The devotees rise before dawn. They purify themselves. Their ritual cleansing shower eliminates odors that might offend their quarry. Then they don their curated clothing treated not with ashes but with carbon fibers. They have faith, but not knowledge, that their clothing will separate their scent from the wind. They also have faith that the bright orange color that distinguishes the hunter from the hunted will go unnoticed by the deer. Then they commune with each other over hot coffee.
They have studied under masters. Much of what they believe has been passed down through generations. Petroglyphs in the Nevada desert portray the hunt. Rachel told Jacob to find venison to please his father Isaac. The trade in deer skins peopled the European settlement of the American continent. Today the state requires completion of a hunter education course which, among other things, trains the novice in gun safety. YouTube offers lessons in various aspects of the hunt that give viewers the opportunity to sit at the feet of celebrated preachers.
Deer hunters, with an intensity similar to that of the ancient Druids, study the phases of the sun and moon as they look for a favorable alignment. They observe holy days. They call those days seasons, and, on them, all other business is set aside. The opening day of the season is especially celebrated. During those seasons the most ardent celebrants fast for hours as they sit outdoors in elevated places. In their homes they keep taxidermy tributes that remind them of the excellence of their faith.
And then there is prayer. They thank a Supreme Being for the natural beauty that surrounds them and for success when it comes. They confess that they have been too often guilty of bad aim or wasted opportunity. They seek guidance from history written in the woods, by an antler’s rub or a hoof’s scrape in the dirt, as they choose a promising spot from which to hunt. They sheepishly hope for a bit of divine intervention. They extend that hope to those who hunt with them. They meditate in silence as they sit and hope for a harvest opportunity.
As with religions, there are sects. There are camps that cut off the shirt-tail of a hunter who misses a shot, and camps that shun that practice as a violation of the Golden Rule. There are those who hunt with dogs. At times they just enjoy the dogs’ voices moving through the woods. Others, who believe themselves to be more sophisticated, hold a silent vigil on a tree stand in the swamp where a luring scent may have been spread. Occasionally they interrupt their silence with an attempt to imitate the voice of a calling deer. But they look down on the less skillful practice of placing feed corn within sight of their perch. That, the artisans believe, has all the adventure of stealing a watermelon from your own patch.
Special seasons honor other sectarian splits. There are those who hunt with rifles and those who prefer the bow and arrow. There are those who hunt with modern weapons and those who hunt with weapons deemed “primitive.” Those weapons sometimes mimic their muzzle-loading ancestors. At other times “primitive” reaches even further back to imitations of the medieval cross-bow.
Is deer hunting a religion? It can depend on your definition. If religion is a “pursuit to which someone ascribes supreme importance,” then deer hunting certainly qualifies. If religion is a “particular system of faith and worship,” then, for many, deer hunting falls well within those boundaries. If religion is the “service and worship of God or the supernatural,” then, while most would not take it that far, it may perhaps be said that priests of that faith are not entirely unknown.
Luther Munford is a Northsider.
