text is a kind of a scenario of hunting ceremonies taking place during collective hunts. By quoting its fragments in his text on the Theater of Death, the author proves the thesis about the pageantry of hunting rituals. Events which take place during hunting, their organization and arrangement, whose important aspects include tradition and ritual character, interpreted as a kind of spectacle. It was similar to the ancient venatio. The author also refers to the ancient roots of performances with the participation of hunters, i.e. venatio, described by Miroslaw Kocur in his book entitled The Roots of the Theater. A particularly important argument for the possibility of considering hunting as a form of a show is the hunters’ awareness of role–playing and audience presence. This can be understood by guests invited to the hunt as well as opponents of hunting, or as a community focused on their activity and ready to criticize it. The awareness of the presence of spectators determines the obvious awareness of playing whether the hunters perform a specific social function in the spectacle called hunting. The finale of this performance, played according to a strictly defined scenario and with strictly assigned roles, is pokot. The author draws attention to the fact that the system of animal bodies and all activities related to them resemble a specific form of a spectacle – anatomical theater.
The article presents a study of the royal hunting practices of lunar and solar dynasties, using the great Sanskrit epics as literary sources. Both epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, criticize the devastation and destruction of the forest area brought about by the hunting king and simultaneously praise the calming impact of forest hermitages on the environment. Ample provision was made for non-participation of hounds in hunting. The analysis showed that the deforestation and the tragic fate of indigenous hunting tribes continued to be the central problem of the texts. The king required the forest area for the purposes of agriculture and economy, brahmins set up hermitages here, but the forest used to be a tribal habitat first of all. The dominant Bharata tribe formed alliances by contracting marriages with more powerful hunting communities, while for the vulnerable ones there was no room left. Dehumanized, perceived as demonic or snake-like creatures and animals, they were doomed. The forests along the route of the expansion of the Bharata tribe were cut down or burnt, often together with their inhabitants: human tribes, animals and birds.
The paper deals with the problem of traumatic experiences of children and animals related to hunting from the point of view of animal studies. The subject of hunting covers usually only the ethical side of this hobby. In the defense of animals which are the object of hunting activities, the emphasis is mainly on human interference in the law of nature and its influence on reducing the local wildlife population. The article presents a topic related to the psychological aspect of hunting, which is often overlooked in the general social discourse. The subject of the survey was to present one of the aspects of the human psyche – traumatic experience as the influence of hunting on the participating children. Based on selected examples of literary works on hunting the impact of those traumatic experiences of children is outlined. The effects of traumatic experiences and the situations of transferring the trauma from one’s experience and considering it as its own are presented. In addition, the article presents the problems of traumatic experiences in animals and their suffering not only related to the somatic but also to the psychic side. Based on ethology, the hunting influence on mental suffering animals is shown with particular emphasis on those which live in the herd. The issues presented in the article are testimony to the similarity of humans and animals’ mental experiences in humans and animals.
The author discusses hunting scenes in film representing a variety of genres not for their iconography, but rather for their metaphorical impact. Filmmakers use hunting as a metaphor to speak about completely different issues. They explore political topics, expose their ideological and ethical aspects, focus on instances of customary behaviour. Alicja Helman points out the link between hunting and death. According to her, people who are capable to kill animals are also capable to kill people – not only at war, but for other reasons as well. The article focuses mainly on the works which became models for later films belonging to the traditions of ethno-fiction, western, horror, and psychological drama.
The feeling of security is one of the basic human needs and its disruption evokes reactions towards re-gaining the state of comfort. In order to get it, humans are willing to accept radical procedures proposed by the government and other groups/institutions of power. In contemporary Polish socio-cultural reality this manipulation method is used to justify the need of hunting which is claimed to be a method of managing threats associated with the natural environment. Clearly this is manipulation serving individual interests of lobbing groups and has nothing to do with sustainable development rules. Creating biophobia with the use of the Foucauldian power- knowledge tool is contradictory towards biophilia – indicated by E. Wilson as a human need to create bonds with the natural environment.
There is a growing public disapproval of the recreational persecution and killing of wild mammals and birds who share with us basic emotional experience that conveys intrinsic value to their lives. Contrary to hunters’ propaganda, both scientific research and testimonies from prominent hunters-writers demonstrate that the thrill of killing is the main and ultimate motive of recreational hunting. The majority of simple-minded hunters are satisfied by any killing, including a canned hunt. However, some recreational hunters combine the killing drive with biophilia which makes them psychologically comparable to rapists. Both the thrill of killing and biophilia are primitive drives that evolved as adaptations in hunter-gatherers. Killing for pleasure (with or without biophilia) has always been evil in terms of both intentions and consequences. At present it is also barbaric in the sense of the opposite of civilization which progressed by increasing the control of primitive drives, in particular aggression.
Is there a hunter in each of us? By proposing a thesis, which is consistent with the results of biological research in the human evolution, that due to the pressure of natural selection and the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens our species was equipped with a strong predatory instinct, which enables us to speak about “the hunter in each of us”, the author of the article traces its cultural expressions, demonstrating its realisations in the past. She proves that this instinct, in conjunction with the strategy of costly representation (the handicap theory) which is also peculiar to humankind, is currently realised inter alia by hunting practices, which due to their cruelty and the incompatibility with a classless society constitute a peculiar “relic of barbarity”.
Miles Olson is the author of two books: The Compassionate Hunter’s Guidebook: Hunting from the Heart and Unlearn, Rewild: Earth Skills, Ideas and Inspiration for the Future Primitive. The paper consists of a critical analysis and an ethical evaluation of Olson’s particular version of anarcho-primitivism and ideological assumptions of his concept of “rewilding”. The question of hunting and the motives for Olson’s rejection of veganism are analyzed in detail.
W artykule omówiono historię polowania na Białorusi oraz system tradycyjnych wyobrażeń o polowaniu, które jest ściśle związane zarówno z kategorią potocznej, jak i mitologicznej świadomości. Pokazano, że zajęcie to przenika kompleks mitologicznych wyobrażeń i wiąże się ono z magicznymi praktykami. Zaznaczono szczególny charakter wzajemnych związków myśliwych z siłami i istotami nie z tego świata. Myśliwi, pozostając częścią społeczeństwa, w wielu przypadkach są obdarzani demonicznymi cechami charakteru oraz porównywani do kategorii osób „wiedzących”, do czarodziejów.
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The article reviews the history of hunting in Belarus and reveals the system of traditional ideas about hunting, which is closely related to the categories of everyday and mythological consciousness. It demonstrates that this craft is infused with a complex of mythological representations and is associated with magical practice. One also notes a special character of the relationship of hunters with foreign forces and beings. Hunters, while remaining a part of society, are in some cases endowed with demonic characteristics and equated with the category of “knowledgeable”, with sorcerers.
Hunting and ReligionOn the Religious Significance of Hunting Practices from the Perspective of Animal Studies The main aim of the article is to consider the presence and function of religion (in most cases, the Christian religion) in the broadly conceived hunting practices at the turn of the 21st century, as well as the presence of religious motivation and ideological commitment in the hunters’ community from the perspective of religious studies inspired by the empirical research into the human-animal relationship (known as animal studies). The hunting narrative is shown, on the one hand, as eagerly seeking legitimacy and support from institutional religion (evidenced by the patron saints of hunting, the hunting ceremonial that has close parallels in the church ceremonial, and the argument in favour of “ecological balance” and “nature management” based on theological sources) and, on the other hand, as disguising an unethical and religiously unacceptable element of the arbitrary taking of life and inflicting pain without a shadow of empathy or without respecting the right to existence of what is a vulnerable being, even more so because it is devoid of human tools and rationality. The author’s examination of the issues leads to the discussion of the hunters’ religious mythologizing of their own status which draws on the ancient origin of hunting practices in prehistoric times: a period when the human-animal relationship was not yet marked by dualistic division and ontological asymmetry. The paper ultimately aims at the analysis of the way hunting is presented in religious studies research, of the difference between the implications of hunting activities for the human-animal relationship in premodern tribal communities (which practised subsistence hunting) and contemporary industrialized ones, and of the possibility of granting religious subjecthood to animals which stems from the return to the non-dichotomous, relational and dynamic view of the world typical of hunter-gatherers’ times.
Stosunek do śmierci zwierząt jako miernik człowieczeństwa(na podstawie utworów Walentina Rasputina) W tekście przeanalizowano utwory Walentina Rasputina, w których stosunek bohaterów do śmierci zwierząt, śmierci, której są zarówno świadkami, jak i sprawcami, stanowi niejako miernik ich człowieczeństwa. Uwaga skupiona została przede wszystkim na utworach Продается медвежья шкура oraz Живи и помни. W pierwszym z nich mamy do czynienia z jednej strony z „uczłowieczeniem” zwierzęcia, który, tropiąc myśliwego, przejawia niespotykaną chęć zemsty oraz konsekwencję w dążeniu do celu, z drugiej – możemy zaobserwować ewolucję charakteru głównego bohatera od bezrefleksyjnego uśmiercania zwierząt w celach zarobkowych do całościowego postrzegania świata i przyrody, w którym każda żywa istota ma prawo do życia. Z kolei w drugim z utworów obserwujemy proces wprost przeciwny – moralną degradację człowieka, której świadectwo stanowi między innymi nieuzasadnione zabicie bezbronnego zwierzęcia. W kontekście rozważań o sakralnym charakterze przyrody obraz głównego bohatera można odczytywać także jako antyreligijny model zachowania człowieka.
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Attitude towards Animal Slaughter as the Reflection of Human PersonalityPortrayed in Valentine Rasputin’s Works In this article, the focus in placed on the works of Valentine Rasputin in which the attitude that the characters have towards animal slaughter, of which they are both witnesses and executers, constitutes to some extent the determiner of their human quality. Above all, Selling Bear’s Skin and Live and Remember are analyzed. The former deals, on the one hand, with the humanization of an animal that seeks revenge and its consistent pursuit while following the hunter. On the other hand, the evolution of the main character’s attitudes from thoughtless animal slaughter for the sake of material profiteering to the holistic perception of the world and nature, in which every being has the right to live, is observable. The latter work, in turn, depicts just the reverse process, mainly the moral degradation of the human being, evidenced by unwarranted slaughter of a defenseless animal. In the context of the perspective on the sacred dimension of nature, the attitude of the main character might be interpreted as an antireligious mode of human behavior.
Autor omawia w artykule historię moralnej degradacji łowiectwa w byłym ZSRR, na Ukrainie i w Rosji głównie na podstawie krytycznego przeglądu prasy myśliwskiej. Krytyce podlega praktyka obrony polowania drogą donosicielstwa.
EN
The author of the article discusses the history of the moral degradation of hunting in the former USSR, in Ukraine and in Russia mainly on the basis of a critical overview of the hunting press. Criticism is directed against the practice of the defence of hunting by means of squealing.
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