Hunting part II 24

Case: Early one morning I was hiding behind some tall grass together with age mates from the village of Wiatwo. They had invited me to join them hunting. Late night before, we had sent one unit of hunters northwards to scare animals towards us waiting with our spears. The sound of tramping hoofs (as I remembered from Wild West movies) came closer and closer. We knew they were buffaloes. Scary and exciting. Since we only had spears, we had to wait til they were close The herd discovered my group in time to get away before our spears reached them. But one of the buffaloes was killed by an age group posted next to us. Running with a spear in the body, the animal is badly injured inside and die fast. We saw one of the young hunters walking to check the buffalo now lying on the ground. Suddenly the animal got up and attacked the boy who was thrown up in the air. The horn of the buffalo went through the boy’s shoulder. The boy was hurried home to the village and survived.

On the next hunting expeditions, I brought a small First Aid Kit. It became of decisive help in a similar accident when a hunter was attacked by a buffalo.

Before I went hunting, I had compared with the ‘runner’ of my age group how fast I was. When we killed an elephant, I was one of the first to spear it, but my throw was not good, and the spear broke. (A big laugh among my hunting friends when I insisted that I wanted to carry home with me the broken spear).

The main hunting season is short. The Pari are careful not to draw too heavily on the stock of game and to scare game away from the area.

When we had success, ‘runners’ in the hunting age groups ran to the villages and women and men came to carry home meat. Animals were slaughtered on the spot, and meat brought to a depot where some had the job of keeping away vultures.