PUBLICATION WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
DATE : SUN SEP.19,1999
PAGE : D5
CLASS : Entertainment
Hunting a vital part of native life
Jordan Wheeler
I was watching the new Aboriginal Peoples Television Network the other day and I saw a lot of puppets and animals. Some animals were majestically roaming their natural environment, some were about to die, some were dying, and some were dead.
Hunting is portrayed a lot on APTN and it's a reflection of one simple fact: Hunting remains a major part of the aboriginal lifestyle.
I found the images quite refreshing. I also wondered how the southern,
urban audience was reacting.
Personally, my typical hunting and gathering foray involves a trip
to the kitchen, grocery store or a favourite restaurant.
I haven't been hunting since I was a kid. I used to fish when I was a kid and I also picked mushrooms, fiddle heads, and a dozen varieties of berries near our home on Vancouver Island. However, since 1972, I've been a city boy.
Don't get me wrong, I would go hunting if I had the chance, if I had
a rifle, if I had any real expertise, and if I wasn't worried about getting
in any real hunter's way.
Years ago, when I was editing a local aboriginal newspaper, a woman
asked if I could give her any ideas for an aboriginal cultural component
that could be added to a tourism package for some people from Japan. I
suggested hunting. She said she had a problem with that. You'll never take
the hunter out of the people, I told her. She hoped I was wrong. I wasn't.
Even so, there are a lot of southern sensibilities that will find these
images on APTN a little icky. Some will find them grotesque, some will
be horrified, and others won't flinch. Some will flick to another channel
and some won't, but the content remains a true reflection, even for those
who don't hunt.
If you know the right people, you can have moose and deer in your freezer
all year long. I've also eaten muskrat, musk-ox, polar bear, beaver, caribou,
seal, narwhal, wild boar and puppy dog. What do you call a Cree Easter?
Rabbit soup. Yum, yum.
The food comes from the same context as a harpoon piercing walrus skin.
It's a context that makes your tummy rumble when you see the elk in Banff
National Park.
Tourists are warned about the elk in calving season. The more-aggressive
ones are marked with orange collars and you scheme of ways to get one in
a situation where you can claim self-defence. "The elk started it," you
can say. Until the perfect plan is hatched, you stand there and drool.
And you can still get choked up at Bambi.
Point is, aboriginal people have been hunting for eons and that's not
about to change anytime soon. For one thing, the wild game is just too
tasty. Caribou has to be the most-delicious meat on Earth. There's also
the economic factor, particularly in the north where a wilted green pepper
can cost you five or six bucks. It just doesn't pay to be a vegetarian,
nor would it be very palatable. Being a vegetarian in the north would require
deep pockets and a cow's stomach.
A couple of moose or caribou in the freezer can go a long way towards
feeding the family. And it's probably not a good idea to change a diet
that has conditioned itself for thousands of years, just ask the Inuit.
They still eat their meat raw to help them stay warm in winter and their
digestive tracts are used to it.
If your typical southerner tried that diet for any length of time they'd
suddenly spend a lot of time in the throne room. Dairy products have the
same effect on a lot of aboriginal people, because we never had dairy products
in our diet. We got our calcium from other sources. So that's life and
it's reflected on a new television network that gives the impression that
hunting is innate.
A few years ago, a non-aboriginal woman friend described one of her
son's early childhood years. The boy hadn't been exposed to TV, never had
a gun to play with, and had no contact with the hunting culture whatsoever.
So she was more than a bit shocked one day when she saw the toddler stalking
a bird in the back yard. In his arms was a branch held like a gun. You'll
never take the hunter out of the people.