All throughout the world people have gone hunting, and have for many generations. We will explore hunting as a tradition throughout many cultures, from the Native Americans, Vikings, and through America today. Hunting has been done by almost every major civilization throughout history. Through many of these cultures and civilizations hunting has been a staple for people of these civilizations, because it was how they survived, and how they taught their children to survive. From these people, we learned how to provide for ourselves, and how to continue our lives, because if we didn’t we wouldn’t have continued to survive. That is where the tradition of hunting comes from and why we have it rooted in our blood.

In all of the major civilizations, hunting was a staple for the people who were a part of them, and it was one of the main ways that they survived. People respected nature and the animals in these cultures, and realized without them they wouldn’t survive and taught their children to respect the sacrifice of the animal and to always respect nature. From these simple teachings came the root of the tradition that followed for thousands of years after. An article from Alimentarium states “The first human beings lived a nomadic lifestyle and introduced meat to their diet about 3 million years ago. They first ate recently deceased animals and the larvae and insects found on carrion. Later, as they began to look for prey, they devised hunting techniques using rudimentary weapons and stratagems”. This shows that hunting became a way of life for the earliest of nomadic civilizations, and from these people’s stemmed all of the rest of us, and along with it our first tradition so to say. From these people came the Native Americans, Vikings, and all of the rest of the world. These people’s used hunting to help provide for themselves, and their peoples and we can learn a lot from them. Some of these traditions come from the my ancestors, the Scandinavians or Vikings. Vikings lived in some of the harshest conditions in the world, and from that they had to know how to survive. According to an article from Viking Martial Arts “Scandinavian people during the Viking Age could survive in all kinds of nature. In a land which experiences extreme weather and treacherous 6 month winters, surviving was a full time job, and for Vikings, and Viking Age families, the most important thing each day regarding survival was finding food”. From these conditions, it was a necessity because of the harsh conditions these people groups lived in. This led to a wide variety of tools that became necessary for the survival in these regions. This meant using all of the parts of the animal you harvested. By doing so it allowed these people to survive and pass on the tradition to their children. From these people’s will to survive, they passed on a tradition to us, one that many people continue to practice to this day, and one that I will pass onto my children.

To wrap this all up there is a lot of history behind this activity that many people enjoy every year. The tradition that has been passed down for generations, is one of the oldest practices in the world and is still done to this day. Because of the people who came before us we have knowledge of how to survive, and is a tradition that can be passed onto our children and grandchildren. These ways of life have kept the human race alive for thousands of years, and will continue to allow us to provide for ourselves, instead of relying on others to provide for us. From our ancestors we can learn so much, and this allows us to learn more about ourselves and allow us to carry on one of the world’s oldest traditions.

Over the years, basically since humans first emerged, we have hunted. People have hunted in every single generation that has existed, whether that be in the stone ages hunting Mammoths, or in the medieval world, or into modern day. Throughout many parts of history hunting has been a main activity of the people of the world, for example the cave men hunted to provide for their tribes. Later hunting became something of a sport along with a means of providing meat and other goods to the people. One group that did this were the vikings of medieval Europe, they hunted for food, but used the pelts for clothing and armor, as well as the bones to craft weapons and tools. Throughout history hunting has been a staple of many societies, because that is how they survived, it was their way of life, and that is what I’m here to show people.

Over my life, I’ve been hunting many times, but it is not the same as it used to be. Hunting used to be something that was a means of survival, nowadays people do it for sport and to get some meat out of it, and I’m guilty of that as well. Today everything is handed to us, food being one thing in particular. We don’t get the real sense of where our food comes from or the reality of how our food is brought to us. Many people today don’t have the guts to take an animals life, because they’ve never had to do it because as I stated earlier everything is handed to us. This is why hunting is something that is very important and close to many people’s hearts because it is a way of life, not just a sport for people who enjoy killing animals for no purpose whatsoever. The real purpose of hunting is something very few people get to experience, the kinship that is formed with people who you go hunting with, and truly understanding our place in nature. When out hunting there is just something so much more real than what we experience on a day to day basis. When looking at ancient cultures that hunted for survival, and to provide for the needs of the people we see that they respect the lives of the animals, and in some cases worship a god/goddess of the hunt. In many cultures there were gods of the hunt, for example Ullr in Norse mythology was a god of the hunt and was respected along with the animals that they hunted, and in Greek mythology Artemis was the goddess of the hunt and had the respect of all the people, for when they ventured into the forest they were at the mercy of the gods and nature. In today’s culture people have really lost their respect for nature and the animals that reside within it, and this contributes to why so many people are numb when it comes to hunting, because they have no experience or respect for it, and have never gotten to go hunting and learn to respect the practice that has been around for thousands of years. To learn to respect the practice, it something that every person should try at least once, because it really allows you to go off of the beaten path and explore nature in way you haven’t thought of before.

To wrap this all up, there is a lot that we can learn today through hunting, more so than to just harvest an animal. We can all learn something from hunting, whether that be about the natural world that surrounds us that we have lost touch with, or if we just feel the need to get closer to ourselves by spending time in nature. There is much we can learn from the ancient cultures that have gone before us, mainly how they viewed animals and how they hunted. Through these ancient experiences we can all learn how to properly respect one another along with the animals and nature that share out planet.