From a View to a Death: Culture,Nature and the Huntsman's Art

Abstract

The division between the natural and the artificial is itself artificial. But we continue to yearn for a ‘homecoming’ to our natural state – which means, to the identity with our environment which was the condition of the hunter-gatherer. Totemism is the thought-process whereby the prey can be simultaneously consecrated as a species, and pursued to the death as an individual. This thought-process has an evident ecological function. The morality of hunting resides in the maintenance of this dual attitude. An anthropological explanation is offered of the perceived rituals of hunting, and of ‘guiltless killing’.