1. Chase Hickey Hickey 1
Ms. Bennett
British Literature
16 September 2011
The Hunt Begins
How is modern day hunting similar and different from the ways the Indians hunted?
How did the Indians use their resources more wisely than modern day hunters? The Indians did
not have guns or any black powder weapons. Every weapon that the Indians used was hand
made by them out of rocks and other natural resources. Comparing and contrasting the hunting
styles and techniques of Native American hunting, as well as the styles and techniques of modern
day hunters.
The Indians had different uses of their resources when they hunted than modern day
hunters. “Before Europeans arrived with iron, brass, copper, steel, fabric, and glass, the white-
tail was a virtual „general store‟ to the native people of the northeast” (Trotta). The Native
Americans used the animals they hunted for weapons, clothes, ceremonial implements, and tools.
When they killed the animals that they hunted, they took it back and butchered it into smaller
parts. Everything on the animals that could be used and turned into any item, was used and very
little went to waste. For example, “Deer hides were an important source of clothing for Native
Americans” (Trotta). After the Native Americans skinned their animals, they would remove any
fat and hair left on the animal. They used the hides that they skinned as quivers or pouches,
clothing, and other tools. The Native Americans also used the hides that were skinned as a type
of camouflage, or decoy. The Natives Americans were different from the modern day hunters
because they used what they had more wisely.

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The Indians used what they had more wisely than the modern day person could even
think about. “Deer Bones were cleaned and processed into a wide variety of tools and
implements” (Trotta). They used the skull of a deer for a spoon, and the leg bones were carved
into knife handles and arrows. The Longer bones would be cracked and made into needles, and
bone fragments were used in arrowheads, spears, and knives. The Native American hunters also
used bone fragments to produce spear heads and arrowheads. “Sinew, or tendon, is the very
tough connective tissue that attaches muscle to bone in most animals” (Trotta). The Native
Americans cleaned the tendons and used them mostly for sewing thread. They also used the
tendons for bow strings and spear heads. They also used the sinew for sewing moccasins and
clothing together. The Native Americans thought more outside of the bow than the modern day
hunters, because they used their resources the way they should.
The Indian way of life and hunting was all depended on their techniques and their style
which are very different to the modern day hunters. “Deer were hunted by two basic methods”
(Holt). The first methods consist of one man with a bow and arrow that stalks the animals
quietly and kills them. The men act as if they are their own decoy, and wear a previous killed
deer as a head dress. “Smaller game was hunted by the children” (Holt). The stories passed
down from earlier Indians describe children shooting frogs and squirrels with their bow and
arrow. The children also used a “blow pipe” which was used to shoot a small arrow at birds or
other small animals. The styles and techniques of the Native Americans are much more thought
out and used more wisely.
The modern day hunting styles and techniques are very different from that of the Native
Americans. “Hunting was an almost universal activity” (Almond). For the upper class in society

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it provided food, and it was for sport, and the lower class it was for food and raw
materials for personal use. The men and women do not show enough mercy to the animals they
kill by stalking them and just doing it for sport. Most hunters are not like that though, they kill
the animals for food to survive. ““Hunter-gatherers” is a term generally used to describe people
from ancient society who survived exclusively by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild foods”
(Hodge). The Modern day hunters usually take into account where the mostvaluable food
source, of the animals being hunted, is around the area.Modern hunters also use bait to attract the
animal being hunted into a location. Most hunters today use a scouting technique by baiting an
area with corn or apples, and set up a trail camera to see what comes in to eat and at what
times.The Native Americans never baited the animals in like the modern day hunter.
The modern day hunter techniques are much different than the way the Native Americans
did things.“Various forms of persistence hunting have been recorded in the Kalahari”
(Liebenberg).They knocked small animals down with a club and then they would kill them, but if
the animal ran they would run it down.The babies of small mammals were run down on foot by
the people and caught and killed by hand. Many hunters looked for slow-moving animals to run
down in the open country like aardvark and porcupine.“During one trip, five days of hunting
resulted in one gemsbok (antelope like mammal) and two bat-eared foxes killed by hunting with
dogs” (Liebenberg).This method proves that hunting with dogs is much more efficient for the
hunters.The dogs gave them the nose to sniff out where the animals were, and it also helped them
track down wounded animals. Many hunters use them not only to track wounded animals, but to
retrieve small birds, pheasants, and ducks.This just comes to show you

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the modern day hunters are different in many styles and techniques from the Native
American hunters.
Modern day hunters had different types of strategies than the Native American people
had back in their times. “When glassing, try to keep hidden using rocks or ground cover. You
will see more action during dawn and dusk” (Ott). Good strategies while deer, moose, and elk
hunting is to scan through the tree lines and the timber pockets. If you are in a good location on
your hunt, you should start to see movement within about 10 minutes, if you are glassing from a
distant hill or mountain. Most animals are skittish to come into bow range so most are shot using
a gun or black powder firearms. “If you know for a fact that the game you are after is in the
vicinity, you will have the confidence to wait until you spot them” (Ott). To scan correctly you
should create a system that helps you scan efficiently. Most hunters use a system like a grid
when scanning an area. They start at any spot and use a grid method, going from left to right,
and then up anddown. The strategies for killing animals in the modern days are a lot different
than the Native Americans had.
The Native American and modern day hunters have some similar strategies and
techniques in common. “Hunters would go out in groups, or individually to locate and harvest
these animals” (Trotta). Hunters from a tribe would go out in a pack and trap then kill the
animals, or they would go out individually to stalk the animals. Modern day hunters go out in
groups, when they are duck and bird hunting, but they mostly hunt alone in a tree stand. “After
an animal was skinned, the hide was processed by first removing the hair and any residual meat
and fat left on the flesh side” (Trotta). The Native Americans, just like modern day hunters,
made the hides that were scraped off into rugs or carpets. Both the modern day hunters and the

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Native Americans used a frame to stretch out the hides before use. The techniques of using the
hide for carpet are common to both the Native Americans and the modern day hunters.
The Native Americans used the deer they killed for many purposes, and similarly the
modern day hunters‟ use killed animals for many things as well. “White-tailed deer provide
many uses of itself after being killed by a hunter” (Trotta). The Native Americans used the
white-tailed deer for many purposes, like; ceremonial items, hammers, and fishing supplies. The
modern day hunters use the deer that they harvest to get doe pee that hunters will put on their
boots during rut, for bucks to come in to be killed. “Native American tribes also had various
traditions of chasing down animals on foot” (Liebenberg). The Tarahumara Indians chased deer
through the mountains of Northern Mexico until the animals collapsed from being exhausted and
vitally wounded. The Paiutes and Navajo tribes in the American Southeast were said to hunt
pronghorn antelope using this technique. The Aborigines Indians from Australia were also
discovered using this interesting technique. The modern day hunters are very similar and
different in many ways from the Native Americans, in the way they use their resources.
The Native American Indians are very different from the modern day hunters, because
they use their resources more wisely, make their own arrowheads, weapons, and their ways of
stalking animals. The modern day hunters are different from the Native Americans, because they
use cover scent so that the animals will not smell them, and sit in a tree in a stand and wait for
animals to approach them.In this essay, I have compared and contrasted the modern day hunting
styles and techniques with the way the Native Americans did it.If you really think about it, the
modern day hunters could have looked upon the Native Americans, and took their techniques

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and twisted them into different ways. So could you answer this question now? How are modern
day hunters similar and different to the Native American hunters from history?