hunting

…to its value as a hunting weapon. The North American Indians, the Eskimo, many African peoples, and others used either the regular bow or the crossbow in both hunting and war. Some ancient Japanese wooden bows are 8 feet (2.44 metres) in length; the Japanese also made smaller bows of…

…straight-cut flaps, was used for hunting and polo, but the forward seat has become more popular for these activities.

This produced a hunting economy providing food and great quantities of bone, horn, skin, sinews, and, while the mammoth lasted, ivory; with it grew new technologies exploiting the unique properties of materials hitherto unworkable because of their hardness. This technological diversification was made possible by new techniques and…

Hunters may reenact their exploits or mime the movements of animals as a ritual means of controlling wild beasts and allaying their own fears. The Akan of Ghana perform the Abofor dance, a dance-mime staged after the killing of a dangerous animal. This is meant…

The universal practice among hunting and gathering peoples of respect for and ceremonial behaviour toward animals stems from the religious customs attendant on the conducting of the hunt and not from worship of the animal itself. Another phenomenon that has been confused with animal worship is totemism, in which…

… to kill seals, which they hunted either on the ice or from kayaks—skin-covered one-person vessels. Whales were hunted by using a larger boat called an umiak (umiaq or umiat).

…before, during, and after the hunt. The rationale lies in the belief that animal spirits exist independent of bodies and are reborn: an offended animal will later lead its companions away so that the hunter may starve. If, in spite of their precautions, game becomes scarce, a shaman may be…

erectus was a hunter. The brain, body size, and manufactured equipment of H. erectus were so superior to those of Australopithecus and H. habilis that it is highly probable that food-collecting techniques, including hunting, were also better. Many scientists hold that Australopithecus and H. habilis were more scavengers…

…whether the earliest tool users hunted extensively or merely scavenged animal remains. It is likely that, if they hunted, it was for small prey. Nonetheless, metabolic studies of bone suggest that some Australopithecus may have eaten substantially more meat than chimpanzees do today.

…game in the traditions of foraging peoples. The name was devised by Western scholars who have studied such hunting and gathering societies. In some traditions, the master of the animals is believed to be the ruler of the forest and guardian of all animals; in others, he is the ruler…

…technology, that was based on hunting, with some scavenging and local plant collection. Scientists have presented strong evidence that Neanderthals were the first group to use tools to make fire deliberately. Their survival during tens of thousands of years of the last glaciation is a remarkable testament to human adaptation.

Among the Patagonian and Pampean hunters, however, there is archaeological evidence to suggest that the bow and arrow was preceded by the bola. Before the introduction of the horse, guanaco and rhea were hunted by stalking, the hunter throwing the bolas around the neck or legs of the game. Bolas…