INFORMATION TO USERS

This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce th's ' jment have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted.

The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction.

1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity.

2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame.

3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete.

4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced.

5. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received.

Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 4S106 76-24,548 ALTHERR, Thomas Lawson, 1948- "THE BEST OF ALL BREATHING": HUNTING AS A MODE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERCEPTION IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND THOUGHT FROM JAMES FENIMORE COOPER TO NORMAN MAILER. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1976 History, United States

Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan48ioe "THE BEST OF ALL BREATHING"*

HUNTING AS A MODE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERCEPTION

IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND THOUGHT

FROM JAMES FENIMORE COOPER TO NORMAN MAILER

* DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Thomas Lawson Altherr, B.A., M.A.

The Ohio State University

1976

Reading Committee: Approved By

Dr, William D. Andrews

Dr, Bradley Chapin Advise Dr. Peter C. Hoffer Department of History To My Wife,

Janet Weir Altherr,

My Very Uncommon Loon ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to give sincerest thanks to the following persons, all of whom greatly aided me in completing this dissertation* first to Dr. Peter C. Hoffer, who supported the idea from the inception, and offered many "beneficial style and contents suggestions, to Dr, Bradley Chapin, Dept, of History and Dr. William D. Andrews, for serving on my reading committee, to Dr. Merton L. Dillon, Dept, of History, for invaluable suggestions on slave-hunting sources, to Dr.

Allen R. Millett, for information and dialectical dis­ cussion on Custer, to Dr. John C. Burnham, Dept, of History, for psychological commentary on the project, and intellectual stimulation in the early stages, to Dr. Daniel R, Barnes,

Dept, of English, for many long, exciting discussions on the topic of frontier experience and literature, Dr, William T.

Hamilton, Dept, of English, Otterbein College, for very intriguing suggestions about folklore, to Dr. Mary E. Voung,

Dept, of History, University of Rochester, who during her tenure here at Ohio State, encouraged my historical quirks and eccentricities, to Dr. Edward N. Saveth, Dept, of

History, SUNY College at Fredonia, and Dr. Eugene Bianco, formerly of the Dept, of English, SUNY College at Fredonia,

iii for introducing me to American Studies and encouraging my

interests in that direction, and to Mr. Richard Aquila, Dr.

Peter Lloyd, Mr. Steven Gietschier, and Dr. Michael Quigley,

for frequent and stimulating discussions on the place and

history of hunting in America.

My fondest appreciation goes out to my family, to my

brothers, Douglas, Paul, and James, who lent much moral

support to the project during rough times, to my parents,

Henry and Georgianna, who likewise stood behind me all the way, and the photograph of whom, standing next to the 1930's

car and holding rifle and shotgun partially inspired this

study, to my father especially, who took us early to the

Western New York woods and taught me when and when not to

hunt, and to my daughter, Tersa Lynn, and my wife, Janet

Weir Altherr, who both breathed and lived this study nearly as much as I did. Thanks to them all!

Thomas Lawson Altherr Columbus, Ohio 1 June 1976

iv VITA

April 26, 194-8...... Born - Buffalo, New York

197 0 ...... B.A. State University of New York College at Fredonia, Fredonia, New York

197 1 ...... M.A. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1970-1974 -...... University Fellow, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1971-1973* 1974—1975 Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1974— 1975...... Teaching Associate, Department of Humanities. The Ohio State Uni­ versity, Columbus, Ohio

PUBLICATIONS

Abstract of "The Hunter-Naturalist and the Development of the Code of Gamesmanship," Proceedings of the North American Society for Sport History, (1975)* PP.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: American Intellectual History, Dr, Peter Hoffer

Studies in American Social and Economic History, Dr. Mary E. Young

Studies in the History of Science. Dr, John C, Burnham

Studies in American Literature, Dr. Daniel R, Barnes

Studies in Creative Writing. Dr. Robert Canzoneri

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iii

VITA ...... v

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

PROLOGUE

I. "Wasty Ways”: Natty Bumppo's Ecological Consciousness in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Novels...... 15

PART I: The Savage Urge to Hunt in Nineteenth- Century America...... 44

II. "Feasting and Fasting": Hunting and Hunters in Washington Irving's A Tour on the Prairies...... 48

III. "Go Ahead!": David Crockett and the Failure of Ecological Consciousness...... 62

IV. "It War an Unhuntahle Bar": Bear-Hunting and the "Big Bear" Southwestern Humorists...... 75

V. "Drunk with the Chase": The Savage Hunting Impulse in Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick 77 ...... 98

VI. "Chaplain to the Hunters": Henry David Thoreau's Ambivalence toward Hunting...... 113

VII. "We've Got 'Em on the Run, Boys!": Hunting Slaves and Indians as Animals...... 143

VIII. "Always Aims and Shoots to Kill": "Buffalo Bill" Cody and the Ritual Dramatization of Hunting in the West...... 177

IX. "The Heart of Things Primordial": Hunting as Atavism in Jack London's The Call of the Wild and The Sea-Wolf...... 189

vi TRANSITION

X. "All Hunters Should Be Nature Lovers": Theodore Roosevelt and the Emergence of the American Hunter-Naturalist Ideal...... 205

PART II: The Last Hunt: Hunting Tradition and Receding Wilderness in Twentieth-Century America...... 221

XI. "The Lost Good Country": Hunting Tradition and Receding Wilderness in Ernest Heming­ way's Nick Adams Stories...... 224

XII. "The Best of All Breathing": The Wilderness Career of Isaac McCaslin in William Faulkner's "The Old People," "The Bear," and "Delta Autumn"...... 240

XIII. "It War Some": Hunting Tradition and Receding Wilderness in Five Represent­ ative Western Regionalist Novels...... 266

XIV. "Mallards and Messerschmitts": American Hunting Magazines and the War Effort during World War II...... 293

EPILOGUE

XV. "Going-for the Grizzer": Hunting in Norman Mailer's Why Are We in Vietnam?...... 309

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 325

vii INTRODUCTION

In early September, 1975* Columbia Broadcasting System

(CBS) broadcast a special program about sport-hunting titled

"The Guns of Autumn." The program included footage of some

hunters shooting bears that they had fed only three days

previously, scenes of other animal shootings, and interviews with various hunters, who were largely inarticulate on the

screen. Contrary to announced intentions of objectivity, the show displayed a distinct anti-hunting bias. Neglecting unfortunately any of the mythic, anthropological, social, and ecological aspects of sport-hunting, "The Guns of Autumn" pictured hunting as the sadistic and profitable frivolity of social degenerates who chant the rhetoric of the National

Rifle Association. At CBS's request and of their own will, thousands of hunters and many hunters' groups, and many non­ hunters such as this writer, wrote and protested what they considered a gross distortion of present-day hunting in

America. CBS ran a sequel in late September, 1975t titled

"Echoes of the Guns of Autumn." This sequel showed dis­ gusted hunters watching the original program and featured panel discussions by opposing experts. The sequel resolved little, and hardly corrected the image of hunting formed by the first program.

As documentaries the CBS presentations left much to be

desired, but they did succeed in pointing to a serious

tension in American attitudes toward killing animals for

sport. Controversy over the value and place of hunting has

intensified. As more Americans have become more urban and

suburban and have come to rely on technology and agribusi­

ness for food and clothing, they have relegated hunting to

past modes of human endeavor for survival. The general

cultural revulsion at American involvement in Vietnam and

gun-related crimes at home has further weakened the hunters'

insistence on the right to shoot and kill. Proportionally

the number of hunters has increased slower than the non­

hunter population, while membership in anti-hunting groups

has rapidly mounted. What has resulted has been an in­

creasingly shrill debate between two minorities, the hunters

and the anti-hunters, over the pleasures and atrocities of 1 hunting for sport.

The controversy over hunting indicates a deeper schism

in American environmental perceptions. Attitudes toward hunting encompass moral questions about the means and ends

of killing animals, about man's role as a violent and/or manipulative agent in natural cycles, about man's proper contact with all the elements of nature, and whether such encounters are culturally retrogressive, savagely invigor­ ating, or spiritually ennobling. In effect, opinions about 3 hunting manifest larger views about nature, perceptions of

the whole environment.

Much amorphous rhetoric in the debate has revolved

around the overabused concept of ecology, which entered

the public consciousness about 1970. Imbued with a gentle

and essentially static notion of nature, perhaps best

compared to Edward Hicks' new animal Eden painted in "The

Peaceable Kingdom," the followers of the ecology movement

would severely limit man's role as a predator or natural

agent and confine all contact with nature to chaste, non­

violent, meditative recreation. A direct but shallowly

conceived reaction to urbanization and technological pro­

gress, the ecology movement at once applauds the triumph

of American technology over nature and plots its demise.

This new pastoralism has run rampant through many modes of

American life. Benign anthropomorphism and innocuous

totemism in the media have divested nature of savageness.

Americans pay exorbitant prices for stylized "natural"

clothing. Cant phrases such as "back to nature" and "the

greening of America" reverberate on college campuses from

the same persons deeply engaged in corporate consumerism.

ClichSd scenes of barefoot frolickers in clover meadows

redound through the media. In popular music, naive and

saccharine ideas about nature abound, for example, in John

Denver's Rocky Mountain playground songs. In advertising, particularly in cigarette commercials, springtime greenery runs a close second behind sex as a selling influence. The

rapid increases in recreational uses of the wilderness, of

back-packing, of "primitive" camping in tents and "suburban”

camping in house vehicles, further attest to the pervasive­

ness of this trend. Despite shocks such as the sensational

movie "Jaws" or occasional stories of gruesome wilderness

fatalities, infatuation with the ecology movement remains

strong. Against this shallow pastoralism, hunting seems

indeed a vestigial relic of barbarism.

Yet debate prevails even within the scientific bloc

and groups which have a much more solid conception of nature

and ecology as the vital interrelationship between all forms

of nature. Wildlife conservationists have split over the

need for and extent of sport hunting as a game management

technique. Hunting becomes in this phase of the argument

either a necessary, even heroic activity, or the sport of

greedy, blood-lusting slobs.

Along with disagreement on hunting's effects on the natural environment runs dialogue on hunting's effects on

man. Central to this issue has been the question of just what is man's proper response to nature in hunting* does the

hunter thrill to the savage urge to kill or regard hunting

as a ritual ceremony of worship of nature, or an ambivalent

combination of both. Concomitantly critics wonder to what

extent does the hunter cultivate or temper the natural, primordial sensations coursing through his own mind and body. Supporters of hunting look upon the sport as a definition

of masculinity, a proof of virility. Hunting's detractors

point to the use of phallic-surrogate weapons as evidence

of sexual insecurity. Upholders attribute to hunting the

development in the American man of competitive desires,

cooperative effort, patriotism and democracy; skeptics

find the sport emphasizing moral irresponsibility and a

latent form of militarism. Hunters claim that the sport

fosters the best, most intense, and most humbling contact with nature; anti-hunters deride that claim as self-serving rhetoric. Hunting purists applaud the sport as an ordeal, a retreat from technology; critics scoff and note the great

expansion in the sporting arms and equipment market and the large variety of the hunters' technological "toys," The

lines of argument over hunting are not always so incisively drawn; plenty of ambivalent conceptualization remains. Yet again what is at stake in the debate are conflicting views of nature, differing environmental perceptions induced from such primary modes of natural contact as hunting. This study attempts to locate in the history of American ideas, in intellectual expression, the historical bases of this current hunting controversy.

The hunting controversy has deep-seated antecedents in the American historical perceptions of the natural environ­ ment, When the first European explorers and colonists encroached upon and invaded the North American landscape, 6

nearly all of the terrain was in a wilderness condition.

Several woodlands Indian tribes had cleared land for farms,

yet these clearings were but small dents in the vast ex­

panses of forest. The prevalence of wilderness presented

not only a physical barrier to the new colonists and later

emigrants, but challenged their intellectual notions as

well. Pockets and preserves of wild area existed in Europe.

In a moral sense, the Judeo-Christian religious tradition

formulated the current definitions of wilderness. Indeed wilderness was hardly a novel notion to the travellers who 2 crossed the Atlantic.

Yet the sheer distance of removal from Europe lent both romantic and fearsome qualities to the American wilds. The

lands were unfamiliar extensive territories, much of which would remain unmapped until the 1870's In their continual westering, the colonists expended much blood and energy

confronting and exploring these beckoning, but demanding, hinterlands. Intellectual and emotional concepts about the frontiers constantly evolved, often metamorphosing themselves 3 with little resemblance to realities. If the colonists strove to retain whatever European identity they still had, they could not ignore their new environment, which was reshaping, sometimes radically, sometimes slightly, their very identity.

Although a suspicious interest in the native human inhabitants, the misnomered Indians, mounted from the first, colonists also had to reckon with more primal forms of the

wilderness in America. Botanical descriptions of New World

greenery were rife in promotional tracts. To he sure, many

of these contained fantastic exaggerations, but even more

soundly grounded reports attested to the fertility of the

land. Colonists, bent upon seizing the main chance, eagerly

investigated the mineral prospects and topography of the

land's contours. Imbued with Faustian tendencies to have knowledge of and power over nature in the new land, the settlers scrutinized every facet of the wilderness.

The varied and abundant fauna also received this close attention. Inhabiting the unknown terrain were unencountered animate species, humanoid, mammalian, and avian, that excited the European palate and imagination. A whole panoply of new creatures, real and fabulous, arose in literature and legend.

On a practical level, American wild animals supplied much of the nutrition and comfort in the colonies. Confronting the wildlife in the activity of hunting answered the more profound archetypal hungers for mythic, intellectual, and psychosexual satisfaction. Not simply a necessity or form of recreation and entertainment, hunting was a mode of en­ vironmental perception, an immediate reckoning with the primal forms of nature. For an immature nation, so fraught with paradox and beset by sectional diversity from its start, the embellished accounts of hunting were among the writings nearest to epic dimension, among the narratives which could rally sentiments of a national identity. As Richard slot-

kin demonstrated in his hook, Regeneration through Violence.

hy 1800, the myth of the Daniel Boone type American hunter A had attained the stature of national epic.

Ever since a European musket first crackled in the

American forests, hunting hoth intrigued and infuriated

Americans. In the dynamic process and activity of hunting,

its staunchest advocates found reflection of the masculine vitality and individualism and impulsive mobility of the

American character. Pastoral ideals of static nature or circular self-sufficiency, championing the yeoman farmer, appealed to most Americans. In his Letters from an American

Farmer (1?82), Hector St. John de CrevAcouer posed a moral dichotomy between hunting and cultivating the earth. He declared, "Hunting is but a licentious idle life.” The chase was antithetical to the purposes of cultivation. 5 "Once hunters, farewell to the plough," he lamented. How­ ever persuasive pastoralism was, it alone could not account for the impetus behind the enthusiastic settling of the wilds. In actual practice, the American farmer did not con­ form to CrevAcouer's euphemistic portrait. While visions \ of a bloodless, bounteous nature invigorated them, the settlers engaged in hunting vigorously, an activity which was anti-pastoral in violent and disharmonious ways. In a certain sense, hunting was prelude to the pastoralj if the countryside would indeed be edenic, it could harbor no wild, morally threatening beasts. More basically, hunting helped

Americans meet their daily needs and desires, which were

decidedly temporal and post-edenic. Hunting, argued its

proponents, was a reminder to man of his intimate connection

with the great cycles of natural existence. At its best,

hunting acquainted Americans with the humbling, redemptive,

and savage qualities of nature.

Other Americans prophesied from the same process and

activity of hunting the doom and destruction of the natural

environment. Some critics objected to the necessity for

any killing of any animal at all, holding that the plant

kingdom alone could supply enough protein. Others wished

animal slaughter confined to the abattoir. The majority of

censurers variously denounced the abuse, rapaciousness,

cruelty, and extent of hunting. One large argument voiced

by hunter and non-hunter alike centered on the shoddy traits

and pretensions of many of hunting's participants, the so-

called "hunter-slobs." Many modem thinkers took the point

to a philosophical basis, pronouncing hunting a barbaric, vestigial, primitive instinct incongruous with civilized human societies. At its worst, hunting in America provided an outlet for sadistic aggression and a mode of large-scale national violence.

Hunting in America evoked differing responses from

American writers and thinkers. Returning over and over again to the matter, the American literati and expositors 10

of popular culture chose hunting as a mode of environmental perception. This study attempts to trace in the venatic literature two "basic trends of this environmental perception: first, during the nineteenth century, American writers noted and documented the savage urge to hunt, the view that nature was an adversary to be conquered for American progressivist ideals, and secondly, that after the emergence of the code of sportsmanship and an ecological consciousness under the auspices of Theodore Roosevelt, American writers during the twentieth century tried to justify or reevaluate the place and value of hunting in an urbanized America,

In his Leatherstocking series, James Fenimore Cooper sounded the first, faint echoes of an ecological conscious­ ness, but finally cast his vote for American progress. The ambivalence over hunting was characteristically American and would also trouble later thinkers. Washington Irving was among the first to visit the West as a literary tourist.

His A Tour on the Prairies gave a first-hand account of the

Western savage urge to hunt. While Irving penned his Western works, David Crockett was emerging in popular culture as the type of hunter symbolic of rapacious, power-seeking hunting.

The Southwestern tall-tale hunters of the 184-0's and 1850's reinforced the Crockett image, which represented a failure of ecological consciousness. In the late 184-0's and early

1850's, Francis Parkman and Herman Melville observed in the savage hunting urge the ethos of conquering the wilderness. During those same decades, Henry David Thoreau also noted

the hunting urge among his neighbors and in himself. His

journals and writings reflected an ambivalent concern with

hunting. Thoreau's attitude was important, as so much

conservationist rhetoric originated in his writings, and as 4 anti-hunting groups have abstracted parts of his writings

intheir support. Hunting animals easily evolved into the

hunting of humans considered animalistic by the majority of

whites. Slave-hunting before the Civil War and hunting

Indians in the border campaigns after the war attested to

the spread of the hunting ethos. In the last three decades

of the century, "Buffalo Bill" Cody carried on the Crockett

syndrome of environmental perception and staged for the

populace the ritual drama of American rapacity. After the

turn of the century, the savage urge to hunt reached its

peak expression in the naturalistic fiction of Jack London, whose conceptions of nature and men were atavistic.

After 18?0, the trend of savagery began to give way to a new consciousness of ecological necessity and sports­ manship. The code of the hunter-naturalist, eloquently voiced by George Bird Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt called for moderation and noble purpose in the act of hunting.

Other intellectuals during the twentieth century responded to regulation and criticism of sport-hunting by searching for a new justification of hunting or lamenting the loss of wilderness and the times when hunting possessed ritual and 12 meaning. Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams stories and William

Faulkner's hunting trilogy in Go Down, Moses harkened back to times when hunting in Michigan and Mississippi was purer contact with the wilderness. Western regionalist writers also gazed back to former decades, to the vibrant times of the mountain man. A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Vardis Fisher, and

Frederick Manfred placed their protagonists in the hostile

Western environment where each had to work out his grim pattern of survival. Walter Van Tilburg Clark and Frank

Waters, choosing a twentieth-century setting, attempted to impart a new mysticism, a neo-primitivism to hunting. On a somewhat different level, hunting magazines such as

Outdoor Life and Field and Stream carried on the nineteenth- century tall-tale tradition with their hunting-as-dangerous- adventure stance. During the World War II years, these hunting magazines found a strong justification for hunting by equating the sport with military training. Twenty-five years later, Norman Mailer noted this persistent connection of hunting and militarism in American environmental thought.

Mailer found the savage urge still strong within national wildlife attitudes and the will to violent power at the root of American corporate progress. Drawing heavily on the venatic literary tradition, Mailer's novel Why Are We in

Vietnam? delivered a deadly commentary on the current debased state of American hunting and environmental perception. An ecological consciousness was no safeguard from violence. 13 A few words of caution about the scope of this study remain. The following chapters are explorations in the area of intellectual history, not social history nor literary history, although the writer does not choose to ignore the insights of either. The study focuses mainly on hunting as a mode of environmental perception and treats questions of mythology and validity of metaphor in only passing fashion.

This is not a history of hunting, nor an attitudinal study of congressional wildlife legislation, nor a treatise on the technology or methods of hunting in America. What comes up in the following chapters is how American writers and other thinkers chose the subject of hunting as an index of their own and their nation's environmental perceptions. 14-

NOTES

1 See the listings under Introduction in the Biblio­ graphy for a full outline of the parameters of the hunting debate. The most lucid expositions, although not neces- sarliy the most unbiased, may be found in the books and articles listed under Cleveland Amory, Vance Bourjaily, Roger Caras, C.H.D. Clarke, Charles Gaines, Aldo Leopold, Warren Page, Paul Shepard (who created the term and study of environmental perception), and Mason Smith. 2 See Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven* Yale University frress. l£6U), passim.

3 The pioneering study in this area is Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land* The American West as Symbol and Myth (New York* Vintage kooks, 1950). Other pertinent and fruitful works may be found in the Bibliography section labeled General Works. The best studies are those listed under Leslie Fiedler, Edwin Fussell, Daniel Hoffman, A.N. Kaul, D.H. Lawrence, Leo Marx, Arthur K, Moore, Richard Slotkin, and Kent Steckmesser. 4 Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence * The Mythology of the American Frontier. t6O0-ltt6b (Middletown, Conn.* Wesleyan University Press, 1973).

5 J, Hector St. John de CrevS couer, Letters from an American Farmer, and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America (itew York* Signet kooks, 1963), pp. 70-72. PROLOGUE

Chapter I

"Wasty Ways": Natty Bumppo's Ecological Consciousness

in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Novels

15 In his Leatherstocking novels, James Feniraore Cooper

introduced into American literature the first sustained

editorial on the usage of natural resources, an ambivalent

concern for the wilderness intruded on by civilization.

Through the character of Natty Bumppo, the hunter whose

presence threaded the novels together, Cooper voiced what modern Americans would recognize as an ecological conscious­ ness. Cooper consistently placed Bumppo in opposition to the reckless, sportive hunting practiced by his compeers,

the "wasty ways" of the settlers. Adapting the already fragmenting image of Boone as the archetypal hunter who

enjoyed the proper respect for nature, Cooper infused Natty with a moral imperative that Boone and his mythicizers would have found sanctimonious. Cooper spared no strokes in em­ phasizing that Bumppo's morality and perception of the en­ vironment as a hunter's heaven was realistically doomed and socially subversive. Bumppo's jeremiads about the immoral treatment of the wilderness fell on deaf ears. Yet as a symbolic and mythic character, Bumppo proved extremely appealing to both author and reading public. As D.H. Law­ rence claimed, the novels vibrated as "a wish-fulfillment 1 vision, a kind of yearning myth." Cooper's vision included nostalgic notions of the forest as edenic, the hunter as adamic, and the settlers as rapaciously satanic and regnant.

Because of Cooper's own unsettled sentiments about nature, man, and society, Bumppo remained a problematic 17 character, and as such his environmental views remained disturbing to Cooper. In his book. Virgin Land, Henry

Nash Smith declared that the "character of Leatherstocking i is by far the most important symbol of the national ex- 2 perience of adventure across the continent." The symbolic

Natty Bumppo and the westering adventure were fraught with ambiguities, which Cooper sensed, if sometimes only inad­ vertently. As a Christian white gentleman, committed to

orderly, democratic progress, Cooper could not sympathize fully with Bumppo*s views. Recognizing Natty's sentiments as potentially socially disruptive and retrograde, Cooper relegated him to the lower class occupied by white hunters, a group that despite intellectual romanticization by arm­ chair primitivists was barely above Indians on the con­ temporary social ladder. Moreover Cooper deprived Bumppo of any patriarchal position by precluding him from marriage.

Bumppo may act as a guide across the wilderness, a Moses, but he remained a social outcast, conscious of his social inferiority* he may harbor the deepest reverence for hunting and nature, yet his environmental attitudes seemed to Cooper 3 sterile and doomed.

Despite Cooper's attention to literary social trends, he allowed Bumppo to transcend his class. Contrary to many white hunters, Bumppo proclaimed and demonstrated his funda­ mental honesty, temperance, humility, fidelity to nature, and reverence for life. Toward his fellow man, Bumppo preached an enlightened doctrine of racial tolerancei he stood "for a woolly-headed concept of universal brother- hood.” In social situations, Bumppo often displayed an innocence approaching extreme naivetfi, His refusal to resort to savage depredations such as scalping countered the frontiersman's tendency to sink into the surrounding brutality. Bumppo's contact with the wilderness and his practice of hunting did not degrade him morally, as the pastoralists such as CrevScouer had predicted. Bumppo1s exceptional competence in hunting and woodcraft further elevated his worthiness. He wandered through the wilder­ ness, guiding whites to safety and saving helpless whites from attacks by devilish Indians. Critics depicted Natty

Bumppo as a Christian knight errant and as a martyr, "a cooperative victim of American progress westward.” On a continuum of morality, Bumppo's version repeatedly claimed the victory over the compromised morals of the settlers.

Natty Bumppo lasted as "a perpetual possibility of per­ fection to the American imagination — and a perpetual 6 reproach."

Lest Bumppo seem too ethereal to be real. Cooper undercut the saintly Bumppo by attributing to him less noble, essentially human qualities. Bumppo's antipathy toward the "bad” Indians, the Iroquois and the Sioux, and white renegades matched that of his contemporary Americans.

His attitudes were often too querulous, too righteous, or 19 too meddlesome to convince the unthinking settlers. In

several instances, Bumppo relied on ruse and momentary dishonesty to accomplish wothwhile ends. Most signifi­ cantly, Natty hunted for his food and still maintained a reverence for life. Attuned to a pantheism resembling that held by the Indians, Bumppo killed for his sustenance, and on rare occasion shot an animal to prove a moral point or his mastery over the wilderness. Influenced by his humility.

Natty realized man's position in the great cycles of nature.

This ability and willingness to kill when necessary lent humanity to Bumppo, retrieved his preaching from abstract proclamations of morality.

Admiring the "stark, enduring figure of Deerslayer,"

D.H. Lawrence emphasized Bumppo's connection with killing*

He is neither spiritual nor sensual. He is a moralizer, but he always tries to moralize from actual experience, not from theory. He says: "Hurt nothing unless you're forced to." Yet he gets his deepest thrill of gratification, per­ haps, when he puts a bullet through the heart of a buck, as it stoops to"drink at the lake. Or when he brings the invisible bird fluttering down in death, out of the high blue. "Hurt nothing unless you are forced to," And yet he...... lives by death, by killing the wild things of the air and earth.

From that observation, Lawrence concluded that the central

"essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic,, and a 7 killer," Bumppo himself would have applauded the second and third adjectives, argued the first, and strongly ob­ jected to the last word, "killer." Bumppo's killing of animals deserves sharper definition, as it defined the core 20

of his ecological notions.

For if Cooper sensed that "nature in the New World must in some sense he both the standard and determinant of the American's character," then each American's moral worth depended upon his environmental perception, his direct relationship to nature, his degree of reverence and respect 8 for wildlife. Bumppo killed, but primarily for different reasons than did the settlers. In his capability to kill.

Natty probably surpassed everyone in the area; yet, as one critic insisted, the "difference between the settler's killing and Natty's is the difference between butchery and 9 art." Richard Chase also has refined Lawrence's assertion.

Bumppo distinguished himself from ruthless hunters in that he killed only from necessity, and then lovingly, and not for plunder or in hate. "The ideal American image," Chase claimed, "is a man who is a killer, but nevertheless has 10 natural piety." Thus Bumppo's code as a hunter was one of pragmatic innocence. A.N. Kaul defined the elements of

Natty's code along the lines of an ecological awareness:

Natty's attitudes — his desire for peace and harmony, his deep piety, and his reverence for life— are not necessarily unfit for the practical tasks of life. What he stands against are unnecessary cruelty, killing out of cupidity, intolerance, racism, wasteful 11 exploitation, and unprincipled acquisitiveness.

Cooper set Bumppo in opposition to all those "wasty ways" of life in the Leatherstocking novels. In The Last of the

Mohicans (1826) and The Pathfinder (184-0), Cooper presented 21

Bumppo mostly as an Indian fighter and guide, and rarely

described him hunting. The other three novels, The Deer-

slayer (1841), The Pioneers (1823)» and The Prairie (182?)»

contained much literary exposition of Bumppo*s ecological 12 consciousness.

The Deerslayer completed the writing of the Leather-

stocking novels, but introduced Natty Bumppo as a youth in his early twenties during the 1740's. The plot revolved around Bumppo's initiation into the role of Indian fighter and the defense of the Hutter family residing near Lake

Glimmerglass (Lake Otsego). Hairbreadth escapes and timely shooting enlivened the drearily predictable plot. What distinguished the book were its psychological dimensions* the elevation of Bumppo to mythic stature, the symbolic descriptions of the forest and the lake, and Natty's deep connection with the teachings of nature. In The Deerslayer,

Cooper not only depicted Bumppo*s arrival as an Indian killer, but also his increasing mastery over the wilderness.

At the outset of the tale, Bumppo had already earned from the Delawares the name of Deerslayer. After he slew his first Iroquois in self-defense, Natty assumed the name of "Hawkeye," which the dying warrior bestowed upon him.

(I, 113-121.) For his bravery during the rescues, Judith

Hutter rewarded him with the rifle, "Killdeer," and the informal title, "King of the Woods." (II, 122-124.) By the end of the tale, Bumppo had both exhibited his just mastery 22

of the forest and realized the sorrowful results and hard

responsibilities of his powers.

Bumppo first appeared in the novel in the company of

"Hurry Harry" March, a white renegade whose "essence,"

Cooper informed us, was "a spirit of recklessness and

ferocity." (II, 55•) Both men were journeying to Lake

Glimmerglass, Bumppo to meet up with Chingachgook, March to

woo Judith Hutter. After a lively interchange on the racial

traits of Indians, during which Natty pleaded for tolerance,

March incautiously fired at a noble buck and started to

pursue the wounded animal. Bumppo restrained him, scolding

him first for shooting with hostile Indians nearby, and then

chastising him for unnecessary killing:

They call me Deerslayer, 1*11 own; and perhaps I deserve the name, in the way of understanding the creatur's habits, as well as for cartainty in the aim; but they can't accuse me of killing an animal when there is no occasion for the meat or the skin. I may be a slayer, it’s true, but I'm no slaughterer.

March retorted, ”'Twas an awful mistake to miss that buckl

I've not done so onhandy a thing since I was fifteen." (I,

52-5^.) March and Bumppo continued to argue the validity

of the shot on their way to Hutter's ark. This plea for moderation and necessity marked the first of many for Natty.

Later while conversing with Judith Hutter, he reaffirmed his belief in respecting animals:

Now I find it hard to suppose that blessed spirits can be put to chasing game without an object, tormenting dumb animals just for the 23 pleasure and agreeableness of their own amusements. I never yet pulled a trigger on buck or doe, Judith, unless when food or clothes was wanting. (II, 171.)

Bumppo's scruples clashed with March's impulsive actions throughout the novel. In those two characters, Cooper provided a graphic examination of the warring environmental viewpoints in the book. March represented the prototype of the hunter who disrespected nature, who usurped her gifts without proper piety. From March would descend Crockett and other ninet6enth-century hunters who lacked ecological awareness. Bumppo countered March in every way by curbing his own savage thrill while hunting and investing the kill with an ennobling purpose. From Bumppo would derive the ecological consciousness culminating in the hunter- naturalist near the turn of the century,

Bumppo's doctrine of the just kill was not totally innate. He had to learn it empirically from his dramatic killing of an eagle and his resultant remorse. After

Judith had awarded "Killdeer" to Natty and christened him

"King of the Woods," Bumppo debated Chingachgook on the qualities of the rifle and expressed his wish to test its powers:

And what is a man in the woods, without some­ thing to shoot with? — a miserable trapper, or a forlorn broom and basketmaker, at the best. Such a man may hoe corn and keep soul and body together, but he can never know the savory morsels of venison, or tell a bear's ham from a hog's. Come, my fri'nd, such another occasion may never offer ag'in, and I feel a strong craving for a trial with this celebrated piece. (II, 1?6.) zh

Scouting the lakeside, Natty and Chingachgook scared up several water birds, Chingachgook winged a black duck, and Bumppo put it out of its misery, severing the head with his bullet. Then Chingachgook fired wildly at a scorning eagle; Bumppo discharged "Killdeer" and pierced the eagle's body "halfway between one of its wings and the breastbone,"

(II, 179-180.) The neck and heart shots were not miraculous, but rather marked proof of Bumppo's command over the woods.

As Joel Porte remarked of this scene; "In Natty*s hands, of course, Killdeer is Killanything, and the young scout brings down the bird forthwith, at once establishing his claim to the weapon and his mastery over the American wilderness, 13 represented by the enormous bird." Natty*s marksmanship allowed him to kill cleanly and humanely when he had to shoot.

The killing of the eagle enthralled Chingachgook, but the act reawakened Bumppo*s conscience, "We've done an unthoughtful thing," he told Chingachgook and Judith, "in taking life with an object no better than vanity!" (II, 180.)

Affected by the dying bird's eyes, which were "riveted on its enemies with the gaze that the helpless ever fasten on their destroyers," Natty continued, "'Twas more becomin' two boys to gratify their feelings in this onthoughtful manner than two warriors on a warpath." (II, 180-181.) Thoroughly chastened, Bumppo offered the rifle back to Judith. She immediately protested that Natty did deserve the rifle. He 25 agreed only in part*

If it depended on skill, you might be right enough, gal, but we should know when to use firearms as well as how to use 'em, I haven't l'arnt the first duty yet, it seems, so keep the piece till I have. The sight of a dyin* and distressed creatur'» even though it be only a bird, brings wholesome thoughts to a man.... I'd give back all my vain feelin's and rej'icins in hand and eye if that poor eagle was only on its nest ag'in with its young. (II, 181.)

As Chingachgook severed the eagle's neck, the full force

of the epiphany struck Bumppo* "What a thing is powerl and

what a thing it is to have it, and not know how to use it!"

(II, 181.) This theme of the proper source and use of natural powers Bumppo carried throughout his wilderness

career, as the formerly written novels, The Pioneers and

The Prairie attest.

In The Pioneers, Cooper sharpened the conflict between

Natty Bumppo as conservator and the onrushing townsmen.

Cooper's characters gravitated toward three distinct views of nature, attitudes which later in the century would generate debate over methods of conservation. Bumppo wished to preserve the forests, to permit there no white men, save dedicated, reverent hunters like himself. Judge Marmaduke

Temple, holding to his pastoral visions, argued to conserve the resources, to use them in moderation for man's comfort.

Sheriff Richard Jones and woodchopper Billy Kirby spoke for a third view* Outright exploitation for man's amusement, a 14 practice one historian labelled "resourceful wastefulness." 26

More than any of the other Leatherstocking novels, The

Pioneers must have torn at Cooper's allegiances. He shaped the town, Templeton, after the Cooperstown he knew as a hoy, and modelled Judge Temple upon his own father, William

Cooper. Whatever disagreements Cooper may have had with his father, they must have diminished in the face of Natty's arguments. Bumppo's position must have struck Cooper as escapist and ascetic compared to the old Christian holiday merriment so fondly depicted in the hook. Indeed, after his humiliating trial, Bumppo did leave Templeton and the settlements for good, realizing his sermons had been sadly ineffective. By having Natty depart, Cooper cast his vote for the designs of civilization. Part of the failure rested with Bumppo*s own belief, shared by the setllers, that man should trust Providence to replenish the resources. Natty left the town not only out of moral disgust, but also out of a desire to continue his own hunting in untouched lands.

Natty*s chief virtue was that he killed less indiscriminately and did not view the presence of an unchopped tree or live deer as an insult to his powers. Natty's compelling moral goodness and honesty outshone the composite morality of the town. Yet Cooper demonstrated that Bumppo's preservationist ideals were untenable as a wildlife management program and a social plan. This divergence of environmental perception between Bumppo*s Indian-oriented notions and Temple's soci­ etal theories intrigued Cooper more than did the conventional 27 Effingham/Temple disputed-inheritance plot.

The difference of environmental opinion arose in the

very first incident in the novel. Sleighing home with his

long-absent daughter, Elizabeth, Judge Temple excitedly

shot at a deer which bounded onto the path. Natty Bumppo

and his mysterious companion, Oliver Edwards, had also shot.

The verbal exhange over the rights to the deer marked the

first of three crucial encounters between Natty and Temple and his townsmen, confrontations in which Natty adhered to an argument based on a vague concept of natural rights.

Sparring with the genial judge, Natty grumblingly remarked the degree to which the settlements were encroaching upon his domain in 1793* "I can live without venison, but I don't love to give up my lawful dues in a free country. Though, for the matter of that, might often makes right here, as well as in the old country, for what I can see." (I, 15#)

Elizabeth Temple later proclaimed the same trend in glov/ing terms: "The enterprise of Judge Temple is taming the very forests1 How rapidly is civilization treading on the foot­ steps of nature!" (XI, 14-1.) "With a kind of compelled resignation," Natty noted the effects on the game supply:

"The game is becoming hard to find indeed, Judge, with your clearings and betterments." (I, 16.) He repeated similar feelings later to the town reverend: "I never know'd preaching come into a settlement but it made game scarce."

(I, 2$0.) When Temple offered to compensate the hunters 28 for the deer, Bumppo disclaimed any rights of ownership of the animal ("The meat is none of mine to sell." I, 20.), but he defended his hunting rights: "There's them living who say

Nathaniel Bumppo*s right to shoot on these hills is of older date than Marmaduke Temple's right to forbid him." (I, 22.)

Judge Temple confirmed as much, when later at dinner, he debunked Ben Pump's rumor that Bumppo scalped Indians: "You are not to credit the idle tales you hear of Natty; he has a kind of natural right to gain a livelihood in these moun­ tains." (I, 202.) So far the true weight of Bumppo's views had not swayed Judge Temple's belief in a pastoral social order.

That night at a jolly gathering at the village tavern,

Bumppo resumed the debate. "Game is game," he declared,

"and who finds may kill; that has been the law in these mountains for forty years to my sartain knowledge; and I think one old law is worth two new ones." (II, 33-34-•)

Judge Temple replied that he hoped the law would protect equally hunting and farming rights alike. Natty protested that fences had cost him clear shots at game and that the farmers made the game scarce more than did the hunters, a sentiment which predated modern wildlife management habitat theory. Major Hartmann, a German immigrant friend of the judge, offered the opinion, probably held by the majority of Americans at the time, that the land was for Christians to live on, and not for deer. Natty did not deny that, but 29 he did resent that laws should forbid his "honest calling."

Major Hartmann agreed in spirit, but also reprimanded Natty

for his own past imprudent hunting. To which Natty sulkily

replied: "Maybe there wasn't so much 'casion." (II, 34-35.)

As game grew scarcer, Bumppo's commitment to the hunter's

code, to his ecological consciousness grew stronger. Through

these two discussions, Cooper outlined the polarity of per­

ception that would inform the rest of the tale.

During the following spring, Bumppo renewed his envir­

onmental quarrel with the townsmen. When an enormous number

of pigeons flocked to the valley, Sheriff Jones organized a

town hunt, or rather, a town slaughter of the birds, Jones

viewed the pigeons as so much meat and feathers, but really

only desired the amusement killing them would offer: "I long

to pepper them from the mountain," (II, 206.) The other

townsmen, including Judge Temple, shared his enthusiasm.

"In this wish," Cooper wrote, "both Marmaduke and young

Edwards seemed equally to participate, for the sight was

exhilarating to a sportsman." (II, 207.) To better effect

his ends, Jones had secured a swivel cannon. He was firing

away at will, as were other villagers, when Bumppo arrived

to observe the wasteful scene, which Cooper described thus:

"None pretended to collect the game, which lay scattered

over the fields in such profusion as to cover the very ground with fluttering victims," (II, 211.) Natty, whose dogs seemed even to sympathize with "his feelings at this 30 wasteful and unsportsmanlike execution," soon voiced his

indignation* "Weill the Lord won't see the waste of his

creatures for nothing, and right will he done to the pigeons,

as well as others, by and by." (II, 212.) Billy Kirby, who

had overheard Natty, objected that the pigeons ate the

farmers* wheat. Bumppo retorted, "It*s wicked to be shooting

into flocks in this wasty manner." (II, 213.) Natty argued

that if it was necessary, then kill only one bird, and that

in a sportsmanlike manner. By way of demonstration, he then winged a bird for his own supper. Leaving with what he came

for, Bumppo continued to moralizes "It's much better to kill only such as you want, without wasting powder and lead, than to be firing into God's creatures in this wicked manner."

(II, 215.) Natty's cry went unheeded as Jones organized another deadly volley. Only Judge Temple sensed Bumppo*s object lesson, and declared, "I think it is time to end the sport, if sport it be." (II, 220.) Temple departed from the carnage with the feeling that he had "purchased pleasure at the price of misery to others." (II, 220.) If, as one critic has asseirted, the "true burden of Cooper's tale is that every man has a capacity for radical doubleness — for being a 'Christian beast'" holds, no scene better exposed that paradox than the pigeon slaughter, and nobody felt the contradiction more deeply than Bumppo.

The conflicting environmental views of Bumppo and

Judge Temple came to a head during the following summer. Through a double-fold series of events, in which Natty

killed a deer out of season and shot two panthers about to

assail Elizabeth, Cooper propelled the moral dilemma. He

preceded those events with another short, pointed dis­

cussion between Bumppo and Temple, The judge and his party were out fishing on the lake near Bumppo*s hut, and taking far past their limit. Temple invited Natty to partake of their bounteous haul. Natty refused, repeating his earlier objections: "I eat of no man's wasty ways." (II, 25^.) The

judge responded, "Your reasoning is mine? for once, old hunter, we agree in opinion," But Bumppo immediately shook his head: "No, no* we are not much of one mind, Judge, or you'd never turn good hunting grounds into stumpy pastures.

And you fish and hunt out of rule; but to me, the flesh is sweeter where the creater has some chance for its life."

(II, 255.) Bumppo espoused the classical perception of the good hunter: realizing that the captured quarry is a sacred gift from nature. This exchange offended the judge not so much as it did Sheriff Jones, who would eventually bring

Natty to trial.

The deer-killing episode occurred when the snooping constable, Doolittle, cut loose Natty*s dogs, which in turn chased a deer into the lake where Bumppo and Chingachgook were spear-fishing. Although Natty knew that it was ten days yet until legal hunting season, he succumbed to the temptation and gave chase in the canoe. '"Tis a noble 32 creater! What a pair of horns!.... The creater's a fool

to tempt a man in this way," Natty exclaimed. (Ill, k$-k6,)

After vacillating on whether to use his rifle or the spear,

Natty opted for the more primitive weapon. He missed with

the hurl, hut Oliver Edwards, skiffing on the lake also,

looped the deer's antler and held him for Natty. Bumppo

glided hy in the canoe once more, and "bending low, passed his knife across the throat of the animal, whose blood fol­ lowed the wound, dyeing the waters," (III, 51•) Exhilarated by the primitive beauty of the kill, Bumppo shouted out,

"So much for Marmaduke Temple's law! This warms a body's blood, old John; I haven't killed a buck in the lake afore this, sin' many a year. I call that good venison, lad; and

I know them that will relish the creater's steaks, for all the betterments in the land." (Ill, 51♦) More than the epicurean prospects of venison excited the old hunter; the kill satisfied his bent for natural ritual. As Richard

Slotkin observed, "Where Temple urges economy in hunting out of a passion for regulated moderation in all things, Leather stocking hunts both for food and for the spiritual satis­ faction of participating in the necessary, ennobling rite 16 of the kill,"

On the way back to his cabin after the killing, Natty happened upon Elizabeth Temple, whom two panthers were stalking, Bumppo noticed them, and with a cool steadiness delivered two lethal shots to the cats. Elizabeth launched 33 into profuse displays of gratitude, but Natty only mused on the technique of his shots. (Ill, 7^— 75«) The incident showed once more Bumppo*s concern with the hunt as proof of his mastery over a wilderness in which violent forces exists side by side with lush, spiritual beauty. Bumppo derived no food from the panthers, only the bounty on them (a strange concession to the trend of betterment he so opposed), yet he deemed the kill necessary. Bumppo9 like most of his contemporary Americans, harbored little love for violent predators.

In the succeeding events, Doolittle, assisted by Kirby, tried to secure evidence that Bumppo killed the deer out of season. Natty angrily defended his privacy, but finally he relented and surrendered the hide. The matter would have transpired simply — the panther bounty would more than cover the deer-shooting fine— but the insulted officer alleged that Bumppo assaulted him. In the trial, Bumppo steadfastly defended his hunting rights. Judge Temple reluctantly sentenced Natty to time in the stocks. Bumppo strenuously differed with the judge's reasoning* "Talk not to me of law, Marmaduke Temple. Did the beast of the forest mind your laws when it was thirsty and hungering for the blood of your own child!" (Ill, 19^.) The conflict of view­ points remained irrepressible to the end. Temple upheld the law, and Bumppo submitted to the stocks. Yet Natty had already won a large moral victory. The town's sympathy 34-

sided with Bumppo, and even Judge Temple was deeply thank­

ful for the salvation of his child. The conventional plot

consumed the balance of the novel: Edwards revealed his

hidden identity, claimed his lost inheritance, and married

Elizabeth. Never to live in the settlements again, Natty

Bumppo left town.

Yet for Bumppo, his moral victory was pyrrhic. The

judge’s betterments clearly stood to increase and reclaim

the land. Before the trial, Natty had already burned his

hut, foretelling his departure. Like Boone before him,

Bumppo left the settlements. The hunter's life as he had

known it, an untrammelled existence of necessary hunting, was evaporating before his eyes. Natural laws and ways were giving way to the arriving social order, and probably

Cooper applauded that trend. As Robert Zoellner rightly commented of The Pioneers:

The hunting laws promulgated by Judge Temple are symbolic of the new subservience of nature to society. Man is no longer, like Natty, to be determined by nature; rather nature is to be directed by social man. The wild deer is now quite literally a social entity. Under this new and inevitable dispensation. Natty's social attitudes are criminal. His killing of the deer is too often regarded as a meaning­ ful gesture, the romantic defiance of Adamic man, refusing to be bound by the mundane dictates of an impersonal social order of doubtful merit. It is unlikely that Cooper regarded it in this light.

When Cooper put Natty on trial, he also symbolically questioned the efficacy of the hunter's morality versus the town's. Had Cooper been writing of Europe, Bumppo would 35 have received no sympathy. As Cooper was writing of Amer­

ica, he was able to dismiss the final decision, to hang the

jury on Bumppo, and to allow him to depart for spaces yet unvisited by whites or laws, the western prairies. In The

Pioneers. Bumppo advanced a sincere yet ineffectual concern for the morality and natural right of hunting in America, and passionately advanced reverent hunting as proper ecological consciousness.

In The Prairie, Cooper continued Bumppo*s conscientious voice of moral alarm. The Prairie represented Cooper's deepest concern with attempts to fathom the American wilds.

Critics have long disparaged of The Prairie as a novel of inauthentic detail and improbable plot. Cooper wrote the novel in Paris and relied on secondary sources, themselves sometimes erroneous. One cannot defend nor ignore the deficiencies of the novel, yet neither can one ignore its ideational content, the contrapuntal interpretations of the wilderness. With a completeness approaching allegory,

Cooper invested each character with a moral viewpoint about nature. In The Prairie. Cooper saw all humanity existing fundamentally "in a predatory or exploitative relationship 20 to the rest of the animal world." The ethical measure between the characters depended then on the depth of their relation to and respect for the animal world. In contrast to Natty Bumppo, who continued to urge pragmatic conservation of wildlife, Cooper positioned Ishmael Bush and his family 36

(and Paul Hover to a lesser extent), Kentuckians set on

exploiting the resources, and Dr. Obed Bat, an incompetent

naturalist, who pictured the beasts only in a scientific

frame.

Bumppo appeared in The Prairie as an old man, who

subsisted on the meager rewards of trapping and occasional

shooting. He looked sadly upon this mode as a downward

step from his former hunting prowess in the well-stocked

Eastern forests. He referred to himself as a miserable

trapper. Except for the honorary tribute of a noble death,

Natty evoked few of the mythical and heroic qualities

associated with his youth in the other novels. Indeed his 21 presence seemed comic and pathetic, at times peripheral.

In symbolic terms, Bumppo's demise denoted the impending

defeat of the Indian-oriented ecological consciousness which

Natty espoused. "Alone of all the characters in the book,"

Donald Ringe observed, "the trapper maintains the proper relationship to nature, receiving it as a gift from God to 22 be used within reason." Natty's words to the Kentuckians

illustrated this concern.

When Bumppo first encountered Paul Hover, the bee hunter, he rejoiced at the young hunter's bragging* "'You can shoot then!' demanded the trapper with a glow of latent fire glimmering about his small, deep-set eyes. 'Is your hand true and your look quick?'" Hover's crowing rejoinder further excited Natty* "Tell me, lad, did you ever strike 37

a leaping buck atwixt the antlers?1 Again Hover affirmed

his ability, and Bumppo pronounced, "You have a long and

happy — aye, and an honest life afore you!" (I, 4-2.) Such

a statement was wishful thinking on Natty's part, for he

realized the implications of his end, that the day of the

good hunter was waning. Moreover Hover later showed his

environmental perception more aligned with the Kentuckians'

exploitativeness than with Bumppo's wisdom. Supping on the

hump of a bison that Natty had shot and carved and cooked,

Hover and Bumppo discussed the merits of the beast. Natty

voiced a homeopathic conception of ingesting the beast's

strengths "Well may you call it strong! Strong it is, and

strong it makes him who eats it!" Bumppo also objected to

settlement cookery which vainly tried to augment the gifts

of the Creator. But Paul, "who was very little edified by

the morality with which his associate saw fit to season

their repast," said, "I tell you, trapper, that every day while we are in this place, and they are likely to be many,

I will shoot a buffalo and you shall cook his hump! " Bumppo

immediately reproached the youths "I cannot say that, I

cannot say that. The beast is good, take him in what part you will, and it was food for man that he was fashioned* but

I cannot say that I will be a witness and a helper to the waste of killing one daily." To which Hover retorted, "The devil a bit of waste shall there be, old man. If they all turn out as good as this, I will engage to eat them clean 38

myself." (I, 132-13^*) The conversation was friendly, but

the perceptual differences were deep.

Hover did not seem so dangerous to Bumppo as did the

Bush clan. Like Billy Kirby in The Pioneers, the Bush

brothers chopped down all the available trees, destroying

valuable habitat. To them Bumppo passionately prophesied

the folly of wasteful practices* "Look around you, men,

what will the Yankee choppers say when they have cut their

path from the eastern to the western waters and find that a

hand, which can lay the *arth bare at a blow, has been here

and swept the country in very mockery of their wickedness.

They will turn on their tracks like fox that doubles, and

then the rank smell of their own footsteps will show them

the madness of their waste." (I, 103.) The speech had

small chance of convincing the Kentuckians, who had earlier

stated their prevailing environmental theory such* "The

'arth was made for our comfort, and for that matter, so ar'

its creatur's." (I, 31•) Natty agreed in principle* "The

beasts of the field give me food and raiment. No, I crave no cloth better than the skin of a deer nor any meat richer

than his flesh." (I, 82.) The disagreement between Bumppo and the Kentuckians centered on the amount of needless hunting and usurpation of natural resources.

To another wanderer in The Prairie, the creatures were not only for physical nutrition, but also for intellectual

satisfaction. For Dr. Obed Bat, the species existed mainly to be identified, cataloged, and collected. In the person

of Dr. Bat, Cooper ridiculed some of the aspects of natural

history of the day, but he also broached the question of

scientific perception of the environment. Throughout the

book, Bumppo and Dr. Bat debated the true methods of seeing,

of apprehending nature, if such could even be done. They

argued the need for taxonomy, differed over taming the

inherent natures of beasts, and pontificated upon the place

of man in the universe. Dr. Bat chided Natty for his crude,

unscientific practices. Bumppo answered, claiming the

doctor*s morals were the "very pride of folly." Natty con­

tinued thus* "I am but little gifted in the fables of what

you call the Old World, seeing my time has been mainly passed looking natur* steadily in the face and reasoning on what I*ve seen rather than on what I've heard in traditions."

(II, 77.) Particularly incensing to Natty was the process

of taxidermy:

That is another of their wanton wickednesses! They slay the buck, and the moose, and the wild­ cat, and all the beasts that range the woods, and stuffing them with worthless rags, and placing eyes of glass into their heads, they set them up to be stared at, and call them the creatur's of the Lord, as if any mortal effigy could equal the works of his hand! (I, 138.)

Bumppo's anti-academic attitudes rang clear in The Prairie.

Yet Cooper did not dismiss scientific discipline, only its foppish misapplication. This whole issue of the hunter's perception versus that of the scientific naturalist recurred until the hunter-naturalists like Theodore Roosevelt managed 4° to combine the best of both approaches. In Cooper's day, the perceptions were too polarized to admit synthesis. To the hunter like Bumppo, scientific investigation not only was a clumsy, unwelcome competitor, but a vainglorious presumption of a Faustian quality that man could ever investigate or control the works of divine creation.

The Prairie, with its intense philosophical purpose, was the keystone of the ecological view of the Leather- stocking novels. The struggle of Natty Bumppo to adapt to the wilderness and to speak its virtues clashed with the struggles by settlers of all degrees of respectability, the

Hutters, the Temples, the Bushes, to claim that wilderness for white civilization. As Slotkin commented, "Cooper's ultimate concern in the Leatherstocking tales is the probl­ ematic character of the frontiersman — the troubling blend of European, American, and Indian elements that made him both a figure of promise and a nightmare to Cooper's con- 23 temporaries." A large part of that "troubling blend" arose from the differing environmental perceptions the frontiers­ men learned from hunting the avatars of the wilderness. 41 NOTES

1 D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature {New York: Viking Press, 1964), p. 51. 2 Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land, p. 66.

3 See John J. McAleer, “Biblical Analogy in the Leather- stocking Tales," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 17 (1962), pp. 217-235. 4 A.N. Kaul, The American Vision: Actual and Ideal Society in Nineteenth-Century fiction (New riaven: Yale University Press, 1963)» pp. i16-117.

5 See Charles A. Brady, "James Fenimore Cooper, Myth- maker and Christian Romancer," rpt. in Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., ed., American Classics Reconsidered (New York: Scribner's, 1958) and Warren S. Walker, James Fenimore Cooper: An Introduction and Interpretation (New ^ork: fearnes and Noble, 1962), p. 37. 6 Marius Bewley, The Eccentric Desi^i: Form in the Classic American Novel (New York: (jolumbia University Press, 1963). P. 167.

7 D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, p. 62, Leslie Fiedler likewise overstated the case against Bumppo .as a .killer in his book, Love and Death in the American Novel (New. York: Dell, 1966), p. 194: Leather- stocking is "the prototype of all pioneers, trappers, cow­ boys, and other innocently destructive children of nature, which is to say, of the Westerner, quick on the draw and immune to guilt," 8 Joel Porte, The Romance in America: Studies in Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, andJames (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University tress", 1969), p. 35*

9 Kay Seymour House, Cooper^ Americans (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1965), p. £66. 42

10 Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition (Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor, 195?)* P P • 62- 63* '‘The equivocal word in Lawrence*s description of Natty Bumppo is 'killer.* Both Natty and Captain Ahab, or for that matter, Ishmael Bush, are killers. But the all- important difference is that Natty kills only out of necessity; and he kills, as it were, lovingly. Kis code does not allow him to plunder, exploit, or kill in hate. Thus a fundamental moral question in Cooper, and in American fiction generally, is one of piety; characters are judged according to whether they have reverence for life, especially for the wild, innocent, untainted life, whether this may appear in a deer on the prairie, a whale in the Pacific...."

11 Kaul, The American Vision, p. 129.

12 James Fenimore Cooper; The Deerslayer; or the First Warpathr A Tale, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1W i ); The Pioneers; or the Sources of the Susquehanna, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1823J; The Prairie: A Tale, 2 vols, (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1827); all references are to these editions and will be hereafter incorporated within the text within parentheses.

13 Porte, The Romance in America, p. 5.

14 Michael Kammen, People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization INew York: Random House, 1972J, pp. lf>t)-lf$l.

15 Porte, The Romance in America, p. 12. 16 Slotkin, Regeneration, through Violence, p. 489.

17 House, Cooper*s Americans, p. 267 * Such kills as those of the panthers establish Natty*s independence of mind and place him among those who (like Hemingway's heroes) use their ability to kill as a test of themselves and as a manifestation of man's quest for excellence."

18 Robert H. Zoellner, "Conceptual Ambivalence in Cooper's Leatherstocking," American Literature, 31 (I960), p. 404. 43

19 All such criticisms stem from John T . Flanagan, "The Authenticity of Cooper's The Prairie," Modem Language Quarterly, 2 (1941), pp. 99-104-, 20 William L. Vance, "'Man and Beast': The Meaning of Cooper's The Prairie," PMLA, 88 (1974), pp.-323-331• 21 Zoellner, "Conceptual Ambivalence in Cooper's Leatherstocking," p. 408: "The Prairie is filled with scenes which Natty does not dominate as the mythic-epic hero should, scenes in which he hovers indecisively on the periphery of the action, passages in which he seems little more than a garrulous, retrospective old man, fast declining into a vapid and lonely senility." 22 Donald .A.. Ringe, "Man and Nature in Cooper's The Prairie," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 15 (1961), p. 319.

23 Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, p. 493. PART I

The Savage Urge to Hunt in Nineteenth-Century America The nineteenth century witnessed rapid, uneven west­

ward expansion in America. Before the Civil War, Americans

mastered the Old Southwest and Old Northwest, and pushed on

into the Louisiana Purchase. By the 1850*s, diplomatic

maneuvers and military force secured the trans-Mississippi

territories, whose destiny had seemed manifestly American

for decades. During the remainder of the century, American

settlement rushed into these vast stretches of wilderness.

Imbued with protocapitalist designs and pastoral visions,

the westering Americans sought to convert the Great American

Desert into the Garden of the West. Armed with rifles and

axes, and later with plows and reapers, they assailed the

wilderness with a vengeance. As Frederick Jackson Turner

declared in 1893* "by the 1890's the Western frontier was

closed as a viable physical avenue of expansion. Signi­

ficantly, also by that decade, Americans had vanquished

the avatars of the wild nature which had threatened American

progressivist expansion. Technologically superior military

forces had smashed the Indian tribal armies, and had herded

reluctant survivors onto reservations. Several species of

mammals and birds were nearing extinction due to excessive

market hunting and habitat destruction. During the nine­

teenth century, American westward expansion resulted in a resounding triumph over the wilderness.

The American white hunter was the vanguard of this assault on the wilderness. In his various roles as bear 4-6

hunter, heaver trapper, mountain man, huffalo hunter, and

Indian fighter, the American hunter vividly personified

Americans' paradoxical attitudes toward nature. Like his

farmer and merchant peers, the hunter was engaged in

revering remorsefully the very nature he was enthusiast­

ically and relentlessly destroying. Fleeing from white

civilization, whose values he despised and yet carried with

him, the American hunter accomodated himself to the wilds

in various degrees and opened the way for future settle­

ment and spoilage of the wilderness.

What flourished in nineteenth-century American con­

frontation with the wilderness was a savage urge to hunt

down the "beasts of those wilds. Beneath this violent

response lay a twofold conception of nature. The American

hunter perceived his natural environment as both a benign, bountiful hostess and a malign, merciless adversary, a realm of carefree revel and grim survival. American writers who observed the hunter or themselves hunted made similarly ambivalent perceptions and described the savage hunting

impulse in the wilderness. The idea of wilderness as a bountiful hostess derived from Renaissance and pastoral

idyllic traditions. The reverse opinion of nature as adversary stemmed from ancient and medieval myth epics, and

in more recent times, the puritanical antipathy for wilder­ ness. Prospects of easily and pleasurably killing docile

American animals for meat and sport clashed with fears of 4?

grimly grappling with monstrous wilderness beasts. Both perceptions of the environment incited the savage urge to hunt. Because this impulse originated in and responded to such polarized concepts of nature, the savage urge to hunt represented a failure of ecological consciousness. Unlike

Natty Burappo, the average nineteenth-century American hunter had small concern for ecological bases and natural cycles. Thoughts of a diminishing game supply did not begin to dampen the urge until near the close of the century. The savage urge to hunt parallelled the designs and psychology of American westward, progessivist expansion. Chapter II

"Feasting and Fasting": Hunting and Hunters in Y/ashington Irving's A Tour on the Prairies

48 Washington Irving was the first major writer to visit

the western plains. In the journals of his trip and his

subsequent book, A Tour on the Prairies (1835), Irving recorded firsthand accounts of the savage urge to hunt that 1 he found in the West and in himself. In the autumn of 1832, he accompanied a military expedition to the southwestern prairies. This overland journey lasted a little less than

two months. Departing from St. Louis on September 15th,

Irving and his friends crossed Missouri, joined the party at Independence, and travelled through southeastern Kansas to present-day northeastern Oklahoma. The expedition reached

Fort Gibson on October 8th. Finding the military matters under control, Irving and his colleagues indulged in a month­ long hunting trip through the Cimarron and North Canadian

River basins. On November 10th, a weary Washington Irving left Fort Gibson and floated homowards down the Arkansas

River. After a stay in New Orleans, living wended his way back to New York. There with vivid western memories In mind and in his journals, he set down to write A Tour on the

Prairies. After several delays, Irving finally completed the manuscript by late 183^ and saw it through to publication in early 1835* The journey which inspired A Tour on the Prairies gave

Irving little to work with in the way of conventional forms of romantic Western adventure. No pitched battles with

Indians occurred, only a false scare of lurking Pawnees. 50

No advances in exploration or scientific endeavor resulted.

The military significance was negligible, as the tribes were

peaceful. Irving recognized and rued this lack of explosive

events in the book* "It is a simple narrative of everyday

occurrences; such as happen to everyone who travels the

prairies. I have no wonders to describe, nor any moving

accidents by flood or field to narrate." (p. 9.) The book

centered on the hunting excursion from Fort Gibson. The

party did little more than ride, eat, and hunt. Travelling

with such congenial companions as Col. Henry Leavitt Ells­

worth, Charles Joseph Latrobe, and Count Alexander de Pour- 2 tales, Irving was no more than a literary tourist. Out of

such seemingly unpromising material, he wrote a book which

gained a popularity surprising even to Irving. For the

quickly-jotted, factual notations in his journals, he drew

on the everyday details of the hunter's life. What he saw

challenged his environmental perception of nature as being

picturesque and pastoral. In the sleepy hollows of the

lower Catskills, Rip Van Winkle could dream; on the prairie,

the American hunter had a harsher existence.

Not all of what Irving observed pleased his cultured

demeanor, yet with the eye of a genre painter, he depicted

the Western tableaux before him. Whereas Cooper had never

had the good fortune of visiting the prairies, there Irving

exercised his full powers of observation. Cooper's char­ acters often seemed to be spokesmen of an allegory replete 51 with romantic primitivism. Upon contact with the realities of the West, Irving found Cooper's romanticism untenable.

Much as he tried to invigorate the narrative with plaudits to the gallant hunter and the zestful hunter's life, Irving saw the vulgar actualities.

Irving responded eagerly to the Western hunter's life.

On October l6th, he confided to his journal:

Delightful mode of life — exercise on horse­ back all the fore part of the day — divers­ ified by hunting incidents— then about 3 oclock encamping in some beautiful place with full appetite for repose, lying on the grass under green trees— in genial weather with a blue, cloudless sky— then so sweet sleeping at night in the open air, & when awake seeing the moon and stars through the tree tops — such zest for the hardy, simple, but savory meats, the product of the chase — venison roasted on spits or broiled on the coals — turkeys just from the thicket— honey from the tree— coffee— or delightful prairie tea.,.. How exciting to think that we are breaking thro a country hitherto untrodden by white man, except perchance the solitary trapper— a glorious world spread around us without an inhabitant.3

Irving's idea of himself as explorer was fanciful, for the ground over which the group travelled had been scouted for decades. Irving was trying to trump up some adventure to relieve the tawdriness of the journey. The remainder of the passage expressed genuine sentiment, a paean to the invigorating powers of raw nature, a hedonist's listing of the victuals of the prairies. This sentiment was common among the literati in Irving's day, but he did not cater to literary commonplace in this case. He threw himself 52

heartily into the hunter's mode of life. In A Tour on the

Prairies, he drew out the moral implications of Western

life to the extent of praising its possible political virtues:

I can conceive nothing more likely to set the youthful blood into a flow, than a wild wood life of the kind, and the range of a magnificent wilderness, abounding with game, and fruitful of adventure. We send our youth abroad to grow luxurious and effeminate in Europe; it appears to me, that a previous tour on the prairies would be more likely to produce that manliness, simplicity, and self-dependence, most in unison with our political institutions, (p. 55*)

In this suggestion, Irving anticipated Turner's glowing tribute to the democratic aspects of the frontier by some

sixty years.

Irving's exhilaration and confident notions about the hunter's life eroded as the trip proceeded. He began to waver in his estimates of the charm of the wilderness.

Repeated alternate stretches of game scarcity and abundance led to declare, "Such is the hunter's life — feasting and b fasting." As the routine began to weary Irving, so the natural landscape began to dampen his earlier ardor. While out hunting alone, Irving sensed not the charming prairie, 5 but instead a lonely, unbounded, uninspiring desert.

For a time, the idea of steeping himself in the savage life had excited Irving. "You see I am completely launched in savage life, and am likely to continue in it for some weeks to come," he wrote to his sister on October 9th, "I am extremely excited and interested by this wild country, 53 6 and the wild scenes and people by which I am surrounded."

Enduring the necessary conditions of existence on the prairie Irving found less enchanting. Typical of this

increasing disenchantment was the "polecat" or skunk issue.

Several times on the journey the party ran short of the more approved prairie viands, and the men had to settle for roast skunkmeat. Horrified, Irving contrived to dispose of the first skunk by throwing it in the river. "I made a solemn vow, however, in secret," he related, "that our fire should not be disgraced by the cooking of that polecat." (pp. 69-

69.) By the latter part of the tour, Irving had dropped his culinary scruples and had even learned to enjoy the taste of the skunk. In A Tour on the Praj~. ies, he did not admit his compromise with the necessity of nature, but his 7 companions reported Irving's conversion. The gulf between the ideal, or idyll of the Western hunter’s life and its naked realities loomed up at Irving.

Irving's reactions to his own hunting showed more ambivalence about man's relation to nature on the prairie.

At first he revelled in the picturesque and even in the more

Dionysian aspects of the chase. Hunting, Irving found out, was an instinctive behavior barely checked by civilization.

While out hunting elk, the militia captain shot a bull.

Irving surveyed the dying animal, and reported his own response to the animalfe death: 54 There was something in this picture of the last moments of a wounded deer, to touch the sympathies of one not hardened to the gentle disports of the chase* such sympathies, how­ ever, are but transient. Man is naturally an animal of prey* and, however changed by civilization, will readily relapse into his instinct for destruction. I found my ravenous and sanguinary propensities daily growing stronger upon the prairies, (p. 90.)

One balks at the thought of the urbane author of "The Legend

of Sleepy Hollow" foaming at the mouth, switching his mount

in hot pursuit of the denizens of the wilderness. Yet he did respond to the savage urge to hunt. Early on the trip,

Irving casually reported the faunal body count: "The game killed at this camp consisted of six deer, one elk, two bears, and six or eight turkeys." (p. 93*) Hunting seemed a matter of fact, integral part of prairie life. Stoically,

Irving reconciled the "destruction," as he termed it, with the instinct for survival and savage propensities.

Y/hen it came to reconciling his own hunting and killing with his elevated romantic attitudes, to dropping his role of disinterested observer, Irving found the dilemma more taxing. After participating in a rather sloppy kill of the

"nobler game," buffalo, he commented:

It was the fall of a hero, and we felt some­ what ashamed of the butchery that had effected it; but after the first shot or two, we had reconciled it to our feelings, by the old plea of putting the poor animal out of his misery. (p. 145.) What was emerging in Irving's thought was a pattern of remorse that would eventuate in the code of ethics of the 55

hunter-naturalists of the later nineteenth century. Irving

was not a naturalist in any sense of the word, but as his

respect for the beasts increased, so did his remorse for

killing them. Direct acquaintance with the animal in the

act of hunting and killing him engendered sentiments in

Irving past the boundaries of the picturesque. This conflict

was evident in his remarks after killing another buffalo*

Dismounting, I now fettered my horse to prevent his straying, and advanced to con­ template my victim. I am nothing of a sportsman; I had been prompted to this unwonted exploit by the magnitude of the game, and the excitement of an adventurous chase. Now that the excitement was over, I could not but look with commiseration upon the poor animal that lay struggling and bleeding at my feet. His very size and importance, which had before inspired me with eagerness, now increased my com­ punction. It seemed as if I had inflicted pain inproportion to the bulk of my victim, and as if there were a hundred-fold greater waste of life than there would have been in the destruction of an animal of inferior size. (p. 178.)

"To add to these after-qualms of conscience," Irving went

on, the buffalo lingered and wolves came to await their

turn at the carrion, Irving decided to deliver the killing

shot, "an act of mercy to give him his quietus," Irving primed one of his pistols and went up to the beast, but the

event elicited more uncertainty in his feelings* "To inflict a wound thus in cool blood, I found a totally different thing from firing in the heat of the chase." After the heartshot buffalo expired and while Irving's hunting com­ panion carved out the tongue for a trophy, he stood there "meditating and moralizing over the wreck I had so wantonly

produced." (pp. 178-179.) Not only did Irving recognize a

marked disparity "between the expectation and results of the

hunt, hut he was asking what made a hunt or a killing have meaning. Imhued with his romantic notions of nature, Irving

probably had small knowledge of hunting ritual or ecological

cycles. Yet he did sense that hunting involved the hunter

in natural patterns deeper than mere slaughter.

Irving also pondered the effects of hunting in the wilderness upon the frontier hunters. On the subject of

Indian prairie hunters, Irving waxed eloquent in picturesque idioms, but watched the reality again fall short of romantic ideals. "An Indian hunter on a prairie," he mused, "is like a cruiser on the ocean, perfectly independent of the world and competent to self-protection and self-maintenance." (p.

28.) These same Indian hunters, however, "commit sad havoc among the innumerable herds that graze the prairies." (p.

10.) Irving found it necessary to remind himself and his contemporaries that the noble savage image was unrealistic*

"As far as I can judge, the Indian of poetical fiction is like the shepherd of pastoral romance, a mere personific­ ation of imaginary attributes." (p. 4-5.) A band of Osages on their horses suggested to Irving "so many noble bronze figures," but an uneasy "romantic-realist tension" arose 8 when he confronted these figures in person. Lifelong contact with the wilderness had hardened the Indians, made 57

them familiar with the savage urge to hunt.

White and halfbreed prairie hunters also fostered some

moral ambiguity in Irving's thought. He praised Pierre

Beatte and Capt. Jesse Bean as "first-rate hunters" and

referred to "our veteran hunter Ryan" as "this real old

Leatherstocking," (pji. 24- 25, 4-8, 137.) Yet the same men were uncouth and prone to adopt savage habitudes, to mold

themselves in the image of the Indian in order to adapt to

the wilderness. In the same paragraph from A Tour on the

Prairies that likened Beatte*s features to those of Napoleon,

Irving confessed, "I did not like his looks when he was

first presented to me. He was lounging about, in an old hunting frock and metasses or leggings, of deer skin, and almost japanned by constant use." (pp. 24— 25.) As a half- breed, Beatte had, Irving felt, "altogether more of the red than the white in his composition." Out of distrust for that "uncertain and faithless race," Irving would have done without Beatte's services, had they been able to locate a guide more to his taste, (pp. 24-25.) Other white hunters provoked Irving's distrust. One in particular, "Tonish,"

Antoine Deshetres, received the bulk of Irving's barbed comments. Scholars have since claimed that Irving miscast

Tonish, who was reputedly so incensed when he read Irving's account that he uttered, "Let me meet Irving on one of the 9 Prairies and one or other of us shall lose his scalp!"

The emotion was perhaps hyperbolic, but the incident was 58

indicative of the extent of Irving*s fundamental misgivings with the hunter's way of life. Reproach for the hunters*

prodigality crept into several passages of A Tour on the

Prairies:

The surrounding country, in fact, abounded with game, so that the camp was overstocked with provisions,,.. With the wasteful prodigality of hunters, there was a con­ tinual feasting, and scarce any one put by provision for the morrow, (pp. 57-58.)

Writing while back East on country estates, Irving could let his imagination take flight into filigree. When the distance between himself and the frontier hunter had dwindled to direct confrontation, a different picture emerged. Accomodation to harsher nature on the frontier conflicted with Irving's conservative, genteel temperament.

Critics have clashed over the importance of Irving's

Western tour. Stanley Williams, Irving's biographer, once wrote that Irving failed to sense the deep dimensions of frontier existence* "The significance of the frontier in

American history troubled him not at all. He saw and described only the picturesque surfaces of this mighty 10 force." Irving certainly was shortsighted in regards to the future of the frontier. He expected that the territory would remain a desert inhabited only by roving bands of

Indians and renegade hunters. Yet other critics have seen

Irving's venture as symbolic of westward movement in the

1830*s. Edgeley Todd suggested that "Irving's tour and the books which it prompted were symptomatic of a cultural shift 59 rapidly taking place in American life,*' that "Irving

epitomized the struggle between what was European and what 11 was American." Richard Cracroft diagnosed Irving's

cultural tension over hunting as "primarily one of how to

deal with the Jacksonian present, fraught with figures of

pounds of furs taken and numbers of dollars earned, while at the same time endowing that present with romance, 12 legend, and myth.” Irving was sufficiently impressed by his tour to write two more western books, narrative histories exploring the fur trade. In Astoria (1836), he compiled many of the extant travel journals and accounts 13 about the commercial venture into the Northwest. In The

Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837)r Irving reconstructed 14 that worthy's journal of exploration and fur-trading.

These two works reflected little of the ambivalence toward hunting found in A Tour on the Prairies. Their narratives were dramatic, perilous incidents coupled with picturesque 15 conceits of the frontier hunters, A Tour on the Prairies represented a much more accurate perception of hunting on the wilderness prairies. There Irving saw and felt first­ hand the savage urge to hunt, the imperative accomodation to natural existence. 60 NOTES

1 Washington Irving, The Western Journals of Washington Irving, ed. John Francis McDermott (Normans University of* Oklahoma Press, 19440; Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, ed. John Francis McDermott (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956); all references to A Tour on the Prairies are to this edition, and will he incorporated inio the text within parentheses. 2 For comparative accounts of the same journey see the journals of Irving's three companions: Henry Leavitt Ells­ worth, Washington Irving on the Prairie, or a Tour of the Southwest in the Year 1832, eds. Stanley Williams and Barbara D. Simison (New York: American Book Co., 1937); Charles Joseph Latrobe, The Rambler in North America, 1832- 1833, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Bros., 18357; Count^Alex­ ander de Pourtales, On the Western Tour with Washington Irving; the Journal and Lett'ers^of* Count de Pourtales,ed. George F. Spaulding, trans. Seymour Seiler (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968).

3 Irving, The Western Journals, pp. 130-131.

4 Ibid., p. 131,

Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, pp. 175-176. Three years later, back in civilized haunts, Irving approvingly quoted Captain Bonneville's statement: "I would fain make my bow to the splendors and gayeties of the metropolis, and plunge again amidst the hardships and perils of the wilder­ ness." (Irving, Adventures of Captain Bonneville, p. 371 — see note 14). But while out on the prairies and during the harsher moments of the trip, Irving could not keep up his pretense of cheerful praise for the wilds, for the rigorous hunter's existence. 6 Irving, letter to Mrs. Paris, October 9, 1832, rpt. in Pierre M. Irving, The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, 3 vols, (New York: Putnams, 1857), II» PP. 249-250.

7 Both Ellsworth and Latrobe mentioned Irving's culinary compromise, Ellsworth, Washington Irving on the Prairie, pp. 47, 109; Latrobe, The Rambler in North America, I, pp. 184-185. 61 8 Richard H. Cracroft, Washington Irving: The Western Works, Western Writers Series #14- (Boise: Boise State College Press, 1971)» p. 17.

9 Deshetres quoted in a letter from Evert A. Duyckinck to William A. Jones on July 12, 1837» rpt. in Irving, The Western Journals, p. 6l. 10 Williams, "Introduction" to Ellsworth, Washington Irving on the Prairie, p. viii,

Edgeley W. Todd, "Washington Irving Discovers the Frontier," Western Humanities Review, 11 (1957)» P« 38. 12 Cracroft, Washington Irving: The Western Works, p. 13.

13 Irving, Astoria: or. Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains (New York: Putnam's, 1885). Ik Irving, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mo^tarris ancT the Far West^ ed. Edgeley W . Todd (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961).

15 For example see Irving's reasoning in the preface to Astoria, p. v: "I occasionally met with partners, and clerks, and hardy fur trader from the interior posts; men who had passed years remote from civilized society, among distant and savage tribes, and who had wonders to recount of their wide and wild peregrinations, their hunting ex­ ploits, and their perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes among the Indians. I was at an age when imagination lends its coloring to everything, and the stories of these Sinbads of the wilderness made the life of a trapper and fur trader perfect romance to me." The Adventures of Captain Bonneville shared this romanticism; see for example the descriptiorToi' the frontier hunter on p. 69. Despite the dramatic rendering of incidents, historians have found Irving's works minor classics in the literature of the fur trade. See. Hiram M. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, 3 vols. (New York: Francis P. Harper,. 1902)# I, p. xiv;"and Bernard DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 19k?), pp. 401-462. Chapter III

"Go Ahead!": David Crockett and the

Failure of Ecological Consciousness

62 During the early 1830's, while Washington Irving was

writing his Western works, and for well over two decades

afterwards, the American drive to power over nature, the

savage urge to hunt, found perfect embodiment in the person

of David Crockett. The actual, historical David Crockett,

Tennessee farmer, hunter, Congressman, and casualty at the

Alamo, was an unprepossessing figure compared to that which

he articulated in his autobiography and to the folkloristic 1 character created around him. The couplet which Crockett

inscribed in his autobiography, "I leave this rule for others when I'm dead/ Be always sure you're right — THEN GO

AHEAD!" easily became abbreviated to "GO AHEAD!" in the

Crockett literature. This forthright doctrine appealed to the forceful American temperament set on conquering the wilderness for the national domain. The fierce individualism and implicit contempt for social restraint of the slogan agreed with this pervasive spirit. Several decades before

Horatio Alger wrote the pattern for career success, David

Crockett's life set the example for entrepreurial mobility in Jacksonian America, Crockett and the subsequent shapers of his image pointed bluntly to his hunting passion as a reflection of American progressivist dynamism.

What emerged was sort of a syndrome, a variation on the archetypal hunter figure symbolized by Daniel Boone.

The chivalric, morally responsible, and contemplative sides of the already fragmented Boone image fell away, leaving in 64

p Crockett the selfish, amoral, and impulsive traits regnant.

Concomitantly, a failure of ecological consciousness came

about. Natty Bumppo had killed animals for survival and

necessity, in a ritual uniting him with natural cycles. The

Crockett type of hunter dispensed with moral niceties and

killed for purposes of self-glorification, to attain power

over nature and the esteem of men, and to wright monuments

to his immortality throughout the land. Crockett's vibrant

brands of dialect, rhetoric, and humor spoke to a responsive

chord in American environmental thought. The tremendous

popular appeal of the swaggering, capable hunter served to

obscure and even to legitimatize the ongoing usurpation of

the wilderness.

Crockett and the hunter syndrome gained national scope

and attention through two forms, Crockett's autobiography

and the Crockett almanacs, written mostly after his death in 3 I836. Written hastily in 1834 to garner political capital,

Crockett's autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of David

Crockett of the State of West Tennessee, displayed a firm

and obvious connection between hunting and the lust for

power. Pointing to his residence on the Mulberry fork of

the Elk River during 1809 and 1810, Crockett declared, "It was here that I began to distinguish myself as a hunter, and to lay the foundation for my future greatness." (p. 69.)

These tandem influences were very important to Crockett.

Recollection of hunting feats formed a large portion of the narrative. Chapters XII, XIV, and XV were concerned wholly with hunting. Significantly, in these chapters and

elsewhere throughout the narrative, Crockett delivered more detail about his hunting exploits than about other major

events or influences in his life. Marriage, fatherhood,

geneaology, military experience, and farming all were

secondary to Crockett. His passion for hunting determined his geographical movement. Returning from the state legis­ lature, Crockett selected a new homestead near the Obion

River. Prospective hunting was a primary consideration:

"Game was plenty of almost every kind, which suited me exactly, as I was always fond of hunting." (p. 14-7.) For

Crockett, the wilderness was a theater stage upon which to strut his stuff. Ever restless, he could not resist the urge to hunt, even if no necessity warranted. In the fall of 1825, having already shot fifteen bears for meat for a neighbor, Crockett bemoaned his more domestic task of boat­ building, and decided upon another hunting trip. "But I at length couldn't stand it any longer without another hunt," he wrote. (p. 176.) As the wilderness areas were not safe from Crockett's frequent depredation, neither were the political arenas spared his unloosed ambition.

Crockett conceived of electioneering as a hunt. He referred to his congressional campaign of 1825 as "this hunt,

(p. 173.) Running again two years later, he "found the sign was good almost everywhere I went." (p. 203.) Other hunting metaphors arose in his speeches, as Crockett refined his pose as the backwoods hunter, "I have just crept out of the cane," he told his audience, "to see what discoveries I could make among white folks." (p, 169.) After breaking with Jackson over land policy, Crockett incurred the wrath of his constituents. In his autobiography, he characterized the campaign to discredit him as a hunt against himself,

"I was hunted down like a wild varment," he declared, "and in this hunt every little newspaper in the district, and every little pin-hook lawyer was engaged," (p. 207.) At the numerous political barbecues, Crockett's strategy was that of the hunter. At one festive squirrel hunt, this equation of hunting capability and vote-getting became evident, "I joined one side, taking the place of one of the hunters, and got a gun ready for the hunt," Crockett reminisced, "I killed a great many squirrels, and when we had counted scalps, my party was victorious," (p. 14-0.)

Two pages later, he counted up his political reapings: "I found I was good for the votes at the hunt." (p. 142.)

Crockett was not forcing his dictates upon the people. His rhetoric was a symptomatic expression of contemporary

American desires, of those times when, as Slotkin pointed out, "men like Davy Crockett became national heroes by defining national aspirations in terms of so many bears 4 destroyed," With the focus on the conquering American, the environment and its animals were bound to suffer. 67 Crockett's autobiography repeatedly displayed his dis­ regard for the wilderness environment. He boasted of having \ killed one hundred and five bears in less than one year.

(p. 194.) That number was probably an exaggeration, but

Crockett certainly possessed the appetite and moral non­ chalance necessary to kill numerous animals. The hunting passages in the narrative all attested to Crockett's prowess as a hunter, to his superiority over nature. If his animal adversary had any remarkable traits, killing that animal merely furthered Crockett's fame. The consequent defeat, told blow by blow in the narrative, enhanced Crockett's image, but failed to suggest the vital powers of nature.

Any awe that Crockett felt for the beast or any of nature's other wonders was momentary. In the narrative, after having run across "about the biggest bear that was ever seen in America," Crockett described the ensuing fight*

In a little time I saw the bear climbing up a large black oak-tree, and I crawled on till I got within about eighty yards of him. He was setting with his breast to me; and so I put fresh priming in my gun, and fired at him. At this he raised one of his paws and snorted loudly. I loaded again as quick as I could, and fired as near the same place in his breast as possible. At the crack of my gun here he came tumbling down* and the moment he touched the ground, I heard one of my best dogs cry out. I took my tomahawk in one hand, and my big butcher-knife in the other, and run up within four or five paces of him, at which he let my dog go, and fixed his eyes on me. I got back in all sorts of a hurry, for I know'd if he got hold of me, he would hug me altogether too close for comfort. I went to my gun and hastily loaded her again, and shot him the third time, which killed him good. (pp. 163-164.) 68

That bear, Crockett proudly informed his readers, dressed

out at six hundred and seventeen pounds* Throughout the

other hunting chapters, Crockett varied the descriptions of

the killing only slightly. Above all else, he kept count

of the carcasses as testament to his vainglorious lust for

power.

Quickly following the commercial success of Crockett's

autobiography came the Crockett Almanacks. These almanacs,

lumped under the generic title, Davy Crockett's Almanack of

Wild Sports in the West, were published continuously under

new and more emphatic titles from 1835 until 1856. They

carried on the tradition of Poor Richard's almanac, dis­

pensing weather predictions, astrological information, and

other "useful hints." In place of Franklin's maxims of

morality, the Crockett almanacs offered stirring tales of

confrontation with deadly beasts. Many of the tales

featured Davy Crockett as the hero. The "Davy Crockett" of these almanacs was the invention of folklore, an ingenious,

superhuman demigod, wreaking vengeance on nature. As this buckskin demigod, Crockett gained mastery over the elements, or at least fought nature to a standoff. The Crockett almanacs posited the belief^that the American could easily conquer and control nature. Developing Crockett to his full potential as a mythic hero, the almanacs reinforced the contemporary environmental perception of the wilderness as adversary and inviting victim for the savage urge to hunt. 7 A typical Crockett Almanack was the 1837 number. The

commanding phrase, "Go Ahead!" topped the title page, which

featured a woodcut of Crockett, rifle in hand and dressed

in buckskin and coonskin cap. Below the illustration read

the caption "0 Kentucky! The Hunters of Kentucky!" strong

evidence of the identification of Crockett with Boone in

the popular mind. Within the volume, "Crockett" related

his "Tongariferous Fight with an Alligator" (pp. 8-10); he

told how he and his wife outwitted and slew the bear in

"Perilous Adventure with a Black Bear" (p. 19)s he recited how "a ragiferous bear" made a swim across the Mississippi dangerous (pp. 20-21); and he delivered a congressional speech, remarkable for its use of the outlandish simile and lack of logic (p. 40.) The almanac closed with a highly imaginary account of Crockett’s martyrdom at the Alamo. In addition to the "genuine Crockett" materials, the almanac’s writers included companion stories of other hunters hunting or fighting beasts. Stories of dangerous elk-hunting,

"desperate and fatal" fights with grizzly bears, panthers, and catamounts, hunts after Texas mustangs and Tennessee * wild hogs, accounts of narrow escapes from panther and bear fell into this category. All of the stories harkened back to a familiar formula: man prevailing over a menacing beast and slaying the animal after a tooth-and-claw battle, from which the hunter emerged unscathed or barely wounded. The tales instructed the American that he could conquer nature. The other Crockett Almanacks that were published over

the next two decades reflected the same assumptions about

the environment. In his book, Davy Crockett, American

Comic Legend, Richard Dorson offered a representative group Q of Crockett folk tales from the Almanacks. In the hunting

tales section of the book, "Crockett" rampaged over four

wolves, squabbled with two bears, knifed a boa constrictor,

and grinned down a raccoon and "a grizzly bear out of a

countenance." The very presence of an animal incited the

hunter to kill it or master it in these tales. Or an

"impudent" act by the beast triggered the renowned killing

instinct within Crockett. The anarchic environmental viol­

ence of these tales appealed mightily to other Americans

who had to confront nature in its myriad forms.

Another selection from the realm of Crockett folklore

was indicative of his temperament. "Col. Crockett in a

Quandary" appeared in the Spirit of the Times after his 9 death in 1836. While out bear-hunting, Crockett fell into

a hollow tree used by bears for living quarters. No bears were present, but the situation was potentially sticky.

Crockett debated the political virtue of calling for help.

But before he had to submit to that embarrassment, Crockett saw a bear descending hindfirst down the tree. Always resourceful, Crockett scared the unwary bear, grabbed its tail, and rode the startled beast up and out of the tree.

Crockett did not kill the bear in this story, but he scored 71

a significant triumph over the animal kingdom, further

proof that the American could by wits and the gun prevail

over nature.

To the present generation which has lived through yet

another outburst and refinement of the Crockett myth, the

sanitized Disney version, the characterization of Davy

Crockett as a wastrel and a killer must seem unduly harsh.

Perhaps Parrington*s estimate given nearly fifty years ago

rings truest:

He was a hunter rather than a farmer, and the lust of killing was in his blood. With a pack of hounds he slaughtered with amazing efficiency. A later generation would call him a game-hog.10

Yet in the process of explaining Crockett*s popularity,

recent critics have seen his magnetism as a reflection of

popular expression and folklore. One critic described the

attraction as black humor:

The folk imagination dealt with such realities as death and decomposition by affirming their existence in terms so outrageously revolting as to deny the mere realities themselves their due in human feelings.**

By those terms, Crockett was acting as a mock Prometheus,

laughing in the faces of the gods he offended. The theory

probably imputes too much moral concern to Crockett and his

adoring public. His very amorality, or rather absolute

morality, devoid of any ethical nuance, offered an easier

alternative to the more complex, guilt-inducing problems of racial oppression and environmental violence in America. 72

Crockett's example struck two basic chords in the progress- ivist desires of nineteenth-century America: mobility, spatial and social, and personal aggrandizement. In these present times of ecological lament, the fundamental freedom, the savage urge to hunt, exercised by the Crockett type of hunter seems terrifying. The ability to "waste" an animal in every sense of that word was a treasured trait in the early wilderness days. 73

NOTES

1 David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State oil1 Tennessee (Philadelphia: E.L. Carey and A ." Hart, 1634). All references are to this edition and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses. For the historical Crockett, see James A, Shackford, David Crockettt The Man and the Legend, ed. John B. Shackford (Chapel Hill* University of North Carolina Press, 1956). Shackford wrote very little about the legend, but sought to resurrect the historical Crockett, 2 Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, p, 308.

3 There were other books ascribed to Crockett, but all were by other pens than his. See the bibliographic entries under Chapter III under James Strange French, William Clark, and Richard Penn Smith. Also the Crockett type hunter figure arrived on the national stage four years before the auto­ biography. In his play, The Lion of the West, James Kirke Paulding invented the character of Nimrod Wildfire. The play was a drawing room comedy and as such has very little bearing on environmental perceptions, although Wildfire spoke a very stormy dialogue with the genteel personae. See James Kirke Paulding, The Lion of the West; or, A Trip to Washington, James N. Tidwell, ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 195*0 •

4 Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, p. 5»

5 Davy Crockett's Almanack of Wild Sports in the West (Nashville, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston, 1835-1856). For a listing of the complete titles of most of these almanacs see Constance Rourke's bibliographical essay, "Behind This Book," in her volume, Davy Crockett (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 193*0» PP* 24-7-276. 6 Daniel Hoffman, Form and Fable in American Fiction (New York: Oxford University Press, 196177 p. 73.

7 Davy Crockett's Almanack, of Wild Sports in the West, Life in the Backwoods, & Sketched of Texas,1837 (Nashville: Published by the heirs ”of"(Jo 1. Crockett, 1837); all refer­ ences are to this edition and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses. 8 Richard M. Dorson, ed., Davy Crockettf American Comic Legend (New York: Rockland Press, 1939}.

9 "Col. Crockett in a Quandary," Spirit of the Times, 6 (1836), p. 214.

10 Vernon Louis Parrington, The Romantic Revolution in America, 1800-1860 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1930), p . 171.------n Hoffman, Form and Fable, pp. 73-74. Chapter IV

"It War an Unhuntable Bar": Bear-Hunting and the "Big Bear" Southwestern Humorists

75 76

Crockett’s hunter image provided the model for many

Southwestern hunting tall tales before the Civil War. Yarns

about hunting feats composed a large percentage of those 1 tall tales. Both defending and excoriating Southern vices

and virtues, the hunting tales both burlesqued and glorified 2 the Southern venatic tradition. Besides serving as vehicles

for social and political opinions about the backwoodsmen, 3 the tales dramatized the encounter between man and nature.

The Southern and Southwestern wilderness was a place where

"horror, terror, death, were written large," an area where nature was "as often a merciless antagonist as a bountiful hostess to the settlers and hunters." Acting as a mode of environmental perception, the hunting tall tales functioned on informative, cathartic, and myth-making levels.

The hunting tall tales contained much material on the means of.survival on the frontier and on hunting folkways.

Although the tales were not realism, use of realistic items 5 and details lent plausibility to the plots. The primary information in the tales was that nature was a tough and dangerous adversary in the wilds. As a cathartic process, the tales allowed consolation and respite from the constant harshness. As critic Van Wyck Brooks once wrote of the frontier humorist, "The humorist was a type that pioneer 6 society required to maintain its psychic equilibrium."

The tales also stabilized frontier desires by morally justifying the savage urge to hunt and mythicizing its 77 practitioners. As the mythic recitation and invention of

hunting exploits by Crockett, and of Boone before him, had

elevated those worthies to national esteem, the hunting

y a m s advanced a pantheon of lesser-known figures to mythic

stature. Folklorist John Q, Anderson rioted this mythic

dimensions

The hunting story always seems to move toward myth: pitting man against a worthy foe in nature and allowing him to triumph in spite of difficultiesi the animal becomes symbolic of the forces of nature and of the uncertain­ ties of life against which man must do battle and win — at least in his myths,'

The hunting tall tales became veritable parables of the

classic man versus nature confrontation.

The hunting tales singled out wild animals as avatars

of the malignant and brutal forces of nature that had to be

overcome. The choice was far from whimsical. As Anderson remarked, "Wild animals were, in fact, so much a part of the

frontiersman's everyday life that it is no wonder that he

/ I '* used them, as did his primitive ancestors, to express his concepts of strength, agility, cunning, and endurance. Thus 8 his language abounded in animal metaphors." Hunters* attitudes toward the animals reflected Crockett's proprietary egotism, although humbler reckonings of remorse, respect, awe, and anthropomorphic recognition were sometimes evident.

Southwestern hunting tales told of pursuits after all the indigenous species, and some fabulous ones besides, but the one animal which evoked best the brutal and wily forces of nature was the bear. Bear stories were recurrent and plentiful in the Southwestern literature. The imaginative

prominence of the bear stories prompted Bernard DeVoto to

label the whole outburst of Southwestern humor the "Big 10 Bear School." Among the best and most revealing sketches and narratives, the bear-hunting tales displayed the savage

urge to hunt and other environmental perceptions of the old

Southwest.

The bear-hunting stories, most of which showed up sooner or later in the Spirit of the Times were numerous 11 and various. Quite a few were not tales at all, but were straightforward renditions of how one or more uncelebrated or unidentified hunters rode down and shot an unknown, 12 regular bear. Several of these "sporting epistles" rose above unadorned journalism by including details of local color. Charles F.M. Noland's "Pete Whetstone's Bear Hunt" 13 (1837) exemplified these unambitious literary efforts.

In some of this reportage, an additional message was clear.

For example, in "A Thrilling Bear Story" (1858), a luckless

Virginia hunter received a bad mauling from a wandering bear. The moral: a bear, and therefore the wilderness, was 14 dangerous. The remainder of the tales added some element of literary embellishment. The content generally followed three discernible themes: 1) famous bear hunters of the

Crockett mold hunted any number of unspecified bears, 2) bears of remarkable powers , mostly malign, encountered unreamarkable hunters, and 3) renowned hunters brushed up 79 against fabulous bears, who often possessed anthropomorphic

traits. Each type of tale reflected environmental views.

The rationale behind the first type of tale resembled

Crockett's overblown rhetoric. Bears were simply part of

the wilderness to be conquered; they were both evidence of

and reward for the hunter's prowess. "Billy Scott's Bear

Hunt" (184-2) fell into this class. Assuming authorship for

legends about Billy Scott, famous Louisiana hunter, "Frank

Fireball, B.K." (B.K. for "Bear Killer") related an incident from Billy's hunting career. Billy had not always been a bear-hunter; in fact he had been a city-bred lad, who had become a bear exterminator only because he had been born under the great bear constellation. Angered by missing an easy shot when he was a greenhorn, "perfectly ignorant of the manners, habits, dispositions, and instincts of the bear," Scott proceeded one morning to shoot down in order of appearance a deer, a bear, two deer, and then a she-bear and her two cubs, before running out of caps for his gun.

Heading home for breakfast, a disconsolate Billy Scott muttered, "If my caps had not given out, I should soon have 15 had something to brag about," Another tale, one by "The

Turkey Runner," Alexander G. McNutt, entitled "Bar and Deer

Hunting in Mississippi" (184-4), represented in more rambling fashion the same views toward nature. McNutt's two back­ woods men, Jim and his reticent partner, Chunkey, recounted their hunt of bear weighing nearly five hundred pounds when 80

dressed out, a bear "too fat to bleed." They then claimed

to kill bears over seven hundred pounds regularly. Jim

summed up the matter thus: "A bar is a consaity animal, but

as far as his sens do go he's about as smart as any other

animal; arter that, the balance is clear fat and fool. I

have lived 'mongst em and know ther natur, I have killed

as many as seven in a day and smartly to the rise of sixty 16 in a season." Another correspondent to the Spirit of the

Times, "Ruff Sam" of Mississippi, wounded his bear, "one of

the most stonishing big she bars that ever wored fur," and

then had to wrestle and stab her to death, his dog worrying

the bear from behind. Jubilantly he crowed at the finish, 17 "The bar was dead; an me an Boss had licked herl" The bears only possessed size or sometimes cunning enough to attest further to the hunter's greatness.

In the second type of tale, the tables were generally reversed. Very clever, malicious, or comical bears beset unwary hunters. In "A Rather Tough Texas Bar Story" (1855)» a hunter nonchalantly abandoned his rifle to talk with some friends. Returning to the spot, he found a bear aiming his rifle at him. Luckily, the Texan later related, the bear wasn't clever enough to figure out his double-trigger 18 system. Another "Rather Tough Bar Story" (1856) concerned a hunter who went to retrieve his hat and coat, which he had left on a stump, only to find there a bear accosting the 19 clothed stump. Other hunting yarns enlisted the bears for comedic purposes. In his collection, Fisher River Sketches (1859),

Harden Taliaferro, alias "Skitt," wrote one down about a

North Carolinian named Oliver Stanley. Holed up in a barrel while hiding from Indians, Stanley attracted a bear,

"the big king bar uv the woods, who had lived thar from time immortal." The persistent bear tried every way to get at Stanley, including sticking his tail in the cork-hole.

Stanley grabbed the bear's tail, the startled bear hurtled off, carrying Stanley to safety. Thoroughly shaken, the bear tried to jump a wide ravine, fell, the barrel shattered and the bear hustled away. Stanley escaped and wished the 20 bear well. Another contributor to the Spirit of the Times,

"Sulphur Fork" of Louisiana, spun a similar yarn in "Old

Long John and the Bear" (1850), This tale frankly copied the "Col, Crockett in a Quandary" sketch mentioned previously to this chapter. Old Long John, the Bear Hunter, more famous than the usual hunter in this type of tale, resembled the hunter image of Crockett. Equipped with his rifle, "Old

Death in the Path," and his knife, "Old Butcher," Old Long

John happened upon cubs in a hollow tree. Leaving his weapons aside, he tried to capture the cubs, but slipped into the hollow trunk. As in the Crockett version, the man's salvation arrived when the unsuspecting bear inched down the trunk and the hunter grabbed her tail, frightened her, and 21 rode up and out of the tree. Although the last two tales 82 showed off the hunter's self-reliance more than the bear's cunning, most of the second type of tale attributed evil and dangerous qualities to the bear. The comedy masked very real frontier fears of potential terror and death lurking in the woods. Casting the wilderness as a clever and frightful antagonist, the tales encouraged savage retaliation rather than caution and respect.

When the glorious hunter with environmental attitudes derived from the first type of tale met up with bears even more fabulous or dangerous than those in the second type, a third type resulted, one more suited to deeper literary exploration of hunting. By pitting these worthy adversaries against one another, the humorists found a fruitful mode for expressing ambivalence about the man versus nature confront­ ation. Underlying sympathy for the harassed or dying bear warred with expected praises for the hunter. The third type of tale redressed the excesses of the first and second types by bringing the hunter and the bear into equal proportion.

Both may have been epic in dimension, but neither decisively bested the other. Even if the hunter did kill the bear, or witnessed its expiration, he was left often not in glee or exultation, but rather in confusion and lament, surveying the wreckage before him.

John S. Robb's story, "Pun with a 'Bar'*' (184-7), was an example of a transitional type tale, close to the first and second in outlook, yet approaching the third type in its awareness of anthropomorphism. Told in flashback by 83

old Dan Elkhorn at a campfire, the tale hinged on a case

of mistaken identity. Embroiled in a row over a girl at a

frolic, Dan challenged his foe to a fight. Crossing the

river that night to the appointed place, Dan's boat hit a

snag, and he had to implore his foe to help. The "fur-

coated" foe turned out to be "a great he bar!" In the

ensuing struggle, the bear laughingly taunted Dan and upset

a rescue boat carrying the girl in question, "jest as cute

as ef he'd bin human!" Satisfied with his fun, the bear

lumbered off, but Dan pursued him, bent on erasing his disgrace. The bear, however, deprived him of his revenge:

That infernal bar, as soon as he'd tossed Molly in the stream, started for the woods; but as ef he had reasoned on the chances, the varmint came to the conclusion that he couldn't git away, and so got up into a crotch of a low tree, about a quarter of a mile from my cabin. Old Yelp smelled him, and as soon as I clapped peeper on him I let sliver, when the varmint dropped like a log, — I went to him and found he'd bin dead for an hour. My little blade couldn't a killed him, so it's my opinion, clearly entertained, that the owdacious varmint, knowin* I'd kill him for his trick, jest climbed up thar whar I could easy find him, and died to spite me!

Elkhorn ended the tale, offering no further editorial on the bear. But the death scene confirmed the "knowin'," 22 almost-human bear motif resonating throughout the tale.

Stronger examples of the third type of tale were the stories surrounding Mike Hooter. An actual Mississippi hunter of great local fame, Hooter was molded by William C. 23 Hall and Henry Clay Lewis into a minor legend. "Mike 84

Hooter's Fight with the 'Bar'” (1849). written by Hall,

depicted Hooter striving with the "most tamationest, ram-

pagin bar ever you see." Hall introduced Hooter as "a

mighty hunter before the Lord," a hunter whose "game was

'Bear'," and then turned the tale over to Mike to tell in

his "peculiar vernacular." Prodded by his wife and his

daughter, who desired new "bar-skin" petticoats and "bar's

ile" for their hair, Mike plodded off to bring down a bear.

In the cane, his dogs came upon a bear, who chased them back to Mike. Mad and "wrathy," Mike fired at the bear, who warded off the shots, played possum, and then, giving up that ruse, "toted off through the cane" like a steamboat.

Mike and the dogs followed and cornered the bear against a river bank. Hooter informed the bear of his impending rearrangement as a petticoat, and pitched into the advancing bear. After a prolonged tussle, Mike became "all-fired tired," and abandoned the match, claiming, "I'm blow'd if we hadn't er fout plumb on to ChristmasI" Despite the dead­ lock, the bear had lived up to Mike's code, enunciated early in the tale; "I don't vally a bar nor no other human crittur, 24 so he comes at me in front, and don't play gouge." The extended description of the grappling evoked a Sisyphean image of constant embattlement with nature. V/resting the means for subsistence or for vanity on the frontier promised to be a continual process. Unaware of the ecological bases of natural cycles, the hunters responded with more gunfire. 85

“Mike Hooter's Bar Story" (1851)» again written by

Hall, took a lighter view toward the bear. While out on a hunt with Ike Hamberlin, a lesser hunter jealous of Hooter,

Mike watched a bear outwit Ike. The bear, who had "a little human in urn," doctored Ike's gun while the flustered hunter was chasing after his dogs. Returning to find the bear taunting him, Ike picked up his gun, aimed, and misfired,

Mike warned the bear to escape, but the beast ignored the threat:

But the varmint didn't wink, but stood still as a post, with the thumb of his right paw on the end of his smeller, and wigglin' his t'other finger thus,.,. All this time Ike he stood thar like a fool, er snappin' and her snappin', an' the bar he lookin' kinder quare like, out er the corner o' his eye, an' sorter laffin* at him. Torectly I see Ike take down the ole shooter, and kinder kersamine the lock, an' when he done that, he laid her on his shoulder, and shook his fist at the bar, and walked home, an* the bar he shuk his fist, an* went into the cane brake, and then I cum off.

The bear had blown the powder out of the pan and robbed the flint. Exceedingly tall, this tale took the almost-human bear theme to the extreme. Nature now could not only be forthright, but also imaginative in her attempts to hinder 25 and frustrate the hunter.

Mike Hooter returned to the main business of killing the bear in Henry Clay Lewis's "The Indefatigable Bear

Hunter" (1850). As a swamp doctor and an accomplished hunter in his own right, Lewis, who wrote under the name

"Madison Tensas," infused the Mike Hooter hunter myth with 86

more realistic detail and more mystery. Endowed now with

an Indian sobriquet, "Mik-hoo-tah," which Lewis claimed

signified "the grave of bears," Hooter became a passionate

bear-hunter. He was, Lewis wrote, "the chief of that

vigorous band, whose occupation is nearly gone — crushed

beneath the advancing strides of romance-destroying civil- 2 6 ization." The bears greatly feared their extermination

and drew lots to see who should die, so great was Hooter*s

reputation. But in a brawl with a stray grizzly bear, Mike

suffered a crushed leg, which the swamp doctor had to amputate. The loss of the leg forced Mike into an unwanted retirement. The vacation proved an unsettling experience for Mike, so he determined "to strike out in a new track for glory," and earn the title of "the bar-hunter of

Ameriky." (p. 351*) Mike explained his decision to the amazed doctor:

A bar-hunt war the medsin that my systum required, a fust class bar-hunt, the music of the dogs, the fellers a screaming, the cane poppin*, the rifles crackin', the bar growlin', the fight hand to hand, slap goes his paw, and a dog's hide hangs on one cane and his body on another, the knife glistenin' and then goin' plump up to the handle in his heart! --Oh! Doc, this was what I needed, and I swore, since death were huggin' me, anyhow, I mite as well feel his last grip in a bar- hunt. (p. 351•)

Then he recounted his comeback fight with a "harrycane" bear. Encumbered by his wooden leg, Mike failed to dispatch the bear rapidly. After a protracted exchange of blows,

Mike finally managed to unscrew his leg and brain the bear 87 with it. By that time the fight had reached such devast­ ating dimensions that when the hoys "seed the ground we had fit over, they swore they would hav thought, * stead of a bar-fight, that I had been cuttin' cane and deadenin' timber for a corn-patch, the sile war so worked up." (p.

35^.) In the savage thrashings of destroying the bear,

Hooter had demolished the wilderness habitat. The scene functioned as a miniature version of ecological disruption so prevalent in Hooter's day. Removing his prey from the area, Hooter had succeeded, as the passage suggested, in clearing the way for farming.

Although Mike carried the day and hungered for an encore, Lewis remained ambivalent about the environmental wreckage perpetrated by his hero. This uncertainty about

Hooter ran throughout the tales "To view him at one time, you would think him only a whiskey-drinking, bear-fat-loving mortal; at other moments, he would give vent to ideas, prov­ ing that beneath his rough exterior there ran a fiery cur­ rent of high enthusiastic ambition." (p. 3^7.) Later Lewis satirized Mike's reverence for the bears he killed:

But, though almost daily imbruing his hands in the blood of Bruin, Mik-hoo-tah had not become an impious or cruel-hearted man. Such was his piety, that he never killed a bear without getting down on his knees — to skin it-- and praying to be d— ned if it warn't a buster; and such his softness of heart, that he often wept, when he, by mistake, had killed a suckling bear --depriving her poor offspring of a mother's care-- and found her too poor to be eaten. (p. 3^7.) 88

Satire aside, Lewis still professed admiration for Hooter.

He had the swamp doctor strike Mike from his patients list

after fitting the wooden leg only "with a sigh of regret

for spoiling of such a good hunter." (p. 3^9.) This soft

view of Mike continued to the end of the tale, but Lewis

also recognized his penchant for savage hunting and the

enormous exertion applied to gain immortality. In the

early comments about extermination of bears, Lewis foresaw

the possible results of uncontrolled hunting. If Lewis

approved of Hooter as a man of a breed being crushed by

civilization, he also perceived Mike's self-cancelling

environmental attitudes and practices, the killing off of his raison d'etre.

In his study, Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor,

Kenneth Lynn wrote of the bear-hunter figure;

The Mighty Hunter, telling gorgeous lies of his brave deeds — of the crocodile that almost swallowed him, or the bear that got away— voiced the nostalgia of the South­ western humorists for a vanished America.... The Mighty Hunter's boasts were elegies addressed to a dying frontier.2?

Thomas Bangs Thorpe captured the essence of that feeling for the unrecapturable wilderness past in his story, "The Big 28 Bear of Arkansas," An obscure postmaster in Vidalia,

Louisiana and editor of the Concordia Intelligencer, Thorpe first gained national attention when his tale, "Tom Owen, the Bee-Hunter," was reprinted in the Spirit of the Times in 1839* He enhanced his fame two years later with the 89

publication of "The Big Bear of Arkansas" in the same

journal. Although Thorpe wrote elsewhere of bears, in

"Grizzly Bear-Hunting" and "Bob Herring, the Arkansas Bear

Hunter" for instance, only in "The Big Bear of Akansas" did

he come to grips with the deep ambiguities of the hunter 29 and his prey. Vacillating between the sentiments of the

Whiggish gentlemanly narrators, who misread the events of

the story, the vibrant backwoods hunter, who killed the

creature he loved, and the haunting, spiritual bear, who

symbolized the wilderness past, Thorpe charged his tale with reverence for the disappearing vitality of nature and 30 anguish at the relentlessness of civilization.

The tale began with the sophisticated narrator seated

on board a steamboat, which Thorpefe gallery of types made a microcosm of America, Onto the scene strutted a back­ woods hunter, who styled himself "the big Bar of Arkansaw."

(p. 43.) He proceeded to entertain and insult the audience with a series of whoppers* forty-pound turkeys, gigantic mosquitoes, plentiful bear which saunter around fat all year, and Brobdingnagian beets and potatos, all in Arkansas, which the teller christened the "creation state." (p. 43.)

Earlier in the speech, the hunter made an important distinct­ ion between hunting "game" and hunting "meat." In a show of reverence for the animals he hunted, the hunter deprecated the urban idea of killing for pleasure. (p. 43.) Then he immediately undercut his own edenic picture of Arkansas and 90

himself, first by boastfully detailing his bear-hunting

skills, and secondly by declaring the crops "overgrown and

useless" because "the sile is too rich, and planting in

Arkansaw is dangerous." (p. 4-3.) The first part of the

tale wound down here, but not before the hunter had given

his name, Jim Doggett, a clear echo of Crockett, and a

paradoxical note about nature. As one critic commented,

"Not only are there mosquitoes in paradise..., but the

stuff of paradise, the game is hunted, killed, and eaten;

and the inhabitant of the paradisical world of Arkansas is 31 primarily a hunter, a killer, a violator of nature."

Even though Doggett aligned himself with nature — "and I go according to natur*" (p. 43)— he sensed only slightly his role as violator.

In the second part of the tale, Doggett, upon the narrator's suggestion, described "a hunt, in which the greatest bar was killed that ever lived, none excepted."

(p. 43.) First Doggett related how he had decided to make hunting his business and how he had acquired his bear lore.

Then Jim told how he encountered the big bear, noticing him first by tall scratches on the trees. Doggett determined to have this bear for his own. But after an eighteen-mile chase, he succumbed to puzzlement over the bear's powers of evasion: "How he did it, I never could understand." (p. 43.)

This initial incident mushroomed into a two or three year hunt, during which Doggett, exasperated and wasting away, 91

came to believe that the hunt had taken an unexpected turn:

"I would see that bar in every thing I did— he hunted me, and that too, like a devil, which I began to think he was."

(p. 44.) In close combat, the bear always eluded Doggett, or brushed away his bullets, or Doggett's gun misfired. One time he did shoot correctly, but the bear dove into a lake and resurfaced as a she-bear. Doggett sunk into deeper wonder: "the way matters got mixed on that island was onaccountably curious, and thinking of it made me more than ever convinced I was hunting the devil himself" (p. 44.)

The eventual death of the bear even defeated Doggett's sworn revenge. While Jim was defecating on one Sunday morning, the bear loomed up "like a black mist." The surprised man shot his gun, but the wounded bear crashed through the fence and died before Doggett, who was tripping over his "inex­ pressibles," arrived. The matter of the bear's death further unsettled Doggett, He paid homage to the bear's size and strength: "It war a creation bar," (p. 44.) But he remarked of its death: "I never liked the way I hunted him, and missed him.... My private opinion is that that bar was an unhunt- able bar, and died when his time come. (p. 44.) Doggett then lapsed into "a grave silence," and the narrator closed, dismissing the tale as "a feeling common with all 'children of the wood,' when they meet with any thing out of their every-day experience." (p. 44.) The vital symbolism of the bear drifted past the snobbish, cultivated narrator. 92 The bear was undoubtedly a spiritual symbol of the wilderness, "a personification of the wild and savage that 32 modern, fallen man must oppose," Its death marked the end

of the vitality of the hunting wilderness stage in the old

Southwest, Civilization, symbolized here by the steamboat,

The Invincible, threatened to overrun the wilds and to re­ chart the rivers. The bear died indeed because his time had come. Yet this was not a joyful event for Doggett, because he was a spiritual double for the bear. He witnessed his own demise metaphorically. He hunted for homeopathic 33 enrichment, to inherit the powers of the slain beast.

With the bear dead, Doggett's psychological sustenance was also gone. In several places, Thorpe equated Doggett with the bear* he loved the bear like a brother, his "wrathy" moods parallelled the bear's, he grew "cross as a bar with two cubs and a sore tail." (p. 44.) To seal the identity,

Doggett chose the bear's title for his own name. With the bear went the natural bases for Doggett's existence, and all he gained was humility. Like Crockett, of whom he was a parody, Doggett hunted bears for power over nature and

Faustian desire and knowledge, but unlike Crockett, Jim underwent a chastening transformation, even though he did not recognize its full import.

For Thorpe, the parable was clearer. The edenic past which he had cherished was departing as fast as the shot bear crashing through the fence. The savage urge to hunt had hastened the demise of this wilderness. Like Cooper,

Thorpe chose definitely for social order and progress, yet the fierce vitality of the hunter's way of life continued to haunt him. In another of his tales, "The Disgraced

Scalp-Lock," Thorpe repeated these ubi sunt sentiments through the voice of the lead character, Mike Fink* "What's the use of improvements? When did cutting down trees make deer more plenty? Who ever found wild buffalo or a brave

Indian in the city? Where's the fun, the frolicking, the 34- fighting? Gonel Gonel" To Thorpe, the answer was tragically evident: the carefree and reckless hunting had merely ushered in the ecological disrespect of advancing white civilization. 94 NOTES 1 In the "Introduction" to their anthology of South­ western humor, Hennig Cohen and William B. Dillingham placed "The Hunt" at the top of their list of subjects found in the tall tales, Cohen and Dillingfa&m, eds., Humor of the Old Southwest (Bostons Houghton Mifflin, 1964-), p, xiii. 2 By the 1830's, increasing national debate over slavery had intensified the barely latent sectional chauvinism in the Southern mind. The Southern literary man felt compelled to rebut the Northerrt moral challenge with tales of Southern regional virtues and of Southern superiority over Yankees. At the same time, these same writers, many of whom were Southwesterners with very recent claims to gentility, were ashamed of the thinness and crudity of Southern cultural traditions. Unable to escape these faults, the humorists resorted to self-caricature, exaggerated the deficiencies as positive virtues, and played out Northern expectations to the hilt,

3 Most of the Southwestern humorists were Whigs. In their satire of the backwoodsmen, they sought to deride the Jacksonians and also the faction within their own party which had drafted Crockett as a political prospect.

4 Constance Rourke, American Humor: A Study of National Character (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1931)# pp. 45-46; quote is from p. 37i Daniel Hoffman, Form and Fable in American Fiction, p. 21,

5 See Norris W. Yates, William T. Porter and the Spirit of the Times; A Study of the BIG SEAR School of Humor iBaton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957) t P. 150. 6 Van Wyck Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain (New York: Dutton, 1920), p. 243.

7 John Q. Anderson, ed., With the Bark On: Popular Humor of the Old South (Vanderbilt: Vanderbilt University tress, 19b7). p. 82.

8 Ibid., p. 78. 95 9 Ibid., p. 80. 10 Bernard DeVoto, “Frontier America," Saturday Review of Literature, 1 June 1929, pp. 1067-1068.

11 Most of the hunting stories appeared first in local Southern newspapers, such as the New Orleans Picayune, and gained a national audience when William T. Porter reprinted them in his sporting journal, Spirit of the Times. Norris Yates, whose book on Porter and the magazine remains yet definitive, called Porter the "editorial foster-father" of the tall-tale brand of Southwestern humor. See note 5 for bibliographic details. Phrase is quoted from p. 5* 12 For fine examples of this basic sketch, see two sketches by a Louisiana contributor, "Montesano"* "Bear Steaks and Canebrakes," Spirit of the Times (hereafter cited as Spirit), 28 (1859)"^ p. 591. and "Bear Hunt in Louisiana,1, Spirit, 30 (i860), p. 396.

13 Charles F.M. Noland, "Pete Whetstone*s Bear Hunt," Spirit, 7 (1837), p. 44. 14 "A Thrilling Bear Story," Spirit, 28 (1858), p. 522.

15 "Billy Scott*s Bear Hunt," Spirit, 12 (1842), p. 202. 16 Alexander G. McNutt, "Bar and Deer Hunting in Miss­ issippi," Spirit, 14 (1844), p. 91.

17 "Another Bear Fight,” Spirit, 18 (1848), p. 14.

18 "A Rather Tough Texas 'Bar* Story," Spirit, 25 (1855), p. 37.

19 "A Rather Tough Bar Story," Spirit, 26 (1856), p. 162. 20 Harden E. Taliaferro, "Indian and Bear Story," in Fisher River (North Carolina); Scenes and Characters (NBw Yorks Harper & Bros., 1859), pp. 137-138. 21 "Old Long John and the Bear," Spirit, 19 (1850), p. 566. 22 John S. Robb, "Fun with a 'Bar'," in Streaks of Squatter Life, and Far West Scenes (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, ltw-yj, pp. 104-111.

23 John Q. Anderson, "Mike Hooter — The Making of a Myth," Southern Folklore Quarterly, 19 (1955)» PP. 90-100.

24- William C. Hall, "Mike Hooter's Fight with the 'Bar', Spirit, 19 (1849), p. 452.

25 Hall, "Mike Hooter's Bar Story," in T.A. Burke, ed,, Polly Feablossom's Wedding and Other Tales (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson, l85l), pp. 49-54.

26 Henry Clay Lewis, "The Indefatigable Bear Hunter," in Odd Leaves from the Life of a Louisiana "Swamp Doctor" (Philadelphia, 1850), rpt. in Cohen and Dillingham, eds., Humor of the Old Southwest, pp. 346-354. Quote is from p. 347. All references are to this reprinting and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses. For details on Lewis's hunting experiences, see John Q. Anderson Louisiana Swamp Doctor: The Life of Henry Clay Lewis (Baton Rouge: Louisiana'State University Press, 1962).

27 Kenneth S. Lynn, Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959), p. 89 . 28 "The Big Bar of Arkansaw," Spirit, 11 (1841), pp. 43-44. All references are to this original printing and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses.

29 "A Grizzly Bear Hunt," Spirit, 11 (l84l), pp. 499- 500; "Bob Herring, the Arkansas Bear Hunter," in William T. Porter, ed., Colonel Thorpe's Scenes in Arkansas (Phila­ delphia: T.B. Peterson & Bros., 1858), pp. 130-145.

30 See Daniel G. Hoffman, "Folklore in Literature: A Symposium," Journal of American Folklore, 70 (1957)» p. 20: 97

"The characteristic American attitude toward Nature is epitomized here, in the fabulously fertile soil of Arkansas, the prodigious strength and cunning of the beast, the in­ tractable persistence of the hunter, and the dream-like ease which he wins his goal— subjection of the most terrifying power in Nature."

31 J.A. Leo Lemay, "The Text, Tradition, and Themes of 'The Big Bear of Arkansas'," American Literature, 47 (1975)» p. 328.

32 Ibid., p. 332.

Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, p. 484.

34 "The Disgraced Scalp-Lock," Spirit, 12 (1842), p. 229. Chapter V

"Drunk with the Chase":

The Savage Hunting Impulse in Francis Parkman's

The Oregon Trail and Herman Melville*s Moby-Dick

98 99

Francis Parkman and Herman Melville both perceived the

savage hunting ethos connec.ted with the American westering

impulse. In 1849, Parkman published The California and

Oregon Trail, the book-length collection of his articles

serialized in The Knickerbocker. Two years later, Melville 2 brought out Moby-Dick, or The Whale. Parkman's book was a

travelogue, a chronicling of his own wilderness education, 3 his western adventures during a trip in 1846. In Moby-Dick,

Melville drew heavily on his own knowledge of sea lore, and

on extant whaling accounts, but essentially he wrote a novel

about Ishmael's perceptions of Captain Ahab's relentless 4 pursuit of the white whale. Although the action occurred

on the seas, Melville's novel contained frequent allusions 5 to hunting in the American West. Both The Oregon Trail and Moby-Dick eventually reduced to colossal hunts, fraught with all the ritual decorum and sharkish savagery attending the activity of hunting. Both authors viewed the American confrontation with nature as part of a timeless, biological condition of universal warfare as manifested in cannibalism, 6 sharkishness, greed, survival, and the savage urge to hunt.

The intellectual connection between The Oregon Trail and Moby-Dick was due to more than their philosophical congruence. Melville reviewed Parkman*s book for Evert

Duyckinck's The Literary World on March 31» 1849, shortly 7 before he began writing Moby-Dick. In this review, an unsigned one entitled "Mr. Parkman's Tour," Melville 100 complained about the geographical inaccuracy of Parkman*s 8 title and chided him for derogatory remarks on the Indians.

But in the third section of the review, Melville reversed

his tone in order to admire the hunting aspects of The

Oregon Trail. "We have found one fault with the title," he

wrote, "and another with the matter of the book; this done,

the unpleasantness of fault-finding is done; and gladly we

turn." (p. 291.)

And gladly did Melville turn to this more congenial

section of the review. The warmth of Melville's praise

betrayed his earlier criticisms of the title and the low

treatment of Indians. Clearly it was the exotic, romantic,

gory, and Dionysian elements of The Oregon Trail which

interested the future author of Moby-Dick. After comparing

the adventurers to sailors setting sail for sea, Melville recommended the volume very highly to his civilized readers:

But he who desires to throw himself un­ reservedly into all the perilous charm of prairie life; to camp out by night in the wilderness, standing guard against prowling Indians and wolves; to ford rivers and creeks, to hunt buffalo, and kill them at full gallop in the saddle, and afterwards banquet on delectable roasted "hump-ribs"; to lodge with Indian warriors in their villages, and receive the hospitality of polite squaws in brass and vermilion; to hear of wars and rumors of wars among the hostile tribes of savages; to listen to the wildest and most romantic little tales of the border and wilderness life; in short, he who desires to quit Broadway and the Bowery — though only in fancy— for the region of wampum and calumet, the land of beavers and buffaloes, birch canoes and "smoked buckskin shirts," will do well to read Mr. Parkman*s book. (p. 292.) 101

Melville posited, in effect, could any contemplative

Ishmael upon reading such an advertisement for the savage

life fail to stir from Manhattan and the Battery to seek

solace for his hypos on prairies, watery or grassed? In

The Oregon Trail, the fortunate reader would meet on the

plains the archetypal American hunter, Henry Chatillon,

for whom, Melville claimed, "we feel a fresh and unbounded

love," (p. 292.) "Long live and hunt Henry Chatillon!"

toasted Melville, "May his good rifle never miss fire; and where he roves through the prairies, may the buffalo forever

abound!" {p. 292.) Following that apostrophe of affection,

Melville chose from "numerous fine and dashing descriptive

chapters" a long passage from the chapter entitled "The

Buffalo Hunt." In that passage, Parkman, "drunk with the chase," pursued and finally slaughtered a yearling bull.

The passage ended with the sated hunters encamped near a river listening to "the hoarse bellowing of the buffalo, like the ocean beating upon a distant coast." (OT, 390-396.)

One critic wrote that Melville's review showed that he had

"obviously read Mr. Parkman*s book with care and relish.

It apparently confirmed in him an already long-standing commitment to the literary West, and supplied a few topics 9 for further meditation." As Moby-Dick graphically illustrated, a major topic for future meditation was the rapacious relationship between the American and his wilder­ ness environment. 102

Both The Oregon Trail and Moby-Dick depicted frontier

existence as savage and the wilderness inhabitants as very

predatory. Philanthropy found rough riding in both books.

"No man is a philanthropist on the prairie," Parkman

declared. (OT, 170.) He desired to see the Sioux at war

at any cost: "My philanthropy at that time was no match

for my curiosity." (OT, 159.) Despite the genuine good-

samaritan deeds of Queequeg, the record of the Pequod's

crew was hardly one of charity. The crew and captain alike

engaged in sustained acts of savagery, following some

ingrained, predatory self-interest. Even Queequeg, the

most highly touted of Melville's primitives, was not above 10 nor apart form sharkish behavior. If the isolatoes and

Indians aboard the Pequod were to join in any brotherhood,

it was not so much one of democracy or racial equality as

one of a communal assault upon the forces of nature. The

grim hunt preempted every other human concern. Ahab's

cruel derision at cries for help in the gam with the Rachel

capped this voyage of vengeance and commercial slaughter.

(MD, 433-4-36.)

The theory of universal cannibalism and environmental warfare deeply impressed both writers. If Melville had

ignored the bulk of Parkman*s narrative (a highly unlikely

occurrence), he could not have helped but triply underscore the incident and sentiments on page 321 of The Oregon Trail.

Parkman had stopped riding near a deep, clear pool. While 103

he was resting, he noticed some fish swimming about:

A shoal of little fishes of about a pin's length were playing in it, sporting to­ gether, as it seemed, very amicably; but on closer observation, I saw that they were engaged in cannibal warfare among themselves. Now and then one of them would fall a victim, and disappear down the maw of his conqueror.

Which observation drove Parkman to declare: "Soft-hearted

philanthropists may sigh long for their peaceful millenium;

for, from minnows to men, life is incessant war," (OT, 321.)

Compare Parkman's assertion to the following passage from

"The Brit" chapter of Moby-Dick to see Melville's close

adherence to the same creed:

Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on the eternal war since the world began. (MD» 235-236.)

At that point Ishmael was speculating on the creatures of

the sea. Yet as throughout Moby-Dick the ocean mirrored

the land, Melville's parable echoed Parkman's dictum about minnows and men.

In The Oregon Trail and Moby-Dick, men carried on the

etrnal warfare against the creatures of nature by means of the hunt. For both books, the activity of the hunt provided the structure and the dynamic; the prospects of the hunt 104 drew the readers through long matters of description, especially in Moby-Dick. Although the prime reason for the hunting differed in each book — Parkman hunted mainly for sport, occasionally for meat, whereas the crew and captain of the Pequod slaughtered for commerce and eventually hunted one whale grimly— the spirit, the psychology, and often the process were the same. The hunt in both books sought a consummatory kill in a determined and harsh manner, a raping of the resources of nature. As critic Newton Arvin wrote of this tendency:

It is no accident that Ahab, as a whale-hunter, represents one of the great, exploitative, wasteful, predatory industries of the nine­ teenth century; from this point of view the Whale embodies nothing so much as the normally innocent and indifferent forces of wild nature — the forests, the soil, the animal life of land and sea— that nineteenth-century man was bent upon raping to his own egotistic ends.11

Similarities in the aspects of hunting ran through both works. "Thar she blows! *’ cried upon sighting a whale, echoed the "gladdening cry of buffalo! buffalo!" on the prairies. (OT, 388.) Melville compared Ahab and his har- pooneers to prairie wolves trailing bison. (MD, 145.) The practice of "drugging," where harpooned whales were left flagged and floating until they could be butchered, resembled nothing so much as mass buffalo slaughter. (MD, 326.)

Capt. Sleet, the inventor of the crow’s nest, kept a rifle aloft for "popping off stray narwhales," much the same as buffalo hunters picked off stragglers. (MD, 138.) When Henry Chatillon killed a buffalo, he started the "bloody work of dissection, slashing away with the science of a

connoisseur." {OT, 89.) With equal vigor and art, the

crew of the Pequod stripped and "cut in" on the hanging whale. Parkman's sketches of the Sioux feasting after a

successful hunt parallelled similar portraits of the whalers in "The Try-Works" chapter. "Late into the night," wrote Parkman, "the fires were still glowing upon the groups of feasters engaged in the savage banquet around them." (OT, 26l.) The Indians, as well as the whalers, practiced bloody manners. "The faces of most of them besmeared with blood from ear to ear, looked grim and horrible enough," Parkman remarked. (OT, 248.) Indeed,

Ishmael informed the reader, the harpooneer snatched up his weapon "as readily from its reast as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from the wall." (MD, 246-247.)

The quarries hunted down in both books bore certain resemblances. Whale and buffalo alike had humps, great bulk, and adamantine brows. Save the occasional misan­ thropic old bull or whale, both species were gregarious animals, roaming in large armadas. Both species exhibited a timid or indifferent demeanor, but would charge the man when shot at or lanced. When captured or killed, both were sliced up immediately for their choice hump cuts, and, if time allowed, preserved and butchered for all possible utility: whale oil, perfume, corsets, from the whale, skins, 106

marrow butter, and even fire fuel from the buffalo. As

important as their commercial bounty was the psychological

invitation that both species extended to the American hunter

instinct. Docility invited aggression, and yet enough very

real danger attended the hunt to start free flows of heat

and adrenalin even in imperturbable whalers like Stubb.

As recent environmental history has tragically shown, the

supposition by Ishmael that the whale would escape the

"speedy extinction" which had just driven the buffalo from

Illinois and Missouri proved erroneous. Both were avatars

of the wilderness that nineteenth-century America was set

on subduing. (MD, 383-385.)

Nearly all of the characters in both books caught the contagiousness of the chase, Ahab, his harpooneers, his mates, and his oarsmen in Moby-Dick, and Parkman, Henry

Chatillon, and Quincy Shaw in The Oregon Trail, all relished the promised furor of the hunt. Even the most contemplative person in either book, Ishmael, succumbed to the thrill of the chase, pulled his oar to the last. If one part of his nature "has an antiquarian glint," critic Walter Bezanson reminded us, "another glows with love of action"*

Each cry from the masthead alerts him from dreamy speculation to the zest of the hunt. Every lowering away starts his blood pounding. He is a superb narrator of the frenzied strivings of the boat crew as they press in for the kill, chanting their terror and competence as they enter "the charmed, churned circle" of eternity. When the death-deed is done, when the whirl slowly widens, he takes 107

up the song of dismemberment. For the weapons of the chase, the red tools of slaughter, the facts of procedure, he has an insatiable curiosity. Cutting in, trying out, stowing down — the whole butcher-slab routine of processing the dead whale he endows with ritual certainty, transforming dirty jobs into acts of ceremonial dignity. Ishmael's voice translates the laughter and wild deeds of the bloody crew into the ordered rites of primitive tribal priests.

Orderly rites and disorderly practices accompanied 13 the bloody deeds in both works. The hunt attained an aura of intoxication. On the quarter-deck, Ahab solemnized the whale's pursuit with measures of grog circulated among the men. (MD, 1^3-1^5«) Parkman witnessed heavy drinking Ik on the prairie, but deleted it from his book. Yet even without alcoholic influence, the act of hunting possessed intoxicating ability and infectious dynamism. Parkman stressed this power over and over: "And ill as I was, there was something very animating in the prospect of the general hunt that was to take place on the morrow"; "I was drunk with the chase and cared for nothing but the buffalo";

"Neither I nor my horse were at that time fit for such sport, and I had determined to remain a spectator; but amid the rush of horses and buffalo, the uproar and the dust, I found it impossible to sit still"; "In the blindness of the chase.... In the recklessness of the chase, the hunter enjoys all the impunity of a drunken man...." (OT, 252,

392, 259» 387.) Parkman described the feeling in fuller fashion: 108

Indeed, of all American wild sports this is the wildest. Once among the buffalo, the hunter, unless long use has made him familiar with the situation, dashes forward in utter recklessness and self-abandonment. He thinks of nothing, cares for nothing but the game: his mind is stimulated to the highest pitch, yet intensely concentrated on one object. In the midst of the flying herd, where the uproar and the dust are the thickest, it never wavers for a moment; he drops the rein and abandons his horse to his furious career; he levels his gun, the report sounds faint amid the thunder of the buffalo; and when his wounded enemy leaps in vain fury upon him, his heart thrills with a feeling like the fierce delight of a battlefield. (OT, 38^—385•)

The whale-hunts in Moby-Dick engendered similar frenzied

feelings in the hunter's heart. Compare Parkman*s passage

to Ishmael's sea-level view in "The First Lowering" chapter:

It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made... the brief suspended agony of the boat... the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side; — all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps from the oarsmen... — all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man's ghost encountering the first unknown phantom in the other world; — neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale. (MD, 193.)

Through the dust or through the spray, the American hunter furiously pursued the prey with little thought for himself or for the environment. Parkman's The Oregon Trail and

Melville's Moby-Dick were fine documents of the savage urge 109

to hunt in nineteenth-century America. If, as one recent

critic suggested, Parkman "flinched from" and Melville

"yielded to" savage blandishments, they both agreed in

their pessimistic outlook on the future of the American wildernessParkman*s youthful enthusiasm for the hunt wore away, and by the time of the 1892 edition of The

Oregon Trail, Parkman had come to lament the passing of the buffalo from the West. Through the savage urge to hunt, Americans had succeeded all too well in subduing the wilderness, benign or malign, symbolized by the whale and the buffalo. 110

NOTES

1 Francis Parkman, Jr., The California and Oregon Traili Being Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life (New York* George P. Putnam, 1849); all references are to this first edition and will he incorporated within text in parentheses, the page number(s) following the symbol OT. Parkman published segments of the book in The Knickerbocker from February, 1847, to February, 1849. 2 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, eds. Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker (New York: Norton, 1967); all references are to this edition and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses, the page number(s) following the symbol MD.

3 See Joseph L. Tribble, "The Paradise of the Imagi­ nation: The Journeys of The Oregon Trail," New England Quarterly, 46 (1973)» pp. 523-5^2. Tribble suggested that ParkmarPs tour was not just a physical one, but also a psychological one. (p. 525*) Tribble also noted the large influence of the pioneering spirit in Parkman's book: "The essence of the pioneer spirit is to confront Wilderness, to test itself against nature, to push beyond the boundaries of civilized life; as Parkman suggests both in the book it­ self and in prefaces to its various editions, The Oregon Trail is structured around his quest to confront untouched Nature for perhaps the last time, before either his own physical infirmities or the onrush of American civilization made the search impossible." (p. 526.)

4 This chapter prefers to view Moby-Dick as a novel about the West and the savage urge tonunt, but does not mean to suggest that that is the only meaning to the book. The questions of Melville's quarrel with God, or with Transcendentalism, or racial issues, or cetological matters, or other classical literary influences on Melville are not in the scope of this chapter.

5 Edwin Fussell contended that there were in Moby-Dick "almost more allusions to the West than to whaling." Fussell, Frontier: American Literature and the American West (Prince- ton: Princeton University Press, 1965)» p. 259. £Tso furthering the Western tone of Moby-Dick was the frequency of prairie/ocean imagery, of "watery pastures." (MD, 150.) Ill 6 Both authors viewed experience in the wilderness as healthy education. Parkman wrote in his autobiography* "If any pale student glued to his desk here seek an apology for a way of life whose natural fruit is that pallid and emascu­ late scholarship of which New England has had too many examples, it will be far better that this sketch had not been written. For the student, there is, in its season, no better place than the saddle, and no better companion than the rifle or the oar." Parkman, Autobiography (1868), Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 8, p. 1353; rpt. in Bartlett*s Familiar Quotations (Boston* Little, Brown, 1955)# P» 62b. Likewise, Ishmael claimed the whale- ship as his Harvard and Yale. (MD, 101.)

7 "Mr. Parkman's Tour," The Literary World, 31 March 184-9, pp. 291-293. Other references will be incorporated within the text within parentheses. 8 Critics have enlisted this review as support of Melville's longing for "sociality" and democratic brother­ hood. See Reginald E. Watters, "Melville's 'Sociality'," American Literature, 17 (194-5)# p. 35; William Braswell, Melville *s Religious Thought (Durham* Duke University Press, 194-3). p . 17; and ParkmanT The Letters of Francis Partanan, ed. Wilbur R. Jacobs (Norman* University of Oklahoma Press, I960), I, p. xlix. This critical view probably over­ estimates Melville's belief in his statements about Parkman, for certainly the record of the crew of the Pequod displayed minimal brotherhood and maximal savagery, if not toward each other, certainly toward the avatars of nature.

9 Fussell, Frontier, p. 24-9. 10 See Robert H. Zoeliner, The Salt-Sea Mastodon. A Reading of Moby-Dick (Berkeley and Los Angeles* University of dalifomia Press, 1973)# chap. XI.

11 Newton Arvin, Herman Melville (New York* William Sloane Associates, 1950), PP. 151-193; rpt. Hayford and Parker, eds., Moby-Dick as Doubloon (New York* Norton, 1970), pp. 196-220. Quote is from p. 217. 12 Walter Bezanson, "Moby-Dick* Work of Art,” in Moby- Dick Centennial Essays, eds., Tyrus Hillway and Luther S, 112

Mansfield (Dallas* Southern Methodist University Press, 1953)* rpt, in Howard P, Vincent, ed., Studies in Moby-Dick (Columbus, Ohio* Charles E, Merrill, 1969J* pp. 07-103. Quote is from pp. 90-91.

13 See Hoffman, Form and Fable in American Fiction, p. 229.

14- See Parkman, The Journals of Francis Parkman, 2 vols,, ed. Mason Wade (New York* tfarper, 1947)* II. p. 38?.

15 Harold Beaver, "Parkman*s Crack-Up* A Bostonian on the Oregon Trail," New England Quarterly, 4-8 (1975)» P* 92. Chapter VI

"Chaplain to the Hunters":

Henry David Thoreau*s Ambivalence toward Hunting

113 114

Another New Englander, Henry David Thoreau, noted the savage urge to hunt closer to home in himself and his neighbors. Throughout the duration of his intense pre­ occupation with nature and the wilderness, Thoreau main­ tained an ambivalent attitude toward hunting and hunters.

His published works and his private journals reflected his 1 vacillation over savagery. The ambiguity derived from

Thoreau*s indulgence of primitive acts and sentiments and his espousal of an ascetic spiritualism. He was unable to resolve his divergent sympathies for the wild and the good. Other literary men such as Emerson described Thoreau as a St. Francis of Assissi, neither killing nor eating 2 animal flesh. Near the turn of the century, wildlife conservation groups followed Emerson's lead and abstracted 3 from Thoreau's thought support for anti-hunting campaigns.

More recently, biological ecologists, pantheistic pacifists, wildlife preservation advocates, and other environmental activists have all adopted Thoreau as their patron saint 4 and spiritual foster-father. Such outlooks have ignored the vigorously primordial side of Thoreau's writings, an aspect which modem literary critics such as James McIntosh 5 have begun to discover. In his times, Thoreau experienced intellectual anguish over the question of killing animals.

Essentially a primitive act with spiritual potential, hunting both stimulated and disturbed Thoreau*s moral ideas about environmental confrontation. 115

The most readily accessible, and perhaps most dramatic evidence of Thoreau*s ambivalence toward hunting appeared in the "Higher Laws" chapter of Walden (185*0. In the course of thirteen pages, Thoreau managed to defend, recommend, and denigrate hunting, and to propose the idea of vegetarianism. The chapter attempted to reconcile the dichotomy in an evolutionary manner* hunting is a necessary introduction to nature, but the finer instincts of the poet-naturalist must supplant baser emotions, and an ascetic, fleshless diet must replace one of flesh. Yet

Thoreau seemed unconvinced by his own argument* he always was on the brink of backsliding from his moral pinnacle.

The "Higher Laws" chapter started with a startling confession. Thoreau admitted thrilling to the savage urge within himself*

As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it now being quite dark, J. caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt s strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw* not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he repre­ sented. Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking some kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The wildest scenes had^ become unaccountably familiar. (II, 232.)°

The images of the passage and the mention of "abandonment" placed Thoreau alongside Parkman galloping through the buffalo herd. In two earlier instances in Walden, Thoreau had experienced similar temptation, and had once succumbed* 116

“Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which

ravaged my bean-field, — effect his transmigration, as a

Tartar would say, — and devour him, partly for experiment's

sake." (II, 66.) The other time had occurred when Thoreau,

inspired by martial music, "looked around for a woodchuck

or a skunk to exercise my chivalry on." (II, 177.) In the

"Higher Laws" chapter, Thoreau amplified the woodchuck

incident into a nearly epiphanous recognition of his savage

instinct. This awareness drove him to confess his divided

tendency toward the spiritual and the primtive*

I found in myself and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good. (II, 232.)

As one critic wrote of the woodchuck incident, "The disturb­

ing image conveys the full paradox of Thoreau*s relationship with nature where the violent rush of natural appetite lays bare the predatory creature hidden beneath Nature's bene- 7 ficent surface."

Thoreau followed that admission of wildness in himself with praise for the virtues of hunting. To his own hunting when he was young, Thoreau owed his close acquaintance with nature. Hunting introduced and detained the boy in scenery that he might have foregone for civilized pursuits. The hunter, Thoreau asserted, may be a better observer of nature than the poet or the philosopher* 117

Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature them­ selves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation,,,. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or in­ stinctively, (II, 232-233.)

Hunting provided primitive and satisfying amusement for a youth* "Almost every New England boy among my contemporaries shouldered a fowling-piece between the ages of ten and four­ teen" in preserves "more boundless even than those of a savage." Thoreau noted here that hunters were showing some concern about "an increased scarcity of game," and he spec­ ulated that "perhaps the hunter is the greatest friend of the animals hunted, not excepting the Humane Society," (II,

233.) Thoreau here anticipated the rhetoric of every modern hunters* association and many wildlife conservation groups,

Then, after discussing his necessity for fishing,

Thoreau sounded his first disconcerting note about shooting.

He remarked that he had "long felt differently about fowl­ ing, and sold my gun before I went to the woods," (II, 23^.)

Before he sold the gun, he had employed it in collecting specimens for bird study*

As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention to the 118

habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun. (II, 234.)

That reasoning seemingly contradicted the statement that

he made a page before about hunter's being in a better

position to appreciate nature. In the next sentence, he

rapidly returned to recommending hunting as valuable

natural education for a youthi

Yet notwithstanding the objection on the score of humanity, I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports are ever sub­ stituted for these; and when some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have answered, yes, — remembering that it was one of the best parts of my education,— make them hunters, though sportsmen only at first, if possible, mighty hunters at last, so that they shall not find game large enough for them in this or any vegetable wilderness, --hunters as well as fishers of men.... There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when the hunters are the "best men," as the Algonquins called them. We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect to those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they should soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does. (II, 234-235.) Thoreau continued, warning that his "sympathies do not always make the usual phil-anthropic distinctions," viewing hunting as a necessary individual and cultural precondition

to a finer appreciation of the wilderness. (II, 235.)

On the next page, Thoreau speculated that even by

fishing he was 'falling a little in self-respect." But 119 shortly thereafter, he cautioned the reader and himself:

"I see that if I were to live in a wilderness I should

again be tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest.”

(II, 236.) In the same breath, he launched his argument

against eating animals: "There is something essentially

unclean about this diet and all flesh.... The practical

objection to animal food was its uncleanness.” (II, 236-

237.) Furthermore animal food did not agree with the

imagination:

The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more beautiful to live low and fare hard in many respects; and though I never did so, I went far enough to please my imagination. (II» 237.)

Thoreau went on, urging upon man a spare, hard diet with no meat, reproaching man for being a carnivorous animal, and believing that whatever his own practice, it was part of a gradual improvement of the human race to leave off eating meat. As to whatever was his own practice, Thoreau was shockingly blunt: "Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary." (II, 24-0.) The possible return, or retrogression to wildness kept lurking at the outskirts of Thoreau's thought. Likewise the fare of the gourmet stirred up his disgust:

If the hunter has a taste for mud-turtles, muskrats, and other such savage tidbits, the fine lady indulges in a taste for jelly made of a calf's foot, or for sardines from over the sea, and they are even. He goes 120

to the mill-pond, she to her preserve- pot. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking. (II, 24-1.)

To Thoreau at this point, hunting seemed a quintessentially

despicable practice. This moral vacillation, sometimes

from page to page, even from sentence to sentence, char­

acterized Thoreau*s larger wavering on the position of

natural man in society.

The ultimate upshot of the "Higher Laws” chapter was

attainment of an awareness of the beast within the man.

"We are conscious of an animal in us," Thoreau wrote, "which

awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is

reptile and sensual.... Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature." (II, 242.) Note the marked

contrast between this observation and an exuberant comment

made ten pages previous: "I like sometimes to take rank

hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do."

(II, 232.) This beast, Thoreau concluded, must be repressed.

"Nature is hard to overcome," he declared, "but she must be

overcome." (II, 244.) That Nature to be overcome was, as

McIntosh listed, "the natural man in us, the man of sloth, greed, and sexual desire, who vegetates in idleness, sees himself eating fried rats and raw woodchucks, and indulges 8 in sexual fantasies." Hunting, Thoreau postulated in

Walden, was a necessary introduction to the natural man, the beast within, who must be harnessed and guided to a more spiritual awareness of the wilderness. Hunting for 121

meretricious sport or base survival was a wanton, murderous

act? hunting must instruct the sentient man of his place in

the natural universe.

In addition to the "Higher Laws” chapter in Walden,

two of Thoreau*s other major published works displayed his

equivocal stance toward hunting. A Week on the Concord and

Merrimack Rivers (184-9)• a poetic documentation of a boat excursion taken ten years earlier by Thoreau and his brother, John, touched on hunting at times in intervals between the long passages of description and philosophical discourse. Early in the volume, Thoreau declared himself for wildnessi "There is in my nature, methinks, a singular yearning for wildness.” (I, 5^«) Art must conform to his vision* "There are other savager and more primeval aspects of nature than our poets have sung.” (I, 56.) Similarly, two years after the trip of 1839» Thoreau proclaimed in a letter* ”1 grow savager and savager every day, as if fed on raw meat, and my tameness is only the repose of untame- 9 ableness." The young Thoreau clearly chose the instincts of the hunter over those of the husbandman. The amenifcies of the garden, he wrote, were "essentially different from that of the hunter and forest life, and neither can dis­ place the other without loss," (I, 54-.) For Thoreau, there was something "vulgar and foul” about the farmer's familiarity with his land.” (I, 56.) The "heroic spirit will not fail to dream of remoter retirements and more 122

rugged paths.” (If 55.) By practicing "those more vene­

rable arts of hunting and fishing," Thoreau hoped to

approximate the heroic spirit.

Thoreau's enthusiasm encountered a severe test in an

incident related in the chapter entitled "Tuesday." Coming

upon a flock of gently cooing pigeons, Thoreau and his

brother shot one, and they prepared it for supper. The

deed set Henry speculating*

It is true, it did not seem to be putting this bird to its right use to pluck off its feathers, and extract its entrails, and broil its carcass on the coals* but we heroically persevered, nevertheless, waiting for further information. The same regard for Nature which excited our sympathy for her creatures nerved our hands to carry through what we had begun. For we would be honorable to the party we deserted* we would fulfill fate, and so at length, per­ haps, detect the secret innocence of these incessant tragedies which Heaven allows. (I# 236.)

Detecting perhaps not only some secret innocence, but also

some blatant evil, Thoreau realized his moral dilemma in the next sentence* "We are double-edged blades, and every

time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice."

(I, 235.) Then he rationalized his cruelty to the beasts, pointing to nature's own heedlessness*

Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement?..We do not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives. They must perish miserably* not one of them is translated. True "not a sparrow 123

falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father's knowledge," but they do fall, nevertheless. (I, 236*237.)

But then in the succeeding paragraph, Thoreau performed a

moral about-face and castigated himself for killing some

squirrels. He abandoned disgustedly the "skinned and

emboweled" carcasses. To have eaten their "small red

bodies, little bundles of red tissue, mere gobbets of

venison," would have been perpetuating "the practice of a

barbarous era." (I, 237.) Now for Thoreau, hunting, at

the killing of small mammals, was a miserable, not a

venerable art. Thoreau remained troubled by his dilemma

of who received the moral blame in an act of killing* the

man slaying, or nature, or our Heavenly Father?

In The Maine Woods (1864), a posthumous collection of

hitherto published accounts of Thoreau's wilderness treks

to Maine in 1846, 1853, and 1857. he again exhibited his vacillation about the hunter's life and actions. In the

third essay, "The Allegash and East Branch," he praised

the enviable life of the wilderness hunter*

How much more respectable also is the life of the solitary pioneer or settler in these, or any woods, — having real difficulties, not of his own creation, drawing his sub­ sistence directly from nature,— than that of the helpless multitudes in the towns. (Ill, 269-270.)

But the most manifest sampling of mixed emotions arose in connection with a moose-hunting venture described in the

"Chesuncook" essay. At the outset, Thoreau took pains to 12^ define his role in the hunt:

Though I had not come a-hunting, and felt some compunction ahout accompanying the hunters, I wished to see a moose near at hand, and was not sorry to learn how the Indian managed to kill one. I went as reporter or chaplain to the hunters,— and the chaplain has been known to carry a gun himself. (Ill, 109-110.)

Occupying a precarious moral position, Thoreau allowed his

curiosity to overcome his compunction. He went with the

hunters, watched the tracking and killing with the detach­

ment of an expert, and offered his usual torrent of scien­

tific speculation. After the kill, he helped drag the dead

moose from the stream. Witnessing the skinning, however,

Thoreau shuddered:

A tragical business it was,— to see that still warm and palpitating body pierced with a knife, to see the warm milk stream from the rent udder, and the ghastly naked red carcass appearing from within its seemly robe, which was made to hide it. (Ill, 128.)

Yet the next page found Thoreau dining on that very car­

cass, which had so disenchanted him. "We had fried moose meat for supper,” he wrote, "It tastes like tender beef, with perhaps more flavor,— sometimes like veal." (Ill,

130.)

If Thoreau's palate was satisfied, his conscience was not soothed by remembrances of the moose. His guilty feelings accumulated and compelled him to reflect in earnest on the true aims of hunting: 125 On more accounts than one, I had had enough of moose-hunting.... The afternoon's tragedy, and my share in it, as it affected innocence, destroyed the pleasure of my adventure. It is true, I came as near as is possible to being a hunter and miss it, myself* and as it is, I think that I could spend a year in the woods, fishing and hunting just enough to sustain myself, with satisfaction. This would be next to living like a philosopher on the fruits of the earth which you had raised, which also attracts me. But this hunting of the moose merely for the satisfaction of killing him, not even for the sake of his hide,— without making extraordinary exertion or running any risk yourself, is too much like going out by night to some woodside pasture and shooting your neighbor's horses. These are God's own horses, poor, timid creatures.,,. It is no better, at least than to assist at a slaughter-house. (Ill, 132-133*)

What Thoreau found repulsive was the spiritual meaningless

killing for sport. Hunting, as a direct, life-sustaining

process, still appealed to him, but promiscuous slaughter did not. Equally appalling to Thoreau were mercenary motives in hunters. He condemned the white and Indian hunters, "whose object is to slay as many moose as possible."

The wilderness surely could inspire "employments perfectly sweet and innocent and ennobling." Yet Thoreau could read the writing on the historical wall* "For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse and imperfect use Indians and hunters make of naturel" (III# 133*)

Recoiling from these barbarities, Thoreau retreated to solitude and pronounced the verdict upon himself* "Nature looked sternly upon me on account of the murder of the 126 moose." (Ill, 134*.) The violent deeds that he had just

observed inspired in Thoreau a newfound reverence for life.

"Every creature is better alive than dead," he declared,

"men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it." (Ill,

135.) Throughout the remainder of the essay, Thoreau kept that outlook and disdainfully commented on the tendency to kill more animals than were necessary. (Ill, 14-3-14-4-, 14*9-

150.) He ended the essay with a plea for national pre­ serves where man could come for innocent appreciation of the animals, "for inspiration and our own true recreation."

(Ill, 173.) In these parks, which would contain bears, panthers, and even some hunters, hunting would transcend idle sport and shooting for food.

Thus Thoreau in 1853 espoused his idea for a peaceable kingdom, where the wild mammals would still exist. About that same time, in Walden, he lamented the loss of the larger, nobler mammals around Concords "It looked as if

Nature no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods, but stood on her last toes," (II, 310.) As we have seen, divergent sympathies informed Walden; it is debatable what the demise of the big beasts meant to Thoreau* a loss of innocence, or a loss of savage wildness, or paradoxically both. This ambivalence, which Thoreau was never able to resolve, resonated throughout his published writings. 12?

Thoreau's journals, long compendiums of thorough nature

notations and scientific description, interspersed with

editorial social comment, also reflected his ambiguity

about hunting. As Thoreau built his major books from his

journal entries, it is not surprising to find the same

incertitude about killing animals recurring in the journals.

Over the years, Thoreau continually reassessed his opinions

about various local hunters and their bloody practice.

The journals showed that Thoreau, far from shrinking

away from the hunting and hunters in his neighborhood, kept

abreast of who was shooting what when and where. He made

repeated notations of the following type* "Saw Goodwin

this afternoon returning from the river with two minks, one 10 trapped, the other shot, and half a dozen muskrats,"

Along with recording the minutiae of nature, Thoreau acted

as a local repository for hunting lore. George Minott,

Concord's aged hunter and raconteur, seemed to have groomed

Thoreau as his successor. Of Minott, Thoreau wrote on

February 29, 1856, "He loves to recall his hunting days and adventures, and I willingly listen to the stories he has 11 told me half a dozen times already." Knowing of Thoreau's

intense curiosity about animals, several local hunters brought him shot specimens of unusual, or even the usual fauna, for his perusal. For example, on April 24, 1856,

Thoreau recorded that "Goodwin shot, about 6 P.M., and 12 brought to me a cinereous coot (Fulica Americana)...." 128

In his intellectual endeavors and his reading, sacred activity to Thoreau, he included hooks and myths about hunting. Thoreau cited approvingly R. Gordon Cumming's

Five Years of a Hunter*s Life in the Far Interior of South

Africa (1850), on December 30» 18$0, mentioned reading

Frank Forester's Manual for Young Sportsmen (1856) on July

12, 1855» and on February 21, 186l, he quoted disapprov­ ingly from William Elliott's Carolina Snorts by Land and 13 Water (184-6). Thoreau was equally cognizant of hunting fable and mythology. Discussing the marvels of antlered animals, he once told a fable of hunters shooting cherry pits at their game, which sprouted cherry trees as antlers and refreshed the hunters. "It is a perfect piece of 14- mythology which belongs to these days," he mused. Diana and Apollo, goddess and god of the chase, apparently were 15 among Thoreau's favorite classical deities. At times, he compared contemporary hunters to men of myth. Goodwin was

"a one-eyed Ajax," and a hunter in the Maine woods Thoreau 16 sarcastically likened to Hercules.

In his journals, Thoreau generally praised hunting, if it was inspiring or ennobling in aim and result. On July

7, 184-0, he wrote, "I have experienced such simple joy in the trivial matters of fishing and sporting, formerly, as 17 might inspire the muse of Homer or Shakespeare," Some eighteen years later, he confessed to deeper sensations 1 129

I hear the guns going to-day, and I confess they are to me a spring-like and exhilarating sound, like cock-crowing, though each one may report the death of a musquash. This, me- thinks, or the like of this, with whatever mixture of dross, is the real morning or evening hymn that goes up from these vales to-day, and which the stars echo. This is the hest sort of glorifying of God and enjoy­ ing him that at all prevails here to-day, without any clarified butter or sacred ladles.10

What Thoreau did find to deplore about hunting was when the hunter approached the game with less than this reverent attitude, when he sought it for the purposes of "inhumane science," wanton slaughter, or coarse profit.

Thoreau's attitude about hunting for scientific aims presented another curious quirk in his ambivalence. His eulogizers to the contrary, Thoreau did shoot or capture some of his specimens. But he remained troubled by the morality of his ends. "The inhumanity of science concerns me," he wrote on May 28, 185^» "as when I am tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species. I feel that 19 this is not the means of acquiring true knowledge." Three months later he again begged for absolution!

I have just been through the process of killing a cistudo for the sake of science? but I cannot excuse myself for this murder, and see that such actions are inconsistent with the poetic perception, however they may serve science, and will affect the quality of my observations. I pray that I may walk more innocently and serenely through nature. No reasoning whatever reconciles me to this act. It affects my day injuriously. I have lost some self- respect. I have a murderer's experience in a degree.20 130 Yet Thoreau gladly accepted freshly-killed animals for

study and submitted to his journal pages of notation about

them. On April 6 , 1855» wishing he might find a duck shot

by sportsmen, he found a dead goosander (Mergus merganser) 21 and wrote three pages of enthralled description.

The entry for April 22, 1856, recorded* ”1 buy a male musk­

rat of Goodwin, just killed.” Two pages of comment fol- 22 lowed. Mere proof of wildness agitated Thoreau's pen.

On a trip to Vermont in I 856, he wrote, ”The most interest­

ing sight I saw in Brattleboro was the skin and skull of a

panther.” Three pages of panther lore and notation ensued?^

Four years later, the sight of a Canada lynx, killed near 24- Concord, elicited a similar response from Thoreau. In

1853» while on the moose-hunt in Maine, he had dutifully

measured and recorded the bloody moose carcass, despite his

disgust for the matter at hand. On the matter of hunting

and science, Thoreau seemed to let his scientific curiosity

override his ethics.

On the moral dimensions of the hunter, Thoreau was

similarly indecisive. He could not settle in his mind whether the hunter was an invigorating hero or a brutish

slaughterer. These were men who responded to the savage

urge to hunt, who perceived the wilderness as fair game

for their booming guns. Thoreau's inward struggle over the hunter's morality compared to the national struggle between progressivist desires and buried cultural guilt. 131 Throughout the journals, Thoreau usually applauded the hunter and derided the farmer. On December 22, 1853, he declaimed, "Sportsmen and loafers are better company** than 25 dull, moralizing farmers. The entry for October 26, 1855» simlarly declared, "I have more taste for the wild sports 26 of hunting, fishing, etc..." than for farming. Constantly

Thoreau feared that the husbandman would usurp the hunter’s

(and Indian’s) habitat and drive that strain of American 27 wildness out of existence.

Yet Thoreau remained indecisive in his estimate of his hunter neighbors. On the one hand he celebrated them*

T am not only grateful because Veias, and Homer, and Christ, and Shakespeare have lived, but I am grateful for Minott, and Rice, and Melvin, and Goodwin, and Puffer even. I see Melvin all alone filling his sphere in russet suit, which no other could fill or suggest. He takes up as much room in nature as the most f a m o u s . 28

On the other hand, these same hunters were savage and primitive for Thoreau. The sight of Goodwin and Haynes hunting prompted once this remark* "How pitiful a man looks about this sportl Haynes reminded me of the Penobscots."

"These men," he jotted five days later, "represent a class which probably exists even in the most civilized community, 29 and allies it to the most savage." These hunters stood for a level of environmental perception which Thoreau had transcended, yet still appreciated. With equal sincerity, 30 Thoreau castigated the same hunters he had lauded. 132 Repeatedly Thoreau discovered coarse motives in the

hunter's actions. With some little indignation on January

23# 1855» he recolected Goodwin wastefully killing a musk­

rat the previous day*

Yesterday I met Goodwin shooting muskrats and saw the form and bloody stains of two through his game bag. He shot such as were close to the shore where he could get them, for he had no dog, the water being too cold, he said. I saw one poor rat lying on the edge of the ice reddened with its blood, half a dozen rods from the shore, which he had shot but was unwilling to wade for.31

Five years later, although Thoreau had praised hunters in the intervening years, the indictment was harsher*

I see a brute with a gun in his hand, standing motionless over a musquash-house which he has destroyed.... There lies the red carcass of one whose pelt he has taken on the spot, flat on the bloody ice. And for his afternoon's cruelty that fellow will be rewarded with a ninepence, perchance. When I consider what are the opportunities of the civilized man for getting ninepences and getting light, chis seems to me more savage than savages a r e .32

For Thoreau, now the fur trade was "a pitiful business," a morally degrading pursuit* "When we see men and boys spending their time shooting and trapping musquash and 33 mink, we cannot but have a poorer opinion of them." Over and over, Thoreau grew incensed about displays of wanton slaughter. On July 16, 1851, he railed, "Some thoughtless and cruel sportsman has killed twenty-two young partridges not much bigger than robins, against the laws of Massa- 34 chusetts and humanity." With grim irony, he repeated a story of a hunter who had avenged himself upon a squirrel, 133

which had distracted the ducks he had been stalking. And

on November 9» 1858, he criticized the indignity of a proud

hawk's body being "delivered up to the children and the 36 dog."

The matter of the hunter's indiscriminate killing

forced Thoreau to ponder the issues of innocence and bar­

barity, "Think what a pitiful kind of life ours is," he

wrote on December 21, 1856, "eating our kindred animalst 37 and in some places one another! Thoreau read as an evil

portent the birds* fear of man, the fact that they allowed

virtually every other animal near them, but not man. For

Thoreau, that proved that man was a beast of prey and not 38 the true lord of creation. He urged man to examine his

conscience, to meditate upon the question of innocence

toward other denizens of nature*

It would be worth the while to ask ourselves weekly, Is our life innocent enough? Do we live inhumanely toward man or beast, in thought or act? To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe. The least conscious and needless injury inflicted on any creature is to its extent a suicide. What peace — or life— can a murderer have?-^

Despite Thoreau's pleas for cosmic innocence, he was no stranger to the ecological cycles of death and decay, birth and growth. His journals abounded with descriptions

of natural destruction. Early in his intellectual career, perhaps when he was still carrying a gun, Thoreau summed up his ecological perspective in an aphorisms "The death of the

flea and the elephant are but phenomena of the life of 134 40 nature.'* The quality of wildness symbolized for Thoreau this more savage side of nature and himself. He continually hungered for wildness or lamented that which had departed his locality. What he noted from William Wood's New Eng­ land's Prospect (1639)* which he read in 1855» was the list

of wilder species which had once inhabited the area around 41 Concord. The next year, Thoreau voiced a more overt lament *

I spend a considerable portion of my time observing the habits of the wild animals, ray brute neighbors.... But when I con­ sider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here, — the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc. etc.,— I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed, and as it were, emasculated country. Would not the motions of those larger and wilder animals have been more significant still? Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature that I am conversant with?42

"I seek acquaintance with Nature," he posited, "to know her moods and manners. Primitive nature is the most interesting 43 to me." The primitive nature that he sought, Thoreau found not only in the wilder animals, but also in the hunter, the man also conversant with nature. At times, Thoreau viewed the hunter as the only true perceiver of nature* "How much more game he will see who carries a gun, i.e., who goes 44 to see it!" This ability was partly due to the hunter's special relationship to his quarry.

Throughout his writings, Thoreau suggested an inter­ change of identity between man and beast. He attributed 135 anthropomorphic qualities to animals and animalistic traits

to men. In Thoreau's descriptions, a grizzly "bear came to

resemble a human being, a muskrat shared kindred mortality

with man, and swans protected two of their wounded as would 4-5 a retreating army. Even homeopathic magic was possible.

"Perchance," Thoreau speculated, the Hottentots by eating

their antelope raw, derived "a certain wild-animal vigor

therefrom, which the most artfully cooked meats do not ti>6 furnish." But the most enticing equation of man and

beast, in Thoreau's estimate, was the man adopting the

thought patterns of the pursued and observed animal.

In his own mode of thinking, Thoreau often slipped into

the manner of the hunted animal. While on the trail of an animal, he gloried in matching wits with the beast. For

instance, after pursuing a fox, Thoreau confided to his

journal on February 5» 185^*

I followed his trail so long that my thoughts grew foxy; though I was on the back track, I drew nearer and nearer to the fox each step. Strange as it may seem, I thought several times that I scented him, though I did not stoop.

Proceeding from that sort of bloodless hunt, it was an easy step for Thoreau to simply remove the animal and sub­ stitute an abstract entity, to elevate all his hunting to a spiritual plane, to ask*

Are there not hunters who seek something higher than foxes, with judgment more dis­ criminating than the senses of fox-hounds, who rally to nobler music than that of the hunting hom?^8 136

Five years later, after mentioning that a score of towns­ men were out shooting and setting traps, Thoreau again posed the rhetorical question!

Am I not a trapper too, early and late scanning the rising flood, ranging by distant woodsides, setting ray traps in solitude, and baiting them as well as I know how, that I may catch life and light, that my intellectual part may taste some venison and be invigorated, that my naked­ ness may be clad in some wild, furry warmth?^9

Along with the thinly-veiled sexual imagery of the last clause, this passage probably phrased best Thoreau's ever constant struggle to infuse a wild activity with some spiritual content, to reconcile two spheres of environmental perception, that of the man acting as the animal in his skin, and that of the man, feeling separate from the beast and thus observing and pursuing him. Hence his relentless search through the realms of natural facti Thoreau always tried, as Emerson posed, to discover the spiritual truth behind the natural fact, Thoreau discovered the discon­ certing truth that he was of nature and not of nature. With such paradoxes continually besetting his thought, Thoreau could have only maintained an ambivalent attitude toward hunting.

The last reference that Thoreau made to hunting was in the February 21, 1861, journal entry wherein he quoted from 50 William Elliott's Carolina Sports. The reasons for his inclusion of the excerpts resulted from his ambivalence toward hunting. As critic Charles Anderson remarked of this 137

causationt

There was probably a dual motivation. There was first his lifelong interest in hunting and fishing, which would have drawn him to any book on the subject* then there was the growing awareness of his ambiguous attitude toward sports, his fear that men brutify themselves by these amusements.51

In Elliott’s book, Thoreau found his worst fears confirmed.

The hunter had no respect for the animals, only a flippant stance of amusement. To Thoreau, who had spent so many years in natural observation and varying degrees of the hunt, Elliott was irresponsible. In the journal passage,

Thoreau sought to demonstrate Elliott's "human inconsist­ ency" by juxtaposing contrary paragraphs. That may have been Thoreau's final position on the subject of hunting* yet when he advised Elliott, "Physician heal thyself," he might just as easily have applied that dictum to himself.

More than likely, Thoreau persisted in his incertitude about hunting to the end of his life. If his long-time friend, William Ellery Charming, was not creating legend when he claimed that Thoreau's last subconscious words were "Moose" and "Indian," perhaps those cryptic utterances capped a lifelong ambivalence toward the savage urge to hunt in America. 138

NOTES 1 All references to the writings of Thoreau are to Henry David Thoreau, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, 20 vols., ed. Bradford Torrey (Boston* Houghton Mifflin, 1906). Thoreau's journals comprise vols, VII-XX. All references will either be incorporated into the text or notes within parentheses, the page number(s) preceded by the volume number, and in the case of the date not noted in the text, it will be included in the note. 2 See Emerson's essay, written shortly after Thoreau's death in 1862. The essay, "Thoreau," has been widely re­ printed, but can be found in volume I of The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, see note 1. See also Bronson Alcott, ^Thoreau.*’ in Concord Days (Boston* Roberts Bros., 1872), p. 14* Samuel Storrow Higginson, "A Nature Keenly Alive,” rpt. in Walter Harding, ed., Henry David Thoreau* A Profile (New York* Hill and Wang, 1971), pp. 30-35; Annie Russell Marble, Thoreau, His Home. Ffciends and Books (New York* Crowell, 1902). p. 269* Henry S. Salt. Life of Henry David Thoreau (London* Walter Scott, 1896), p. 167; and Robert Louis Stevenson, "Henry David Thoreau* His Character and Opinions," Comhill Magazine, 41 (1880), pp. 665-682.

3 See John Burroughs, "Henry David Thoreau," in Indoor Studies (Boston* Houghton Mifflin, 1895).

4 See Philip and Kathryn Whitford, "Thoreau* Pioneer Ecologist and Conservationist," Scientific Monthly, Nov., 1951, PP. 291-96.

5 See James McIntosh, Thoreau as Romantic Naturalist* His Shifting Stance TowardHflature (Ithaca* dornell hni- versity Press, 1974T, passim. t 6 The original journal entry behind this passage read* "I find an instinct in me conducting to a mystic spiritual life, and also another to a primitive savage life. "Toward evening, as the world waxes darker, I am per­ mitted to see the woodchuck stealing across my path, and tempted to seize and devour it. The wildest, most desolate scenes are strangely familiar to me." (VII, 384-385, Aug. 23, 1845). 139 7 John B. Pickard, "The Religion of 'Higher Laws'," Emerson Society Quarterly, 39 (1965)» p. 70. 8 McIntosh, Thoreau as Romantic Naturalist, p. 247,

9 Thoreau to Mrs. Lucy Brown, 21 July 1841, in Familiar Letters (VI, 36.) 10 XIV, 27 (Nov. 16, 1855). See also VII, 121 (Feb. 22, 1840) i X, 484 (Jan. 28, 1853) i XII, 18 (Dec. 15. 1853); XII, 27 (Dec. 26, 1853); XII, 93 (Feb. 4, 1854); XIII, 131 (Jan. 22, 1855); XIII, 141 (Jan. 25, 1855); XIII, 158 (Jan. 31, 1855); XIII, 209 (Feb. 22, 1855); XIII, 286 (Apr. 5. 1855); XIII, 302-303 (Apr. 10, 1855); XIII, 3^1 (Apr. 30, 1855); XIII, 506 (Oct. 21, 1855); XIV, 36 (Nov. 27, 1855); XIV, 38 (Dec. 3 , 1855; XIV, 191-192 (Feb. 28, 1856); XIV, 248 (Apr. 4, I856); XIV, 256-257 (Apr. 6, I 856); XIV, 433 (July 28, 1856); XV, 265 (Feb. 17. 1857); XV, 296 (Mar. 18, 1857); XV, 300 (Mar. 24, 1857); XVI, 129 (Oct. 27, 1857); XVI, 140 (Oct. 29, 1857); XVI, 320 (Mar. 24, 1858); XVII, 77 (Aug. 6, 1858); XVII, 119 (Aug. 27, 1858); XVII, 302 (Nov. 9, 1850); XVII, 4l6 (Jan. 21 and 22, 1859); XVIII, 53 (Mar. 16, 1859); XVIII, 67 (Mar. 19, 1859); XVIII, 149- 150 (Apr. 18, 1859); XIX, 181 (Mar. 4, i860); XIX, 210 (Mar. 22, i860).

11 XIV, 194. See also IX, 69 (Oct. 12, 1851); XI, 16 (Mar. 10, 1853); XIII, 26 (Sept. 8, 1854'); XV, 329-131 (Oct. 21, 1856); XV, 466-467 (July 2, 1857); XVII, 108 (Aug. 16, 1858); XVII, 223 (Oct. 18, I858). 12 XIV, 307. See also XVII, 166 (Sept. 18, 1858).

13 XIII, 13-32; XIII, 440; XX, 315-319.

14 IX, 306 (Feb. 16, 1852).

See VII, 186-187 (Jan. 30, 1841) and XI, 379 (Aug. 18, 1853). 16 XVII, 288 (Nov. 3 , 1858); III, 142-143. 140

17 VII, 163.

18 XVII, 424 (Jan. 22, 1859).

19 XII, 311* see also XV, 343 (Apr. 25, 1857). 20 XII, 452 (Aug. 18, 1854); a cistudo is a Blanding's tortoise, 21 XIII, 287-292. 22 XIV, 297-298.

23 XV, 71-74 (Sept. 9, 1856).

24 XX, 78-87 (Sept. 11 and 13. i860).

25 XII, 21. 26 XIII, 519-520; see also IX, 287 (Feb. 7. 1852) and XVI, 111 (Oct. 20, 1857).

27 VII, 445 (1845-1847).

28 XV, 151 (Dec. 3. 1856).

29 XII, 233 (May 1, 1854); XII, 240 (May 6, 1854).

30 See Reginald L, Cook, Passage to Walden (New York* Russell & Russell, 1949). p. 73.

31 XIII, 132 (Oct, 27, 1857).

32 XIX, 53-54 (Dec. 26, 1859). 141

33 XVIII. 120-121 (Apr. 8, 1859).

34 XIII, 313.

35 XVI, 113.

36 XVII, 305.

37 XV, 192. 38 XIII, 510 (Oct. 22, 1855).

39 XII, 310-311 (May 28. 1854).

40 VII, 324 (Mar. 1, 1842).

41 XIII, 132-137 (Jan. 24,1855). 42 XIV, 220-221 (Mar. 23, I856).

43 XIV, 221.

44 XIV, 192 (Feb. 28, 1856).

45 X, 491 (Feb. 9, 1853)1 XII, 98-99 (Feb. 5 . 1854)* XIII, 209 (Feb. 22, 1855).

46 VIII, 161 (Feb. 14, 1851).

47 XII, 101; see also VII, 186-187 (Jan. 30, 1841).

48 XII, 44 (Jan. 1, 1854).

49 XVIII, 82-83 (Mar. 25, 1859). 142

50 XX, 315-319.

^Charles R. Anderson, "Thoreau Takes a Pot Shot at Carolina Sports," Georgia Review, 22 (1968), p. 295*

I Chapter VII

"We've Got 'Em on the Run, BoysI"t

Hunting Slaves and Indians as Animals

143 144 On October 21, 1859» Henry Thoreau scornfully jotted

this entry in his journal* "in California and Oregon, if

not nearer home, it is common to treat men exactly like

deer which are hunted, and I read from time to time in

Christian newspapers how many 'bucks,' that is, Indian men

their sportsmen have killed." One day later, in commenting

on John Brown's raid, Thoreau expanded his observation to

include treatment of runaway slaves*

For once the Sharps' rifle and the revolver were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them. I know that the mass of my neighbors think that the only righteous use that can be made of them is to fight duels with them when we are insulted by other nations, or hunt Indians, or shoot fugitive slaves with them.*

Thoreau had touched upon one of the more tragic aspects

of hunting in America, how easily whites extended the savage

hunting ethos to hunting men as animals. Many white Amer­

icans rationalized their fears of the duskier races by

emphasizing their animalistic or sub-human traits. Seeming

to enjoy a closer connection with nature than did the whites,

Indians and blacks became identified as avatars of the very wilderness which white America was seeking to control and

subdue. That apparent proximity to natural cycles also

excited some admiration for the primitive. What resulted was an ambivalent response by whites, a mixture of fear, hatred, curiosity, respect, and even nostalgia for the darker man. The pattern of perception and confrontation 145 with the subhuman savage was that of the hunt. When the primitive rebelled, often by fleeing the racial oppression, the white community deemed it necessary, for reasons of environmental control, to pursue and punish, and sometimes kill the runaway.

In nineteenth-century America, hunting slaves and

Indians as animals became a deliberate racial policy. In the antebellum South and along the freedom flight routes northward, black slaves were ruthlessly hunted. Although, as one historian of the Underground Railroad pointed out,

"After 1850, pursuit of fugitive slaves became, like the

Fugitive Slave Law itself, more a symbolic than a practical matter," slaveholders and amateur and professional slave- hunters continued to chase and retrieve the recalcitrant 2 slave, whom they considered chattel property. During the three decades following the Civil War, the U.S. Army, in particular the cavalry, spearheaded the savage urge to hunt the hostile Indians.

I

The actual extent of slave-hunting in the antebellum

South is difficult to ascertain. Barbarous treatment of underlings existed in most human societies, much of which went unrecorded for fear of reprisal. Back in slavery times, most slaveholders and slave-hunters were under­ standably reticent about their role in retrieving slaves.

Thus any attempt at quantitative measurement of pursuing 146

slaves, along the lines of the recent study by Robert Fogel 3 and Stanley Engerman, would be incomplete. Some of the

evidence about slave-hunting appeared in antebellum court

records, reports by abolitionists, slave narratives, and

literary sources. Even that might seem like a relatively

biased body of testimony, riddled with propagandistic aims.

Yet, as Kenneth Stampp remarked, "The tracking of runaways

with dogs was no figment of abolitionist imaginations* it

was a common practice in all slave states, defended and 4 justified in the courts." Whatever the true extent of

slave-hunting, accounts in Southern newspapers and judicial records fueled the myth and reinforced the savage urge to hunt the blaoks. The South contained all the ingredients necessary for this sort of hunts attitudes which reduced the slave to a beast, and consequently to prey when he escaped the plantation.

The black man, as Winthrop Jordan showed, suffered constant comparison to inferior beasts, usually to apes, before 1812. The question of the negro's position on the 5 Great Chain of Being perplexed Southern philosophers.

After 1812, the dehumanization of blacks intensified, as the fears of slave revolts multiplied, as guilt over miscegenation mounted, and as the institution of slavery encountered increasingly shrill moral attack from the North.

During the years between 1812 and 1865. several members of the scientific community published studies, many of them 147

spurious in method, purporting to prove the "biological and 6 psychological inferiority of blacks and Indians, In the

vernacular, epithets such as "fox," "coon," "crittur,"

"black beast," "ape," and "gorilla," facilitated comparison

between blacks and beasts. When the slaves behaved their

masters and didn't rebel, the similes used were those of

livestock* "human cattle," "stock," "oxen," "drivers," 7 "increase," and "breeders," When the slaves took flight,

the metaphors switched to ones associated with animal prey

in the South* "varmint," "fox," "coon," "possum," and

"deer."

There was some truth to these animal metaphors when the slave ran away. Unless he braved the inquisitive eyes

in the cities and along the major routes of transportation, the fugitive took to the backwoods and swamps. Oftentimes

intense fear of capture and retribution forced him to dwell in these wildernesses for long periods of time, sometimes years. As with whites along the frontier who easily slid into savagery, the runaway black frequently turned wild.

Unless his slave community kept up a secret supply line to his hideout, the slave had to forage off the woods or raid the slaveholders' food storages and stockyards. If he did the latter, he gave the white pursuers another reason for hunting him. Such actions were exactly those of a hated predator, and the slaveholder granted to the slave the same hospitality he accorded to bears, foxes and panthers. In 148 exile in the wilderness, the runaway came to resemble a

wild animal. In the introduction to his selection of three

slave narratives. Puttin' On Ole Massa, Gilbert Osofsky

cited a Louisiana slave who told of a fugitive who had

inhabited a dense woods for a long time after escape and who "finally emerged from the forest so covered with hair

that he looked to others like the animals among whom he 8 lived so long." When cornered or treed, some slaves

fought to their deaths, rather than face slavery and re­ prisal again. The descriptions of the death struggles parallelled those of animal killings. Frederick Law Olmsted

told of one slave, who when cornered and shot at, finally

"fell at the third fire, and so determined-was he not to be

captured, that when an effort was made to rescue him from drowning he made battle with his club, and sunk waving his 9 weapon in angry defiance."

Reduced to the role of quarry, the runaway slave satisfied the social and psychological needs of the hunt.

In addition to the obvious reason of reclaiming what was considered a valuable piece of property, the slave-hunt metamorphosed into a social event for whites. Southern whites of all socioeconomic classes participated in the hunts, which often took on the tones of a gala affair.

Rewards, wagers, and free drinks added to the merriment and induced headlong pursuit after the black. Furthermore the slaveholders hunted the runaway for an exemplary reason. 149

to discourage any future escape attempts. Of course, that

motive could and did backfire, thus dramatizing that a

slave could escape the stranglehold of slavery. On a

psychological level, the slave-hunt afforded the poor white

and the occasional sadistic slaveholder a socially

sanctioned outlet for their aggressions. The hunters grew

more brutish in the pursuit than their prey; the very

animalism that the whites ascribed to the blacks surfaced

in their own souls.

The necessity and popularity of slave-hunting gave

rise to a small class of slave-hunters in the South. Many

were amateur, but some were professional. Moreover, slave­

owner and slave-hunter alike developed a breed of hounds

for the express purpose of tracking blacks. In her Key to

Uncle Tom's Cabin, a defense of her novel, Harriet Beecher

Stowe reprinted several of the advertisements placed in

Southern newspapers by the professional slave-hunters.

A typical example was the following notice from the Sumpter

County, Alabama, Whig of November 6, 1845*

NEGRO DOGS

The undersigned having bought the entire pack of Negro Dogs (of the Hay and Allen Stock), he now proposes to catch runaway negroes. His charges will be Three Dollars per day for hunt­ ing, and Fifteen Dollars for catching a runaway. He resides three and one-half miles north of Livingston, near the lower Jones Bluff road.

William Garabel10

Stowe also reprinted a letter from a Southerner on how to 150 train such "negro dogs"*

The way to train 'em (says the man) is to take these yer pups — any kind o' pups will do— fox-hounds, bulldogs, most any; but take the pups, and keep 'em shut up, and don't let 'em never see a nigger till they get big enough to be larned. When a pup gits old enough to be set on to things, then make 'em run after a nigger; and when they cotches him, give 'em meat. Tell the nigger to run as hard as he can, and git up in a tree, so as to l a m the dogs to tree 'em; then take the shoe of a nigger, and larn 'em to find the nigger it belongs to; then a rag of his clothes; and so on, Allers be carful to tree the nigger, and teach the dog to wait and bark under the tree till you come up and give him his meat.H

These dogs acquired a fearful reputation among the slaves.

Not only could the hounds track and tree a slave, but many

of them were vicious enough to attack, maim, and drown a slave. Southern courts generally upheld the right to chase slaves in this manner,

A Georgia judge ruled in August, 1855 that the use of dogs was permissible, if they didn't "lacerate or materially 12 injure the slave." Other judges throughout the deep South were not so lenient. Many permitted the use of hounds, or found for the slave-hunter, or otherwise evaded the moral issue of pursuing slaves by inhumane methods, Goodwyn vs.

State of Mississippi, decided in January, 184>5» described the holdings of a slave-hunter killed on a hunt* "Deceased owned a large pack of dogs, twelve or fifteen, and used to run negroes with them; they were very fierce... he kept 13 dogs to hunt negroes." In Louisiana, in May, 1851, the case of Benjamin vs. Davis and Matt recorded that men came 151

"with their negro dogs and said they were going to hunt runaway negroes?... such means being customary among the 14 planters of the parish." Occasionally a slave sued in court, and the records frequently noted that he had been pursued by hounds. Brister et al (slaves) vs. State, heard in Alabama in January, 1855» assetted that a "pack of negro dogs" and sixteen or seventeen whites "armed with double- 15 barrelled guns" had hunted the plaintiffs. Other court cases attested to the widespread use of dogs to hunt the 16 fugitive blacks.

The reports of abolitionists about their trips through the South uniformly supported the contention that slave­ holders and slave-hunters hunted their runaways in inhumane fashion. Rev. Francis Hawley, of Litchfield, Connecticut, recollected his experiences in the South for Theodore Dwight

Weld"s anthology of antislavery testimony, American Slavery

As It Is:

Runaway slaves are frequently hunted with guns and dogs. I was once out on such an excursion, with my rifle and fao dogs. I trust the Lord has forgiven me this heinous wickedness. We did not take the runaways.

Similarly, Rev. Phineas Smith, of Centreville, New York, noted of his trip through Texas* "When slaves flee, as they not unfrequently do, to the timbered land of Texas, they 18 are hunted with guns and dogs," An anonymous clergyman confided this account to abolitionist Arthur Tappant 152

Do you believe it, sir, not six months since, I saw a number of my Christian neighbors packing up provisions, as I supposed for a deer hunt* but as I was about offering myself to the party, I learned that their powder and balls were destined to a very different pur­ pose* it was, in short, the design of the party to bring home a number of runaway slaves, or to shoot them if they should not be able to get possession of them in any other way.19

Weld reprinted also the following account as reported in the St. Francisville, Louisiana Chronicle for February 1,

1839* Two or three days since a gentleman of this parish, in hunting runaway negroes, came upon a camp on Cat Island. He succeeded in ar­ resting two of them, but the third made fight* and upon being shot in the shoulder, fled to a sluice, where the dogs succeeded in drown­ ing him before assistance could arrive.2°

The persecuted slaves themselves testified as to their brutal treatment in their narratives. Antislavery figures probably ghostwrote or aided in the composition of these narratives. Bordering on the sensationalistic, the slave 21 narratives were "the pious pornography of their day."

Thriving on lurid description of slaveholder brutalities, the narrative also relied on an incessant pattern of escape, rescue, and recapture. But behind the melodramatic details lay the plain evidence of slave-hunting. "I was hunted like a wolf in the mountains, all the way to Canada,” 22 declared escapee John Little. William Wells Brown pain­ fully recalled the events of his recapture* 153

One day, while in the woods, I heard the harking and howling of dogs, and in a short time they came so near, that I knew them to he the bloodhounds of Major Benjamin O'Fallon. He kept five or six, to hunt runaway slaves with. As soon as I was convinced that it was them, I knew there was no chance of escape. I took refuge in the top of a tree, and the hounds were soon at its hase, and there re­ mained until the hunters came up in a half or three quarters of an hour afterwards.23

Solomon Northup described the manner of hunting the slaves

in the vicinity where he served in bondaget

The dogs used on Bayou Boeuf for hunting slaves are a kind of blood-hound, but a far more savage breed than is found in the Northern states. They will attack a negro, at their master's bidding, and cling to him as the common bull-dog will cling to a four footed animal. Frequently their loud bay is heard in the swamps, and then there is speculation as to what point the runaway will be overhauled --the same as a New-York hunter spots to listen to the hounds cours­ ing along the hillsides, and suggests to his companion that.the fox will be taken at such a place. I never knew a slave escaping with his life from Bayou Boeuf. ^

Northup broke that losing streak, but only by performing the incredible feat of outrunning the dogs.

One of the most resourceful escaped slaves was Henry

Bibb. Bibb's runs for freedom were always one step ahead of the hounds. Early in his narrative. Bibb considered his chances for escape, but "the fear of being pursued with guns and biood-hounds, and of being killed” combined to 25 deter him. When Henry finally did run away, he did not for one instant consider stopping, for "so great were my fears of being pursued by the pro-slavery hunting dogs of 15^ 26 the South." On the lam, Bibb avoided his "fellow men, as 27 if they were wild ferocious beasts." Forced to conceal

himself in the city, Bibb likened his experience there to

that of chased animal in a jungle: "The night being very

dark, in a strange city, among slaveholders and slave

hunters, to me it was like a person entering a wilderness 28 among wolves and vipers, blindfolded." Bibb turned the

metaphor around to depict the slave-hunter as the brute, as

the predator.

The novels, Archy Moore, or The Slave (1836), by

historian Richard Hildreth, and Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

and Dred (1856), by Harriet Beecher Stowe, dramatized in 29 literary form the plight of the hunted slaves. In Hil­ dreth's novel, Archy Moore, a nearly-white mulatto, escaped

to the swamp with another darker slave, Thomas. The over­ seer set his ferocious dogs on their trail. The dogs soon cornered the two fugitives, and attacked, but Thomas killed the hounds, and after a desperate struggle with the over­ seer, shot him in the head. Moore wended his way through a variety of events, including a twenty-year residence in

England. Upon returning to America, he decided to visit his birthplace. Moore arrived just in time to witness the successful hunt after a renowned runaway named "Wild Tom."

This victim of the chase was none other than the same slave

Archy had run away with twenty years before. "Wild Tom" had been living in the swamp after his most recent escape, 155

and had "been urging other slaves to flee. He had also been

foraging off the land and the local cattle herds, Moore

tried in vain to comfort Tom during his whipping, hut the 30 slave didn't recognize the mulatto.

Written in protest to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,

Stowe's novels made repeated reference to the practice of

slave-hunting. In Uncle Tom's Cabin, during the chase

after Eliza, the slavetrader, Haley, "was after her like a 31 hound after a deer." Once in safe hands in Ohio, one of

Eliza's benefactors repeated the simile, lamenting that she 32 had been "hunted down as a deer,” Local whites, led by

Tom Loker, whose "every organ and lineament” expressed a

"brutal and unhesitating violence" in "a state of highest

possible development," treed the fugitive, George Harris, 33 and set about to "ferret" him out. Back at the plant­

ation in Louisiana, to which Uncle Tom had been sold, Tom's mild owner, Augustus St. Clare spoke one day of his slave­

owner brother, Alfred* "He would shoot a fellow down with as little remorse as he would shoot a buck, if he opposed 34 him." Shortly thereafter, St, Clare related the story of

one slave, Scipio, who gave all owners only trouble. As

Scipio had run off again from Alfred's plantation, a hunt was forming. Augustus went over to watch the event and to bargain for the captured slave in hopes of gently per­ suading him into the folds of Christian loves 156

So they mustered out a party of some six or seven with guns and dogs, for the hunt. People, you know, can get up just as much enthusiasm in hunting a man as a deer, if it is only customary; in fact, I got a little excited myself, though I had only put in as a sort of mediator, in case he was caught.35

St. Clare continued, relating how Scipio eluded the hunters,

how he "ran and bounded like a buck," and when cornered, how

the slave fought off the dogs until brought down by a shot.

St. Clare then interceded for Scipio, bought him from Alfred,

and within two weeks had "him tamed down as submissive and 3 6 tractable as heart could desire." Stowe's novel ended

with Simon Legree hunting down two female runaways, Cassy

and Emmeline, and failing to figure out their stratagem.

When Uncle Tom refused to divulge their hideout, Legree

beat him to death.

In Stowe's other slavery novel, Dred, she explored the

brutal side of the slave-hunt. Not an adorable slave like

Uncle Tom, Dred was bitter and savage. His master, Tom

Gordon, was even more sadistic and vengeful. In a chapter

entitled "The Slave Hunt," Gordon appealed to the local

whites for help in hunting Dred to "more fully satisfy his

own private vengeance." That observation led Stowe to

assert, "There is a sleeping tiger in the human beast that

delights in violence and blood; and this tiger Tom resolved 37 to unchain." He referred to his runaways as "sneaking varmins," and decided that "these foxes have troubled us 157

38 long enough.” After a protracted hunt in the swamp,

Gordon's men eventually shot Dred down. In this novel, as

in the other evidence of slave-hunting, the pattern of the

hunt was clear. The slave was the brutish prey; the slave-

hunter, responding to the savage urge to hunt, pursued the

slave with means even more brutish. The American Indian,

also symbolic of the primitive wilderness, elicited a

similar pattern of pursuit from his white enemies.

II

As with runaway slaves, one large segment of American

popular opinion pictured native Americans, the Indians, as

animalistic creatures. In 1867, the Topeka Kansas Weekly

Leader carried a typical example of this view of the Indian.

The red men were

a set of miserable, dirty, lousy, blanketed, thieving, lying, sneaking, murdering, grace­ less, faithless, gut-eating skunks as the Lord ever permitted to infect the earth, and whose immediate and final extermination all men, except Indian agents and traders, should pray for.39

Characterization of the Indians as beasts was but a recent variant of a body of environmental*perception which viewed

Indians as subhuman. This distrust and contempt for the beastly savage dated back at least to 164*7* when William

Bradford described America as a place "devoid of all civil inhabitants, where there are only savage and brutish men which range up and down, little otherwise than the wild 40 beasts of the same." Whites encouraged the Indian to

act as savagely as the whites believed they were. French

and English colonial authorities introduced the practice of

scalping, and urged Indians to scalp their victims for

bounties. This savage action, as Vine Deloria, Jr., stated,

would later confirm "the suspicion that Indians were wild

animals to be hunted and skinned. Bounties were set and an

Indian scalp became more valuable than beaver, otter, raar- 41 ten, and other animal pelts." Scalping and other forms

of savage torture became symbolic to the whites of moral

degradation in the wilderness. With ironic determination, whites reasoned that such savagery had to be forcibly and 42 violently removed from the land.

While some intellectuals in post-revolutionary America

spoke for a more enlightened treatment of the Indian, many

continued to raise the banner against their savagery. In

1782, novelist Hugh Henry Brackenridge wrote Indian

Atrocities, which delineated the tortures by those "animals, 43 vulgarly called Indians." That same year, de CrevAcoeur termed the Indians ruffians, "monsters left to the wild 44 impulses of the wildest nature." Beneath these attitudes was a pessimistic outlook, which ElSmire Zolla designated 45 "the tradition of progessivist hatred." During the early and mid-nineteenth century, literary works, such as Robert

Montgomery Bird's novel, Nick of the Woods, with its vengeful

Quaker hero, Nathan Slaughter, James Hall's story, "The 159

Indian Hater," and, in a satirical vein, Melville's The

Confidence-Man, with its Indian-hating Col, Moredock, ------46 fueled "progressivist hatred." In The Winning of the

West, written in 1889, nearing the end of the era of

Indian skirmishes, Theodore Roosevelt capped this view with

his rebuttal to the "foolish sentimentalists" who romant- 47 icized the Indian. Despite the subjugation of the tribes,

and the appearance of enlightened anthropological studies,

the idea of the bestial Indian persisted in governmental 48 Indian policies, academic attitudes, and popular concepts.

The Indians themselves may not have found the images

of animal nature so despicable as the cruel Indian-hunting

provoked by this white bigotry. Most tribes based their religious tenets, creation myths, names, and much of the metaphorical structure of their languages on animal similes, traits, and actions. Homeopathic magic had great currency among the Indian tribes. The American Indian prided himself

on his attunement to natural cycles, his nearness to the

"natural state." Receptivity to the value of primitivism inspired the theory of the noble savage. From Jean Jacques

Rousseau to D.H. Lawrence, from Jefferson to Allen Ginsberg, many thinkers celebrated the Indian as the repository of 49 natural goodness. The noble savage ideal, however, was more a pawn in the moral debate over innocence in man than a fair portrayal of the Indian. Many whites who subscribed to this romantic theory never saw a wild Indian* those 160

sympathizers who did visit the tribes oftentimes betrayed

a condescension toward the red man. Reform-minded phil­

anthropists, such as Helen Hunt Jackson, concerned them­

selves with ethical matters such as broken treaties rather

than with the Indian*s immediate physical needs and his 50 cultural realities. It was a rare thinker, like a George

Bird Grinnell, who could appreciate the essential humanity

of the Indian. The two divergent opinions of Indian-hating

and appreciation of the noble savage both agreed that the

Indian was a "natural man,** a manifestation of nature.

When the two opinions merged or conflicted within the

mind of one person, ambivalence toward the Indian resulted.

Officers of the U.S. Cavalry, responsible for subduing the

plains Indians during the post-Civil War border wars, were not immune to such ambivalence. As hunters of the Indian, the officers pursued the savage with all due abandon, yet

felt varying degrees of respect and remorse for their foe.

In his brilliant article, **Red, White, and the Army Blue*

Anger and Empathy in the American West,” Thomas C. Leonard demonstrated the ideological uncertainty of major officers such as Sherman, Sheridan, Custer, Crook, Carrington, Miles, 51 Gibbon, and King. This combination of empathy and anger closely parallelled the emotions of a hunter. The pursuit of the hostile Indians became a hunt, fraught with all the perils and delights of a tough buffalo hunt, replete with 161

the metaphors of hatred and admiration.

On the plains, the brutal forms of torture and corpse

mutilation practiced by the Indians incited hatred and

revengeful feelings among the soldiers. The Army sought to

influence the tribes peacefully to cease hostilities or

move to a reservation; upon resistance, the Army turned to

selective punishing forays. Toward the same ends, the

officers also advocated rapid slaughter of the buffalo herds.

By killing off the Indian's life source, a process that a

century later would be euphemistically termed "defoliation,"

the army figured to bring the Indian rapidly to submission.

This accurate perception of ecological networks, an environ­

mental perception rare in nineteenth-century America, found

active support among the cavalry officers. When Sir W.F.

Butler apologized for shooting more than thirty bulls on a hunting trip in 1867* Col. Richard I. Dodge consoled him,”

"Kill every buffalo you can. Every buffalo dead is an

Indian gone," Gen. Sheridan proposed awarding to buffalo hunters a medal bearing a dead buffalo on one side and a disheartened Indian on the other. In 1875* he told the

Texas legislature, which was considering banning the hide hunters, to honor them*

These men have done more in the last two years, and will do more in the next year, to settle the vexed Indian question than the entire regular army has done in the last thirty years. They are destroying the Indians' commissary; and it is a well-known fact that an army losing its base of supplies is placed at a great 162

disadvantage. Send them your powder and lead, if you will; hut, for the sake of lasting peace, let them kill, skin and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered with speckled cattle, and the festive cowboy, who follows the hunter as a second fore­ runner of an advanced civilization.53

Similarly, Gen. George Schonfeld exclaimed, after a long

hunting trip, "I wanted no other occupation in life than to

ward off the savage and kill off his food until there should

no longer be an Indian frontier in our beautiful country.”

The buffalo extermination policy probably destroyed the

Indian more effectively than did the cavalry. Indian pro­ tests about the disappearing buffalo paired with those about whites robbing the territory. As Theodore Roosevelt later

observed, nothing had done more to settle the Indian issue 55 than killing off the buffalo.

These same officers who hated the Indian so much as to call for the extermination of his life source, also admired him, felt pity and compassion for the primitive. Sherman,

Sheridan, and Dodge admitted white complicity in instigation of hostilities. Carrington pointed to "irresponsible spec­ ulative emigration." Crook, Miles, and Howard praised the fighting capabilities of the Indian warrior. The burial customs of the Sioux intrigued Gibbon. An intense interest in ethnography and Indian customs led Capt. John Bourke to write books on those subjects. As Leonard stated, "Indian fighters were troubled by various kinds of respect for their 56 enemy." Such respect resembled that of the hunter for the 163 prey he hunted so enthusiastically. Of course, no officer let his admiration overcome his clear choice for the march of white civilization. But when he battled or pursued, or literally "hunted" the Indian, the officer must have had moments of moral doubt.

One of the most prominent of these inveterate Indian hunters was Gen. George Armstrong Custer. As celebrated and vilified in his own day as he is remembered in ours,

Custer embodied white cultural arrogance and served as 57 the martyr in our epic of defeat. The fame of Custer's death and massacre at the Little Big Horn River on June 25*

1876, superseded in the American mind the dubious fame he won at the Washita River battle in 1868. Custer entered the pantheon of American heroes on a par with Davy Crockett.

In his eleven active years on the Western plains, however,

Custer became a legendary Indian hunter, winning the deep respect of his foes.

In his book, My Life on the Plains (187*0, Custer dis­ played an ambivalence within his savage urge to hunt the 58 Indian similar to that of his fellow officers. Early in the narrative, he cautioned the reader about inaccurate romantic conceptions about the Indian, such as those drawn by Cooper. Custer debunked the portrayal of the red man

"as a simple-minded son of nature, desiring nothing beyond the privilege of roaming and hunting over the vast unsettled wilds of the West." (pp. 21, 23.) Instead of that deeply 164

sentimental version, Custer adhered to another old concept,

one of the Indian as a bestial devil*

Stripped of the beautiful romance with which we have been so long willing to envelope him, transferred from the inviting pages of the novelist to the localities where we are com­ pelled to meet with him, in his native village, on the war path, and when raiding upon our frontier settlements and lines of travel, the Indian forfeits his claim to the appellation of the noble red man. We see him as he is, and, so far as all knowledge goes, as he ever has been, a savage in every sense of the word; not worse, perhaps, than his white brother would be, similarly b o m and bred, but one whose cruel and ferocious nature far exceeds that of any wild beast of the desert, (pp. 21-22.)

Such wild, human beasts also drew from Custer some

rather blatant passages of sympathy and praise. As the

hunter ceaselessly studied the traits of his prey all the

better to track him, so Custer studied the Indian. Custer

found the Indian's life and folkways "a book of unceasing

interest." (pp. 19-20.) At times, Custer's characterization

of his enemies veered dangerously close to the noble savage position*

If I were an Indian, I often think I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people CwhoQ adhered to the free open plains, rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation, there to be the recipient of the blessed benefits of civil­ ization, with its vices thrown in without stint or measure, (p. 22.)

Such was the dream of every white hunter who fled the towns of the settlers. Custer's admiration for the Indian sur­ faced even when the savages frustrated schemes for regimental 165 glory. After one abortive skirmish from which the hostiles escaped, Custer voiced this seemingly heretical sentiment*

Although chagrined at the failure of the pursuing party to accomplish the capture of the Indians I could not wholly suppress a feeling of satisfaction, if not gladness, that for once the Indian had eluded the white man. (p. 255.)

When he had to pursue the Indians in earnest, Custer viewed the action as a hunt. As the hunter emulated the habits of his quarry, in order to chase Indians, Custer wrote, the white man "must adopt the same rule of action and encumber his horse as little as possible," (p, 66.)

Scouts on the trail used methods which to Custer "resembled not a little the course of a thorough sportsman, who, with a well-trained pointer or setter, thoroughly 'ranges' and

'beats' the ground in search of his coveted game," (pp. 71-

72.) When Custer closed in combat with the Indian, as at the assault on the Cheyennes at Washita, the narrative reached a pitch of adventure analogous to that of a hunting v y a m .

Part of Custer's respect and admiration for the red man may have resulted from his alleged affair with a Chey­ enne maiden, Mo-nah-se-tah. Supposedly after the victory at Washita, Custer took a fancy to one of the captives, and subsequently fathered a child by her. This child, a boy named Yellow Swallow, according to the story, watched the death of his father at the Little Big Horn. Mo-nah-se-tah 166

allegedly rescued Custer from the corpse-marauders. In her

book, Cheyenne Autumn, Mari Sandoz gave credence to the

story, as told to her by tribal survivors, Custer's more adulatory biographers, such as Jay Monaghan, refuted the

evidence as rumors perpetrated by Custer's cavalry rivals.

Whether the incident was true or not, Custer did display surprising affection for those Indians under his command,

especially Bloody Knife, Custer's ambivalence, his anti­ pathy and admiration for the Indians arose from his close 59 contact with them in the wilderness.

Feeding into his passion for hunting Indians was

Custer's fondness for and skill in hunting mammals and birds. The art of hunting came early to the Ohio farmboy.

On the Western plains, hunting alleviated the long, dreary stretches between Indian campaigns and supplemented the standard army fare. Even while on the trail of Indians,

Custer frequently took time out to hunt. This recreation created dissension within the unit, as the action was con­ trary to military policy. The general became renowned for

"his recklessness, repeatedly displayed on the Plains, in ignoring his responsibility as commander in the face of the 60 enemy to engage in some hunt for wild game." Before he received his orders to the plains, Custer thought he might be assigned to the staff at Fort Garland in Colorado. Mrs.

Custer reminisced later about her husband's vivid forecast of great hunting in the Rockies: 167

He launched into visions of what unspeakable pleasure he would have, fishing for mountain trout and hunting deer. As I cared nothing for fishing, and was afraid of a gun, I don't recall my veins bounding as did his over the prospect.61

Hunting animals on the plains clearly thrilled Custer,

Photographs showed him dressed in buckskin, looming over a

dead elk, christened "King of the Woods," or a grizzly bear,

or standing next to Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, for whose royal buffalo hunt Custer served as military escort. These poses seemed almost archetypal* the blond, blue-eyed, erect white hunter, lording over his worthy trophy, accompanied by his swarthy naturewise guide, usually Bloody Knife. l Custer was deeply committed to the psychology of the hunt.

Although he accidentally shot his wife's favorite horse through the head during his first sortie against buffalo,

Custer became a crack buffalo hunter, very proud of his ability. On one memorable occasion, he dismounted and challenged the bulky beast on foot, in order to free his endangered hounds. Custer described the event in My Life on the Plains*

Fearing for the safety of my dogs I leaped from my horse, who I knew would not leave me, and ran to the assistance of the stag-hounds. Drawing my hunting-knife and watching for a favorable opportunity, I succeeded in cutting the hamstrings of the buffalo, which had the effect to tumble him over in the snow, when I was enabled to despatch him with my pistol. (p. 29^.)

In his psychoanalytical study of Custer, Charles Hofling pointed to this event as evidence of Custer's tendency Mto

counter phobic tendencies with counterphobic tendencies,"

of boasting and exhibiting great amounts of strength and 62 hardihood. Perhaps Mrs Custer said as much, when she

wrote in 1887* "The greater the obstacles my husband en­

countered, even in his sports, the more pleasure it was to 63 him." That perception was not novel} the great hunter

determined his glory and strength on the greatness of his

vanquished quarry, on how difficult was his victory over

the wilderness.

Illustrative of Custer's hunting lust was his strong

desire to kill a grizzly bear. In his library at Fort

Lincoln, Custer maintained a trophy wall. Taxidermy also

intrigued him and helped to fill his idle hours. He had

collected most of the plains species, even a sandhill

crane, and most obviously, a buffalo-head. Marring the

grouping was the absence of a grizzly bear's head. On the

Black Hills expedition in the summer of 1874, Custer set

his mind on shooting a grizzly. After much futile search, he and Bloody Knife finally located an old male bear. The

general, Bloody Knife, and Capt. William Ludlow all fired rapid shots at the bruin. Custer claimed the carcass. He

immediately preserved the head for stuffing back at the

fort. Mrs. Custer remembered his pleasure at killing the bear* "My husband greatly valued the bear's head, and in writing to me of his hunting had said of it* 'I have 169 reached the height of a hunter’s fame — I have killed a 6k grisly,*" Perhaps if the ethics of the day had allowed,

Custer might have preserved one of his conquered Indian foes, such as Black Kettle, For the ardor and Faustian lust of his hunting of mammals resonated in his campaigns against the plains tribes, Custer's death resulted in one of the most relentless hunts ever, pursuing the savage all over the plains. By 1890, the buffalo had dwindled to a mere handful of survivors, and their worshippers, the

Indians had been herded up onto reservations. The triumph over the wild beasts of nature completed, Americans turned to lionizing the dead hero, Custer, and applauding his avengers. 170

NOTES 1 Thoreau, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, XVIII. pp. 416-417 (Oct. 21, 1859); XVIII, p. 422 (Oct. 22, 1859). 2 Larry Gara, The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Under­ ground Railroad (Lexington* University o±r Kentucky Press, 1961), p. 141. For a useful study of the legalistic sides of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, see Stanley W. Campbell, The Slave Catchers*Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1050-1660 (New York: Norton, 1$7%T*

3 Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross* The Economics of American Negro Slavery (Soston* Little, Brown, 1974).

4 Kenneth M, Stampp, The Peculiar Institution* Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (New York* Random House, 1956)» p. 189.

5 Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Blackt American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 IBaltimorei Penguin Books, 1971)» chpts. Viand XIlI. 6 See William Stanton, The Leopard*s Spots* Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-59 {Chicago* Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1966).

7 Theodore Dwight Weld, ed., American Slavery As It Is* Testimony of A Thousand Witnesses (New York* American Anti­ slavery Society, 1&39) * p. 110. 8 Gilbert Osofsky, ed., Puttin' On Ole Massa* The Slave Narratives of Henry Bibb. William Wells Brown, and Solomon frorthup (New York* Harper & Row, 1 % 9 )V P. 13.

9 Olmsted, quoted in Stampp, Peculiar Institution, p. 129. 171

10 Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Key to Uncle Tom*s Cabin (1854; rpt. New York* Arno Press, 19odT, p. 210* see also the advertisements reprinted on pp. 211 and 253. One scholar of Southern history, Charles S. Sydnor, suggested what might be construed as negative evidence about hunting slaves with dogs* "Only twice are bloodhounds mentioned in the (Woodville, Mississippi! Republican in the course of twenty-five years.*' Sydnor, "Pursuing Fugitive Slaves," South Atlantic Quarterly, 28 (1929), p. 159.

11 Stowe, Key to Uncle Tom*s Cabin, p. 252. 12 Helen Tunnicliff Catterall, Judicial Cases concerning American Slavery and the Negro, 5 vois• (New York* Negro University Press, 1926J, III, p. 4-6, Moran vs. Davis.

13 Ibid., III, P. 303. 14 Ibid., III, p. 617.

15 Ibid., III. p. 201. 16 See other cases recorded in Catterall, Judicial Cases* South Carolina, State vs. Martin P°sey (November, 1649)» ll» p. 414; Georgia. Robinson vs. State (Nov., 1846), III, p. 17; Hart Vs. PoweTl (Aug., 1855J. III* p. 45; Mississippi, Greenwade vg. Mills (Apr., 1856), III, p. 344; Simon (a slave) vs. S-Eate (Apr., 1858), III, p. 356; Wesley (a slave) vs. State (Oct.“7 1859), III, p. 364; Louisiana, Lewis vs. Peets CTuly, 1855), III, p. 638; Georgia, Cook vs. State" (Nov., 1858), III, p. 67; John (a slave) vs. State (May7 1862), III, p. 86; Alabama, Maury vs. Coleman (Jan., 1854), III, p. 194; and Dearing vs. Moore (Jan., 1855), III, p. 203.

17 Weld, ed., American Slavery As It Is. p. 97*

18 Ibid., p. 102.

19 Ibid., p. 108. 172

20 Ibid., p. 160. See also Rev. Horace Moulton's long, detailed account of runaways, p. 21. 21 Robin W. Winks at al, eds., Four Fugitive Slave Narratives (Reading, Mass.* Addison-Wesfey, 1969;, p. vi. 22 John Little, quoted in Tilden G. Edelstein, ed., "The Refugee* A North-Side View of Slavery,” by Benjamin Drew, in Winks et al, eds., Four Fugitive Slave Narratives, P. 155.

23 William Wells Brown, quoted in Osofsky, ed.. Puttin' On Ole Massa, p. I 83.

24 Solomon Northup, quoted in Osofsky, ed., Puttin1 On Ole Massa, p. 297.

25 Henry Bibb, quoted in Osofsky, ed., Puttin' On Ole ., p. 82.

26 Ibid., p. 86

27 Ibid., p. 98

28 Ibid., p. 98

29 Richard Hildreth, Archy Moore, The White Slavef or Memoirs of a Fugitive (New York* Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855;* Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (New York* Signet Books, 1966)* Stowe, Dred* A Tale of~^Ke Great Dismal Swamp, 2 vols. (Boston* Phillips, Sampson & Co., 18^6)7---- 30 Hildreth, Archy Moore, pp. 199-201, 291-305*

31 Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, p. 72. 173

32 Ibid., p. 106.

33 Ibid., PP. 75, 214.

34 Ibid., p. 250.

35 Ibid., p. 254.

36 Ibid., p. 254.

37 Stowe, Dred, p. 285.

38 Ibid., pp. 287, 288.

39 Rpt. in Paul Bohannan and Fred Plog, eds. Beyond the Frontier: Social Process and Cultural Change (Garden City: The Natural History Press, 19677, p. 3^2. 40 William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York: Random House, 1967J, p. 25.

41 Vine Deloria, Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (New York: Avon Books, 1969;* p. 14.

42 See references to scalping as cultural degeneracy in Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, passim.

43 Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Indian Atrocities: Narra­ tives of the Perils and Sufferings of Dr. Knight and John Slover, among the Indians, dying the Revolutionary War (Cincinnati,~l86/), pp. 62-72, rpt. in Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed.. The Indian and the White Man (Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor, 1964), pp. 111-117.

44 J. Hector St. John de CrevScoeur, Letters from An American Farmer, p. 201. 174

45 ElSmire Zolla, The Writer and the Shaman* A Mor­ phology of the American Indian, trans. Raymond. Rosenthal (New York* Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1973)* PP. 134- 147.

46 Robert Montgomery Bird, Nick of the Woods, or The Jibbenainosay* A Tale of Kentucky (Philadelphia* J.S. Red- field, m 37'; i James Hall, "The Indian Hater,** The Western Souvenir, (1829); Herman Melville, The Confidence-Mans His Masquerade (New York: Dix, Edwards & Co., 10573* chpts. XXVI-XX7TII.

47 Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, 4 vols. (New York* Putnam's, 1889)» I. pp. 331-335* rpt. in Wash­ burn, ed., The Indian and the White Man, pp. 134-136.

48 See Deloria, Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins, passim.. especially the chapter on white anthropologists.

49 See references to the Indian as the "natural man" in Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, pp. 17, 59-60, 66, 88, 94, 99-100, 118-1197 148, 153. l6i, 190, 195» 201, 211, 233. 235. 276, 355. 533-534.

50 Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor* A Sketch of the United States, Government's Dealings with i^ome of the IndianTribes (New York; Harper & Bros., 1881J.

51 John C. Leonard, "Red, White, and the Army Blue* Empathy and Anger in the American West," American Quarterly. 26 (1974), pp. 176-190.

52 Dodge, quoted in Mari Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters* The Story of the Hide Men (New York* Hastings House, 1954-), P . bb; — ------

53 Sheridan, quoted in Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters, P. 173. 175

54• Schonfeld, quoted in Leonard, "Red, White, and the Army Blue," p. 186.

55 Mrs, Custer referred approvingly to Roosevelt's statement in her hook, Following the Guidon (Norman: Uni­ versity of Oklahoma Press, 196617 p. 179.

56 Leonard, "Red, White, and the Army Blue," p. 178.

57 See Bruce A. Rosenberg's provocative study, Custer and the Epic of Defeat (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 197^0.

58 George A, Custer, My Life on the Plains, ed. Edgar I. Stewart (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962); all references are to this edition and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses.

5 9 Mari Sandoz, Cheyenne Autumn (New York: Hastings House, 1953)» p. 21: Jay Monaghan. Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959J. Despite the critical effort to debunk the Mon-ah-se-tah legend, a disconcerting note remains. Custer's own very frilly portrait of the maiden in My Life on the Plains (pp. 415-4*19) evoked an interest in her beyond that of an excellent interpreter. Moreover, John X. White quoted a contemporary of Custer, who reported a scene wherein Custer, somewhere beyond the bounds of protocol, unabashedly kissed Spotted Tail's daughter. White, "Red Carpet for a Romanoff," American West, 9 (1972), p. 9. Perhaps Custer succumbed to the charms of the darker woman closer to nature than his delicate wife. In the Custer myths, this incident will continue to reverberate.

60 Milo Milton Quaife, "Introduction," to Custer, My Life on the Plains (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1952J, p. xxx.

6l Elizabeth B. Custer, Tenting on the Plains, or, General Custer in Kansas and Texas (New York: Harper & Bros., 1887), p. 207. 176

62 Charles K. Hofling, "George Custert A Psycho­ analytical Approach," Montana, 21 (1971)» p. 39t

63 Mrs, Custer, Tenting on the Plains, p. 104.

64 Elizabeth B, Custer, Boots and Saddles, or. Life in Dakota with General Custer (New York: Harper & Bros., 1885)• pT '17$.------Chapter VIII

"Always Aims and Shoots to Kill": "Buffalo Bill" Cody

and the Ritual Dramatization of Hunting in the West

177 178

During the last three decades of the nineteenth

century, William F. Cody, the self-styled "Buffalo Bill,"

staged the ritual drama of the savage urge to hunt in

America. One of the first whites to avenge Custer*s death,

Cody was deeply committed to the idea of American dynamic,

progressivist westward expansion, the renewed Manifest 1 Destiny that surged in the post-Civil War West. As a

young hunter, he had shot buffalo to feed workers who were

building the transcontinental railroad. Discovered out on

the plains and drawn up as a dime novel hero by Edward Zane

Carroll Judson, "Ned Buntline," Cody capitalized on that

image until his death in 1917. He himself wrote several 2 dime novels, boldly inventing adventures about his life.

He allowed another dime novelist, Col. Prentiss Ingraham,

to write and publish the first of his autobiographies in 3 1879. After 1882, Cody took his Wild West shows on tour

across America and Europe. These productions were ritual

dramatizations of Indian fighting, marksmanship, stagecoach

robbing, horse riding, and simulated buffalo-hunting. From

the dime novels and Wild West shows, Cody emerged as a

national hero, "Buffalo Bill," the product of converging

Western experience and Eastern myths and desires about the

W e s t .

As a hunter, Cody followed in the Crockett syndrome

tradition. Cody*s opinions about the wilderness and its

animals reflected his progressivist commitment. To kill a 179

buffalo was better than to preserve one, particularly if

the kill glorified the hunter or made him some quick and

easy money. Along with his contemporary Americans, Cody

shared the environmental perception of nature as both

harsh and bounteous, that the wilderness contained an

inexhaustible supply of game that somehow must be cleared

for American settlers. Accordingly, Cody shot buffalo for

meat, for sport, sometimes for hides, and on occasion as

part of hunting contests or demonstrations. Cody*s nick­

name, "Buffalo Bill," was hardly an inflated, honorific

title; he earned his soubriquet. He was a highly regarded

cavalry scout, and before drinking destroyed his aim, a

fine shot. The following jingle attested to his early fame

on the plains:

Buffalo Bill, Buffalo Bill, Never missed and never will; Always aims and shoots to kill, And the company pays his buffalo bill.5

In actuality, Cody disdained hunting, viewing it as a means

of subsistence, a menial chore he performed to survive on the plains in the days before his rise to fame. Yet Cody never let his personal distaste for hunting detract from the powerful symbolic image of himself as buffalo-hunter created by the dime novels.

Unlike Crockett, Cody transcended the limits of his hunter class. Although, like Crockett, Cody was less than a glamorous figure in reality, he cultivated an aura of 180

6 respectability about the hunter figure. Whereas Boone and

Crockett and the Southwestern hunters had evoked Eastern

distrust of the Western hunter, Cody consciously sublimated

the savage urge to hunt into the ritual drama of the Wild

West extravaganzas. Diverse factors lay beneath Cody's

successful image. His expert showmanship certainly went

far in smoothing over the impact of the hunter image on the

East. Cody also benefited from fading Eastern cultural

disparagement of hunting. The American winning of the West

nearing completion, Americans began to celebrate, almost

nostalgically, the symbolic heroes of that triumph. Cody

was quick to cash in on the celebration and to play down

his cruder origins.

Growing up on the Iowa and Kansas prairies, Cody

learned the skills of riding, shooting, and hunting early.

He developed his hunting prowess and earned a job as scout

with the U.S. Cavalry stationed in Kansas. In October,

186?» after his army discharge, Cody signed on as a buffalo

hunter, or meat-shooter for the Kansas Pacific Railroad.

His contract with Goddard Brothers called for him to shoot

twelve buffalo a day for $500 monthly. He worked for eight

months until May, 1868, confirming his nickname, "Buffalo

Bill." He claimed to have shot and killed 4,280 buffalo

during that interim, well over the twelve a day specified 7 in the contract. The 4,280 dead buffalo scarcely dented 181

the enormous herds of the 1860's. But Cody, always on the

"brink of poverty until his sudden ascension to fame in 1872,

worked intermittently as a market hunter, thus participating

in the relentless destruction of the buffalo. During those

years, he also enhanced his hunting reputation, serving as

scout for the hunting expeditions of Generals Sheridan and

Carr and distinguished Eastern businessmen, such as James

Gordon Bennett, who later financed Cody's triumphant tour

of New York. His crowning achievement as a hunter was

scouting for the Grand Duke Alexis hunt in 1872. Cody's

version of the tour cast the Duke as a hopeless hunter

until "Buffalo Bill" gave him instruction. Taught by a 8 master, the Duke downed eight buffalo. Before Cody ever went on-stage, or before the bulk of the dime novels ever

praised his exploits, he had earned his reputation at the 9 expense of several thousand buffalo.

Most revealing of Cody's attitude toward buffalo- hunting and buffalo was the celebrated contest with Billy

Comstock in the fall of 1867. Comstock, a part-Cheyenne

scout at Fort Wallace, Kansas, had also earned a large notability as a buffalo-hunter. The historical details were sketchy, but somehow a challenge match between the two hunters was arranged. The wager was $500, but the title "Buffalo Bill" might also have been on the line.

The contest reached the dimension of a gala event. Cody 182

wrote later that an excursion party came from St. Louis

after hearing of the publicity for the contest. Cody

eventually shot sixty-nine buffalo to Comstock's forty-six,

thus ensuring his claim to the title of champion buffalo-

hunter on the plains. Cody told the story best, and his

words showed his disregard for the beasts and his polished

prowess as a hunter:

At last the time came to begin the match. Comstock and I dashed into a herd, followed by the referees. The buffaloes separated; Comstock took the left bunch and I the right. My great forte in killing buffaloes from horseback was to get them circling by riding my horse at the head of the herd, shooting the leaders, thus crowding their followers to the left, till they would finally circle round and round.

On this morning the buffaloes were very accomodating, and I soon had them running in a beautiful circle, when I dropped them thick and fast, until I had killed thirty-eight; which finished my run,

Comstock began shooting at the rear of the herd, which he was chasing, and they kept straight on. He succeeded, however, in kill­ ing twenty-three, but they were scattered over a distance of three miles, while mine lay close together. I had ''nursed*' my buffaloes, as a billiard-player does the balls when he makes a run.l°

Such were the games of the champion buffalo hunter, Cody also wrote of cavorting on horseback for the ladies that day, and of shooting a charging buffalo v/hich had strayed and was bearing down on a young female spectator. How much of his account was extra garnishing, no one knew for sure. 183

In a recent article on Billy Comstock, John Gray debunked

the part about advance publicity, and characterized the

contest as a spontaneous affair made much of by Cody later.

Gray also depicted Comstock as a hunter with a more pro- 11 found respect for the animal world than Cody evinced.

Whatever was the truth about the buffalo-hunting contest,

the incident entered the Cody legendry in full force. All

future editions and variants of the autobiography retold

the original story. Cody, firing av/ay v/ith his gun, named

"Lucretia Borgia," riding down the circling herd, the referees keeping the tally, remained a vivid metaphor of the environmental concerns of Cody’s day.

When Cody produced his Wild West shows, he dramatized these environmental concerns. The productions featured plenty of rehearsed Indian fighting, stagecoach robbing, and marksmanship exhibitions by Annie Oakley, Cody himself when he was sober, and W.F. "Doc" Carver in the early days.

To Cody’s credit, he also featured Indians, the best known of which was Sitting Bull, and conducted interviews with them. The interviews depicted the Indians as wronged noble savages. The Indians spoke sincerely about their cultural defeat, but the interviews were only nice, little exercises in guilt inducement and assuagement for the white audience.

The same cathartic process occurred with the simulated buffalo chase, "the brief spectacle of the buffalo hunt 184 12 that was a fixture in Buffalo Bill's Yfild YJest programs,"

By the late 1880's, Cody's small herd of buffalo used for

the shows was one of few remaining on the North American

continent. Advertisements for the shows noted that fact:

"17- Buffalo Hunt, as it is in the Far West of North Amer­

ica- 'Buffalo Bill* and Indians, The last of the only 13 known Native Herd," The "hunt" was simulated, Buffalo and mounted hunters milled around the arena, stirring up the dust and suggesting an atmosphere of driving excitement.

Sometimes the hunters rode the buffalo, other times they lassoed the beasts. Never did Cody or any other hunter shoot a buffalo in the ring, perhaps because of their scarcity. The confrontation of man and beast was.not a gladiatorial spectacle in Cody's extravaganzas.

To the audience, most of whom had little idea of how pathetic the scene was compared to real buffalo-hunting, the simulated chase extended a hint of the savage hunting urge, but spared the spectator the bloody gore. Unlike a

Spanish bull-fight crowd which thrilled to both the death dance and the climactic kill, the American audience pre­ ferred a glossing over of the cardinal fact of death and extermination on the prairies, Cody's Y/ild Y/est circuses, conforming to the rising genteel, middle-class morality, provided both justification for and emotional release over the slaughter of the buffalo. 185

"Buffalo Bill" C o d y reflected closely the environ­ mental perception and opinion of the last three decades of

the century. So thought an anonymous eulogizer, when he wrote in Worldfs Work in 1924:

It is now considered somewhat reprehensible that he killed so many thousands of buffalo in filling the railroad meat contracts, but in the days when the plains teemed with game, it was not considered a w a s t e . 14

After 1900, interest in Cody's presentations began to flag.

He resorted to promotional devices such as "farewell tours," but attendance and enthusiasm had peaked after 1900. The specter of Western populism having been defeated at the polls, Americans returned to the problems of urban living.

As the nation grew more urban, the average American's daily contact with nature diminished. Environmental concerns became limited to pastoral "back-to-nature" schemes and a vague awareness of conservationist and preservationist ideas about the future of the wilderness. Cody's triumphal pro­ cession of the West seemed less and less relevant to the values of twentieth-century America.

In his later years, Cody himself lamented the loss of the big gams. Writing in 1901 in The Independent. Cody thought that "any true sportsman would be in favor of measures to preserve game," that hunting clubs must impress on hunters the virtues of quality hunting as opposed to the vices of quantity hunting. Such rhetoric aligned Cody with the conservationist impulse, yet there were basic differ­ ences. Whereas most conservationists posited a temperate, harmonious existence of man and beast, Cody remained deeply committed to the American expansionist psychology and saw the killing off of the game as a necessary evil. Thus he asserted, "The influences which reduced the numbers and threatened the extinction of the game were inseparable from the advance of civilization, and this advance of civiliza- 15 tion must continue." If the advance of civilization were to continue, Cody suggested, so would the savage urge to hunt, the "influences" which threatened animal extinction. 187

NOTES

1 At the time of Custer's downfall, Cody was scouting for Gen. Wesley Merritt's Fifth Cavalry in the Black Hills and Wyoming. After hearing the electrifying news about Custer, Cody determined upon revenge. On July 16, 1876, the Fifth encountered renegade Cheyennes. Instead of a full-scale battle, incredibly enough a duel ensued between Cody and Chief Yellow Hand. Cody won by shooting the chief at a distance of thirty yards, stabbing him, and then scalping him. Retreating to the ranks, Cody waved the bloody scalp, and shouted "The first scalp for Custeri" In later years on the stage and in the arena, the incident was re-enacted for the show's finale to thunderous audience applause.

2 For a list of the novels ascribed to Cody's pen, see Don Russell's list in his biography of Cody, The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1^6(5J, pp.4-94— 4-96. Cody was also the subject of some estimated 1500 to 1700 other dime novels. See the partial list in Russell's book, pp. 4-96-503. Instructive introductions to the phenomena of the dime novel are Charles M. Harvey, "The Dime Novel in American Life," Atlantic Monthly, 100 (1907). pp. 37-4-5 and Merle Curti, "Dime Novels and the American Tradition," Yale Review, 26 (1937). pp. 761-778.

3 The Life of Hon. William F. Cody. Known as Buffalo Bill, An Autobiography (Hartford: Frank E. Bliss, 1879)? for other Edition s and variants of the autobiography, see the listings in the bibliography.

4- Russell suggested that Cody implied that the nick­ name was not completely complimentary, that it partly arose from disgruntlement among the railroad workers at having to eat buffalo meat all the time. Thus "buffalo" and "Bill" were linked together in that ironic fashion. Russell, The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, p. 90.

5 Rpt. in Russell, Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, p. 90. 188

6 Both of Cody's recent biographers, Russell and John Burke, Buffalo Bill, The Noblest Whiteskin (New Yorks Putnam's, 1973)/ have spared no strokes in pointing out Cody's follies and moral indiscretions.

7 Russell estimated that if Cody's claim were true, he killed about seventeen or eighteen buffalo daily on the average. Russell, Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, pp. 88-89. 8 The Life of Hon. William F. Cody, pp. 298-305.

9 Russell, seeking to absolve Cody of moral guilt in the killing off of the buffalo, placed the total number of animals killed by Cody under ten thousand. If that number does not seem prodigious enough to warrant moral implication, then certainly the great symbolic power of Cody's image as a buffalo-hunter, which Russell played down, exerted a tremendous influence in justifying the slaughter. 10 The Life of Hon. William F. Cody, pp. 172-173.

11 John S. Gray, "Will Comstock, Scout: The Natty Bumppo of Kansas," Montana, 20 (1970), p. 14. 12 Russell, Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, p. 347.

13 Ibid., p. 377.

14 "'Buffalo Bill' as the Typical Plainsman," World's Work, 28 (1924), p. 3^0.

Cody, "Preserving the Game," The Independent, 6 June 1901, pp. 1292-1293. Chapter IX

"The Heart of Things Primordial"i Hunting as Atavism in Jack London's The Call of the Wild and The Sea-Wolf

189 190

While Cody trouped through the East and England in the

1890*s with his theatrical exposition of American environ­ mental exploitation, a new, more extreme conception of natural origins of hunting had begun to emerge. The new

literary and philosophical movement known as naturalism

espoused the beast within the man and the worship of nature 1 as the repository of all primordial energies. Writers

such as Stephen Crane, Hamlin Garland, and Frank Norris published novels and stories which depicted the individual as virtually powerless, his fate circumscribed by determin­

istic natural or societal forces. The will to survive in a brutal world became the ultimate end of mankind. Crane's

Civil War soldiers in The Red Badge of Courage (1895) were caught in the maws of the war machine and succumbed to the dehumanization of war. His New York tenement-bound Irish in Maggiet A Girl of the Streets (1893) railed against the constrictions of their lives. Garland's middle-border farmers in "Under the Lion's Paw" (1891) fell under the crunch of foreclosures. The wheat farmers in Norris's

The Octopus (1901) bitterly fought the stranglehold of the railroad monopoly.

Under these fatalistic societal and environmental pressures, the individual reverted to animalistic action.

Henry Fleming, in The Red Badge of Courage, witnessed the war bringing out his fellow soldier's and his own baser 191

instincts. Like caged animals, the characters in Maggie

lashed out in violent, ineffectual thrashings. One of Gar­

land’s farmers contemplated murdering his landlord. Brutes

figured heavily in the works fey Norris, In McTeague (1899)»

the main character rapidly descended into sadistic violence,

and in Vandover and the Brute (191^)» the protagonist meta­

morphosed literally into a wolf. In the eyes of these 2 writers, man's "behavior became atavistic. The beast within the cultured man lay very close beneath the veneer

of civilization. Any incident of stress could incite these barely-restrained primordial feelings and actions, which were innate, ingrained deep in genetics and racial memory.

The inclusion of these traits was not pejorative, but rather

frankly descriptive and Olympian, and even sometimes written about with praise. As Charles Walcutt noted, '"The lower nature of man*, in short, is revealed, explQred, emphasized.

It is also defiantly and triumphantly brandished; it may, 3 indeed, be worshipped! "

American literary naturalism overturned pastoral per­ ceptions about the wilderness. Nature might still evoke breath-taking awe and respect for her beauties, but her laws were harsh and brutal. As with Melville's sea, which was beautiful and serene above, savagery lurked beneath the surface. For literary naturalism, nature was a merciless antagonist or an indifferent void, in which mankind played an insignificant role. Nature had her ordered ways, which 192 man needed to learn to survive, and even then the chances of prevailing were slim. Drawing directly on the Darwinian notion of the survival of the fittest, naturalism denoted an extreme position in American environmental perception.

Naturalism neither praised nor condemned American expansion and exploitation of the wilderness — indeed, such activity did show the survival of the economically fittest, or most unscrupulous, but such exploitation paled before the great powers of nature. What naturalism demonstrated so vividly was the American's capacity for the savage urge to hunt.

Shortly after 1900, at the height of the naturalism movement, Jack London published his novels and stories about the stark Alaskan wilderness. Perhaps more fiercely than any contemporary writer, London subscribed to the theories of atavism, social Darwinism, survival of the fittest, and Nietzschean concepts of the will to power and racial supermen. Having trekked to Alaska during the gold rush and watched sealing off the coasts, London knew first­ hand both nature's beauty and bestiality. He maintained a

”love-hate” relationship "for nature as the magnificent enemy.” London viewed the wilderness as a theater of violence on which the Anglo-Saxon superman tested his mettle and strove mightily to survive and dominate. The results were hardly salutary for the man or his colleagues.

Violence reigned andtthe superman usually foundered under 193

nature's weight. But strive they did* such striving

necessitated intelligence, "but also put a high premium upon

primordial strength and cunning. London, indeed, was an 5 "exponent of the cult of raw meat and red blood.” If man

were to survive in the wilderness (which London saw as the

root condition of life), he had to exist on nature's terms,

continually brawling and killing for the right to survive

and possibly dominate.

Hunting, as a means of survival, was a primal mode of

existence in the wilderness. In London's works, when the

civilized man (or domesticated beast) found himself cast back into the wilderness, he returned to his cultural memories of hunting, to genetically-ingrained aggression and hunting instincts. Hunting was an atavistic activity, firm evidence for London of man both combating and accom­ plishing nature's brutal ends. In his novels, The Call of the Wild (1903) and The Sea-Wolf (190*f), London favorably depicted man's regression to the hunting stage in the 6 wilderness and lauded hunting as beneficial atavism.

In The Call of the Wild, London narrated the wilder­ ness plight of a half-St. Bernard, half-German Shepherd dog 7 named Buck. London imparted anthropomorphic traits to

Buck, but not in the saccharine manner that such contem­ poraries as Ernest Thompson Seton or Rev. William Long wrote. Buck's forced initiation was clearly a fable with direct implications for man. In one sense, The Call of the 194-

Wild evoked an enticing primitivism, a vicarious escape from modernity back to the untrammelled freedom of the 8 woods. In another sense, Buck's assimilation into the wilderness life demonstrated London's adherence to the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The Call of the

Wild was "a perfect parable of a biologically and environ- 9 mentally determined universe." By the end of the novel,

Buck had experienced a beneficially atavistic return to his natural state. His survival counted on his newly-learned hunting prowess.

At the outset of the tale, Buck lorded over a comfort­ able Southern California estate. But the promise of quick money lured the gardener into kidnapping Buck for service in the northern wilds. At first Buck rebelled against his captors, but they quickly beat him into submission and shipped him northwards to Alaska and the Yukon. He was

"suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial," where the dogs and men "were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang." (p. 22.)

In that wilderness arena. Buck swiftly learned that law of club and fang by watching the treatment administered to the dogs and the brutal quarreling and thievery among them. Buck's progress, or "retrogression," as London termed it, proceeded rapidly, changing Buck from a house pet into a tough-muscled sled dog: 195

His muscles became hard as iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an internal as well as external economy. He could eat anything, no matter how loathsome or indigestible! and, once eaten, the juices of his stomach extracted the last least particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it to the farthest reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest of tissues. Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearing developed such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest sound and knew whether it heralded peace or peril. (p. 29.)

Along with his physical intensification, Buck responded to

instincts that preceded his domestication, instincts which lay imbedded in his racial memory:

Instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down, (p. 29.)

Through his ready accomodation to the law of club and fang,

Buck had regained the savage urge of the hunter.

In the third chapter of The Call of the Wild, entitled

"The Dominant Primordial Beast," Buck absorbed the lessons of his wilderness education and achieved dominance over the other dogs on his sled team. Leading the pack had been a particularly sadistic dog named Spitz, Ever since Buck's arrival, Spitz had tried to cower Buck, but Buck had suc­ cessfully resisted intimidation. The conflict heated up to a final battle, during which Buck's primordial instincts emerged regnant: All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill — all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood. (p. 39.)

According to London, Buck was experiencing at that point the ecstasy which marked the summit of life, "the paradox of living," the ecstasy which came when one was "most alive, but which resulted from "a complete forgetfulness that one is alive." (p. 39.) Such were also the paradoxical senti­ ments of the hunter at the moment of the kill. Drawing on all his strength and cunning, Buck finally bested Spitz and relished his victory: "Buck stood and looked on, the success ful champion, the dominant primordial beast who had made his kill and found it good." (p. 42.)

In the concluding chapter, "The Sounding of the Call,"

Buck effected his complete metamorphosis from domesticated pet to wilderness slayer. Buck had eventually fallen into the ownership of a kind, resourceful hunter named John

Thornton, for whom Buck's affection had rapidly grown.

Hunting gold, Thornton took Buck with him east into the

Alaskan mountains. There Buck met up with his "wild * brother," the wolf, and left Thornton's camp at times to hunt with the wolves. Once he killed a large black bear in a hard fight that "aroused the last latent remnants of 197

* Buck's ferocity." (p. 80.) Buck's reversion to the savage

state was nearly finished; he had become an excellent

hunters

The blood longing became stronger than ever before. He was a killer9 a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and pro­ wess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived. (p. 80.)

Buck then went after even larger game. After

patiently trailing an old bull moose, he "pulled the great

moose down." (pp. 82-84.) But upon returning to Thornton's

camp, Buck found the men massacred by Yeehat Indians. His

last contact with humanity gone, Buck turned avenger and

terrorized the Yeehats. More importantly, he joined up

with a wolf pack and hunted the forests:

When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack. (p. 88.)

Buck's transformation into a wilderness hunter was now

tojral, London's implications for the American were clears

beneath the comfortable life lay the brandishing instincts

of the savage hunter, within every man rested potential for

dominance of a hostile environment should he be precipi­

tated into the wilderness. But the only means of survival

were those of the hunter, the slayer, who followed nature's 198

law of club and fang and forsook the niceties of societal

humanitarian manners. Tribalism was but a temporary

expedient, for the brutal instincts of the individual were

finally supreme.

In The Sea-Wolf, London returned his focus directly

to the human community, an Alaska-bound sealing ship off 10 the coast of California. The novel invited ready com­ parisons with Moby-Picki the predatory industry, the mad,

obsessed captain, the brutalized crew. Yet London avoided detailed description of the sealing, and concentrated on the onboard conflict between the captain, Wolf Larsen, and a stranded dilettante, Humphrey van Weyden.

Wolf Larsen represented London's ideal supermen.

Rudimentarily educated, yet appreciative of the classics, and at the same time parading his hard-knocks practicality,

Larsen proved enigmatic to van Weyden. Humphrey could not resolve the captain's finer instincts, which Larsen himself sneered at, with the vicious brutality he encouraged aboard the Ghost. Wolf lived up to his name* he had "a strength we are wont to associate with things primitive, with wild animals." (p. 20.) Like London, Larsen propounded a brutal theory of life:

I believe life is a mess... It is like a yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all. (p. 4-5•) 199

Throughout the novel, Larsen demonstrated his philosophy,

battling his brother, Death Larsen, and other competitors

for the seals, subjecting his sailors to repeated acts of

savagery, proclaiming the fundamental cheapness of life,

(p, 58*) By the end of the book, Larsen had succumbed to a

mysterious disease and died on his shipwrecked sealer. As

much as London identified with Larsen, apparently the ideal

of the savage superman failed even London's expectations.

Opposed to Larsen was the dilettante, Humphrey van

Weyden, christened "Hump” by Larsen. Hump survived a ship­ wreck and found himself rescued by Larsen's ship. His joy turned soon to anguish, as Larsen impressed him into duty

in the galley and continually taunted him for his gentle­ manliness. Hump revolted at the elemental savagery aboard the Ghost: "Life had become cheap and tawdry, a beastly and inarticulate thing, a soulless stirring of the ooze and slime." (p. 33.)

Hump soon learned to survive on the ship. He fended off the taunts and bodily assaults of his fellow sailors; he learned seamanship swiftly. Like Buck in The Call of the

Wild, Hump's overcivilized body toughened under the duress of savage living. Impressed by van Weyden's progress and still scorning him, Larsen promoted Hump to the position of mate. Hump never lost his revulsion for Larsen and his attitudes, yet he did grow more callous in his dealings with the sailors. Clearly Hump was undergoing an atavistic 200

"brutalizing, shedding his civilized manners for the rough

expedients of savage living.

When the Ghost took aboard more survivors of another shipwreck, including the refined poetess, Maud Brewster,

Hump reverted to his civilized breeding. Protecting Maud from Wolf's leering animalism and falling in love with her,

Hump engineered an escape to Endeavor Island. There the twosome set about surviving d la Crusoe. For food and shelter, Hump had to kill some of the many seals on the island. The killing was not the "wanton slaughter," the hunting of seals "for the satisfaction of woman's vanity and love of decoration," in which the Ghost trafficked,

(p. 82.) Hump's killing was purely for survival.

At first, van Weyden attempted to shoot the seals, but found that an ineffectual practice wasteful of his bullets.

He then resolved to club the seals to death, as he had seen the sealers do. Maud protested on behalf of the mammals:

"They are so pretty. I cannot bear to think of it being done. It is so directly brutal, you know, so different from shooting them." (pp. 223-224-.) Hump retorted, with an echo of Larsen's grimness in his voice, "It is our lives against theirs." (p. 224.) The two then went about clumsily clubbing the pathetic seals, Maud reconciled herself to the necessity* "I'll admit I don't like defeat any more than you do, or any more than I like the idea of killing such 201

pretty, inoffensive creatures," (p. 226.)

Hump found the hunt and the killing exhilarating to

his sense of masculinity. "I shall never forget," he vowed,

"in that moment how instantly conscious I became of my man­

hood, The primitive deeps of my nature stirred. I felt

myself masculine, the protector of the weak, the fighting

male," (p. 228.) Like the dog, Buck, Hump felt himself

responding to ancient instincts:

The youth of the race seemed burgeoning in me, overcivilized man that I was, and I lived for myself the old hunting days and forest nights of my remote and forgotten ancestry. I had much for which to thank Wolf Larsen was my thought as we went along the path. (p. 228.)

Hump repeated these sentiments to Maud: "It seems as though

I have lived this life always. The world of books and

bookish folk is very vague.... I surely have hunted and

forayed all the days of my life." (p, 229.) Humphrey van

Weyden and Maud Brewster eventually returned to civilization after repairing the ship and witnessing Wolf's death. More than likely, they would rejoin the bookish folk. Yet van

Weyden had lived the atavistic life of the hunter. He had killed for food and shelter, and thrilled to those accom- plisments. He had witnessed his own descent into savagery, experienced the cultural memories of the hunting urge. For

London, van Weyden's adventures in the wilderness reflected the root condition of existence, the savage urge to hunt.

London's extreme environmental perceptions capped a century 202

of literary description and even glorification of the savage hunting impulse on the American continent. Hunting as atavism, as a violent outburst of the beast within the man, allowed the American hunter to rationalize his per­ ception of nature as an adversary. Violence had to meet violence squarely; savagery could be excused as the mani­ festation of the hunter's innate aggressive instincts.

The scenes of Buck pulling down a great moose and Humphrey van Weyden clubbing seals to survive were parables of the relentless American impulse to hunt, to best the wilderness during the nineteenth century. 203

NOTES

1 For a good discussion of American literary naturalism and its philosophical connections, see Charles Child Wal- cutt, American Literary Naturalism, A Divided Stream (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956)• 2 Walcutt defined atavism thus: "Atavism is a condition in which one's primitive self, with its assumed strength and ferocity, is close to the civilized surface." Walcutt, American Literary Naturalism, p. 91. See also James R. Giles, '‘Beneficial Atavism in Frank Norris and Jack London," Western American Literature, 4 (1969)» p. 15* atavism is "The evolution-related "belief that behind the civilized man lurks the primitive Anglo-Saxon brute which may come to the surface in times of stress."

3 Walcutt, American Literary Naturalism, p. 20.

4 Sidney Alexander, "Jack London's Literary Lycan- thropy," The Reporter, 2^ Jan. 1957» P* ^8.

5 Sam S. Baskett, "Jack London's Heart of Darkness," American Quarterly, 10 (1958), p. 66. 6 Giles, in his article on atavism, made the distinction between beneficial and malevolent atavism, and showed the former at work in London's novel, The Daughter of the Snows.

7 London, The Call of the Wild, and Selected Stories (New York: Signet Books, 1960)* all references are to this edition and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses, 8 See Raymond Benoit, "Jack London's The Call of the Wild," American Quarterly, 20 (1968), p. 246: The "myih of Buck, the greai dog, is an embodiment of the American dream of escaping from the entangling complexity of modern living back to a state as unencumbered as the sled Buck pulls."

9 Jay Gurian, "The Romantic Necessity in Literary Naturalism: Jack London," American Literature, 38 (1966), p. Il4. 10 London, The Sea-Wolf, and Selected Stories (New York* Signet Books, 1964); all references are to this edition and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses. TRANSITION

Chapter X

"All Hunters Should Be Nature-Lovers":

Theodore Roosevelt and the Emergence of

the American Hunter-Naturalist Ideal

205 206

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a

small but growing and vociferous group of environmentally-

concerned sportsmen arose in counteraction to the savage

urge to hunt in America. By 1900, a stylized, idealistic

type of hunter called the "hunter-naturalist" developed.

Combining respect and nostalgia for nature with the moral

imperatives of gentlemanliness, the hunter-naturalists

championed and amplified the code of sporting ethics called

sportsmanship. The impetus behind the movement was largely

elitist. Upper-class sportsmen sought to dignify hunting 1 for sport and check the savage hunting impulse. Only a

few of the hunter-naturalists suggested abolition of the

sport of hunting; the overwhelming majority proposed wiser

usage of natural resources.

The hunter-naturalists viewed hunting as the best mode

of environmental perception, the truest appreciation and apprehension of nature's ways and meanings. Most of them arrived at this philosophy through the combined influences

of nature study and hunting experience. Preferring to look at the wilderness environment scientifically and dispassion­ ately, the hunter-naturalists had little sympathy for past­

oral visions or anthropomorphic stories of animals. The hunter-naturalists evinced a thorough understanding of the ecological bases of natural existence. The development of the hunter-naturalist ideal signified the emergence of an

ecological consciousness. The hunter-naturalist type originated in disgust for

the excesses of the savage urge to hunt. If the hunter-

naturalist seemed too idealistic, reminiscent of Cooper's

Natty Bumppo, his antithesis, the "game butcher," was

infinitely less honorable. Whether he was engaged in

"market gunning," shooting animals for sale, or in "game-

hogging," sport shooting prodigious numbers of animals for no reason, the "game-butcher" had little remorse and much

contempt for the creatures of nature. On a federal level,

the Lacey Act of 1900 outlawed market hunting, but the

"game hog” persisted in the new century under the generic

term "hunter-slob." This ogre, recurrently derided in the sporting magazines, hunted any number of anything, anywhere, anytime, anyhow to satisfy his grossest recreational urges.

The hunter-naturalist sought to control this brutality, maintaining always a deep reverence for nature's beasts and a restraint on his hunting methods and appetites. Of course, these two images were extremes between which actual hunters fell.

The hunter-naturalists' sportsmanship code refined the traditional European cavalier notion of the fair hunt by adding the dimensions of scientific curiosity and sympathy for the prey. Acquaintance with nature should deepen the hunter's commitment to the code. "The big-game hunter can­ not possibly be of much use from a serious standpoint unless 6 he is a keen naturalist," asserted Theodore Roosevelt. 208

Another desirable quality entailed in the code was that

of articulation. Backwoods hunters had perhaps possessed

knowledge of and respect for their quarries, yet inarticu­

lateness had prevented the full transmission of the ideal

back to civilized regions. Now, posited the hunter-

naturalists, hunting literature was to be cerebral as well

as instinctual, inspiring as well as exciting, erudite as

well as commonplace.

The motives beneath the development of the sportsman­

ship code were complex. Part of the impetus was pragmatic

and elitist. Faced with dwindling game reserves, these

farsighted hunter-naturalists drafted measures to ensure 3 future hunting for themselves and their progeny. Often

these endeavors were more than tacit and found print in the

by-laws of various hunting clubs, most notably in the con­

stitution of the Boone and Crockett Club. Eventually state and federal game laws and management policies incorporated the code into their provisions: restricted seasons, bag

limits during the seasons, protection of the females and the young, outlawing of unfair hunting methods and poaching, and license fees. On a deeper, psychological level, the sportsmanship code tried to reconcile fears and criticism that sport hunting was merely thinly disguised savagery and that the pleasure derived from shooting was inherently sadistic. Along with Jack London, the hunter-naturalists 209 advocated the strenuous life, hut unlike London, they did not celebrate hunting as an atavistic activity, arousing man's baser passions. Hunting must instead be an art, an ennobling, instructive ceremony confirming one's manhood and self-mastery in the wilderness.

Along with the sportsmanship code, the true hunter- naturalists displayed an ecological consciousness and a firm commitment to conservation and wildlife management.

About nature's ways, the hunter-naturalists were not senti­ mental, nor were they paranoid. Some aspects of nature were grim, others were exceedingly beautiful. Most of the group would applaud John Burroughs' remark: "Nature does not care whether the hunter slay the beast or the beast the hunter. She will make good compost of them both, and her bl­ ends are prospered whichever succeeds," Natural history taught the hunter-naturalists that animals belonged to a food chain, an ongoing process of birth, growth, death, and decay. But this ecological theory, while it condoned survival hunting, offered no natural reason for sport hunting. To this breach, the hunter-naturalists trotted out their arguments of game management. As the crowning achievement of evolution, man must use his intelligence to control nature intelligently. Hunting was an effective, humane means of controlling animal populations. Whatever pleasure was gleaned from shooting was all in the line of 210

duty or well-deserved recreation. This rationale- expanded

into a segment of the conservation movement in the early

twentieth century, and remains today the cardinal tenet of

the powerful National Wildlife Federation and other hunters*

associations.

During the 1880*s and 1890*s, the formal emergence

of the code of sportsmanship and of an ecological awareness

invested the ideal of the hunter-naturalist with highest dignity. The writings of the hunter-naturalists reflected

their intense concern for the future of wildlife in America,

Having personally observed the slaughter of the buffalo and witnessed the near-extinction of other animals, several prominent hunter-naturalists such as George Bird Grinnell,

Charles Sheldon, George Oliver Shields, William Temple

Homaday, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Theodore Roosevelt began calling for wiser usage of wildlife and wider public acquaintance with undiluted nature. As early as 1874-»

Grinnell had printed in his magazine, Forest and Stream, vehement editorials protesting wholesale slaughter of the nation*s wildlife. Other hunter-naturalists found in their own hunting cause for self-reproach. In 1883, Shields wrote in his Rustlings in the Rockiest

I sat down and gazed for twenty minutes upon * his lifeless form and bitterly did I reproach myself for bringing to an untimely end so noble, so majestic an animal. What a strange passion it is that leads men to slaughter of innocent creatures, and what a strange fancy it is that leads them to think such slaughter 211

sport! It is too deep a problem for my untutored mind; I leave it to the meta­ physician, to the psychologist.5

Four years later, writing of his hunting buffalo for

specimens, William T. Homaday added to the swelling

lament:

I swear I felt as if I was about to commit a murder. With the greatest reluctance I ever felt about taking the life of an animal, I shot the noble beast through the lungs,6

And in 1904, Henry Fairfield Osborn, addressing the Boone

and Crockett Club, placed the problem in retrospect:

Our animal fortune seemed to us so enormous that it could never be spent. Like a young rake coming into a large inheritance, we attacked this noble fauna with characteristic American improvidence.

Now, concluded Osborn, America as an old penitent must 7 redress her grievances to nature. The hunter-naturalist

must curb the savage tendencies in hunting.

None of these hunter-naturalists called for the

abolition of hunting. What was needed was individual,

gentlemanly restraint. Hunting was a manly virtue very

necessary to a masterful people. The by-laws of the Boone

and Crockett Club specified that members must have shot an

adult male of at least three American big-game species by

fair chase or still-hunting. In 1925* Grinnell and Sheldon

reaffirmed the main sentiment in their preface to Hunting and Conservation: 212

Animals are for man's use, and one of these uses is recreation, of which hunting is a wholesome form. So long as it does not interfere with the maintenance of a per­ manent "breeding stock of any species this recreation is legitimate and praiseworthy.®

Sharing these notions and spearheading the cause in a

symbolic manner was Theodore Roosevelt. Grinnell and

Hornaday had perhaps a more direct influence on the actual

implementation of governmental game management policies, but the prolific and vociferous Roosevelt brought the issue 9 of conservation to the national forum. Roosevelt also represented the culmination of the development of the hunter-naturalist. In 1911» at the twilight of his hunting days, Roosevelt wrote in an article entitled "The American

Hunter-Naturalist" that "one of the most interesting developments" within the past thirty or forty years had been

the wilderness wanderer, who to the hardihood and prowess of the old-time hunter adds the capacity of a first-class field naturalist, and also, what is just as important, the power of literary expression.10

Roosevelt was reviewing a book on hunting in the Yukon by

Charles Sheldon, who he claimed was "not only a first-class hunter and naturalist but passionately devoted to all that 11 is beautiful in nature," Three months earlier, he had delineated his conception of the hunter-naturalist in an editorial entitled "A Hunter-Naturalist in Europe and

Africa": 213

Half a century or so ago it looked as if we would develop hunters who knew nothing what­ ever of anything except hunting, zoologists who knew life only from museum specimens, and outdoor lovers of nature who were not competent to make additions to scientific truth, nor yet to deal with and describe nature in its wilder and more imposing forms, animate and inanimate. Nowadays, however, we are tending to develop much higher types of all of these; and also a type which in­ cludes them all.12

Perhaps no American hunter-naturalist exemplified that

development so well as had Roosevelt himself. Roosevelt

continually worked toward the ideal of the hunter-naturalist.

He praised colleagues such as Hornaday or Frederick Selous 13 who seemed to evince the traits of that ideal. In 1887»

upon Grinnell's instigation, Roosevelt helped found the

Boone and Crockett Club, an organization which was to become

a clearinghouse of conservation ideas. Roosevelt also con­

tributed to the formulation of the club’s by-laws, which read like a panegyric to the hunter-naturalist ideal.

Attracting to the club many prominent, concerned hunter- naturalists, Roosevelt remained an active charter member 14 until his death in 1919.

The close connection of hunting and natural history 15 had been locked in Roosevelt’s mind since boyhood. One major influence was his uncle, Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, a prominent hunter and early conservationist. Robert

Roosevelt was responsible for the bill creating the New

York Fish and Game Commission; he served as its commissioner 214

16 for twenty years. Young Theodore whetted his curiosity for nature early — "While still a small boy I began to take an interest in natural history"— so much so that he could write later that upon entering Harvard, "I was devoted to out-of-doors natural history, and my ambition was to be a scientific man of the Audubon, or Wilson, or Baird, or 17 Coues type." Roosevelt's later books on the outdoors showed the success of his devotion. Hunting Trips of a

Ranchman (1885), Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail (1888), and ------The Wilderness Hunter (1893) formed "a natural history trilogy of the West." These were a new type of hunting book, adding to accounts of the chase fascinating sketches of scenery, flowers, and animals large and small. Together with later volumes, such as Outdoor Pastimes of an American

Hunter (1905) and A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open (1916), they ranked high in the estimate of naturalists such as

Grinnell, John Burroughs, Fairfield Osborn, Frank M. Chap­ man, C. Hart Merriam, and even John Muir, who was not very 19 disposed to hunting. Roosevelt's intense concern with accurate natural description embroiled him in the "Nature

Faker" controversy from 1903 until 1911. Taking offense at the anthropomorphic animals in books by Ernest Thompson

Seton and Rev. William Long, Roosevelt waged a campaign of debunking, culminating in his article "Nature's Fakers" in

September, 1907. 215

In 1872, Roosevelt began his long career as a hunter,

collecting many of his specimens by gun. His motives

engendered much debate. One recent scholar suggested that

for Roosevelt hunting was both an outlet for sadistic

aggression and a means by which he could triumph over his 21 younger brother, Elliott. Another claimed that Theodore 22 v/as "close to psychopathic" when killing animals. After

once shooting a mountain goat, the ;fyell of delight he let 23 loose could have been heard for two miles in any country."

In 1879, he told his Harvard classmate, Henry Davis Minot, that he had tapered off specimen collecting, because "I don't 24 approve of too much slaughter." Yet the next fall, Theo- 25 dore and Elliott shot over 400 birds on a two-month hunt.

Clearly Roosevelt received some degree of satisfaction from the kill. As his conservationist ideas grew stronger, 26 he played down the thrill of the kill. Typically he wrote in 1904* "Laying stress upon the mere quantity of game killed, and the publication of the record of slaughter, are 27 sure signs of unhealthy decadence in sportsmanship." Over and over he returned to this theme:

All hunters should be nature-lovers. It is to be hoped that the days of mere wasteful, boastful slaughter are past and that from now on the hunter will stand foremost in working for the preservation and perpetuation of wild life, whether big or little.28

Whether Roosevelt lived up to his preachings or not, the code of sportsmanship and the ideal of the hunter-naturalist 216 had few more eloquent spokesmen. Through the workings of

the Boone and Crockett Club, Roosevelt left a legacy of

inspiration to those of his contemporaries like Homaday, who carried the cause of fair play for animals into the

1930's. The formation of the National Wildlife Federation and the arrival of outstanding game management theorists like Aldo Leopold assured continuance of Roosevelt's spiritual bequest. The ideal of the hunter-naturalist prefigured twentieth-century reconsiderations of the place and value of hunting in an urban society. 21?

NOTES 1 For a fine presentation of the elitist origins of this movement see John F. Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation (New York; Winchester Press, 1975). ------2 Theodore Roosevelt, "A Hunter-Naturalist in Europe and Africa," The Outlook, 16 Sept. 1911# p. Ill# rpt. in Roosevelt, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt. The National Edition, 20 vols,, ed, Herman Hagedorn (New York: Scribner's, 1926J, XII, p. 369.

3 Some critics pointed to this interest in conservation as a self-serving rationalization designed to continue hunting privileges for the elite. See Holway R. Jones, John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite (San Francisco, 19651# p. 4.

4 John Burroughs, quoted in Peter Matthiessen, Wildlife in America (New Yorks Viking Press, 1969)# p. 200.

5 George Oliver Shields, Rustlings in the Rockies: Hunting and Fishing (Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1883)# pp. 40-41. 6 William T. Hornaday, "The Passing of the Buffalo," The Cosmopolitan, 4 (1887)# p. 24-1.

7 Henry Fairfield Oshom, "Preservation of Our Wild Animals," Address to the Boone and Crockett Club, 23 Jan. 1904, rpt. in George Bird Grinnell, ed. American Big Game in its Haunts (New York: Field and Stream Publ. Co., l9o4), FTJ5T.----- 8 George Bird Grinnell and Charles Sheldon, eds., Hunting and Conservation, The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club (New Haven: Yale Universiiy Press, l9£f?)# P. xi. 218

9 Reiger made a very convincing argument for Grinnell as the father of all modem conservation, hut failed to note sufficiently Roosevelt's tremendous symbolic boost to the cause. See Reiger, American Sportsmen, passim. 10 Roosevelt, "The American Hunter-Naturalist," The Outlook, 9 Dec. 1911» P. 855» rpt. in Roosevelt, Works, XII, p. 414.

11 Ibid., p. 417. See also Roosevelt's comments on Sheldon a year later; "Mr. Sheldon is an outdoor natur­ alist, a faunal naturalist, as well as a great hunter.... He is the direct reverse of a game-butcher; he cares nothing for a 'big bag.' He kills only what must be killed." Roosevelt, "Three Capital Books of the Wilderness," The Outlook, 30 Nov. 1912, rpt. in Roosevelt, Works, XII, PP. 381-3B2. 12 Roosevelt, "A Hunter-Naturalist in Europe and Africa," p. Ill, rpt. in Roosevelt, Works, XII, p. 369.

13 See Roosevelt, "Our Vanishing Wildlife," The Outlook. 25 Jan. 1913 9 rpt. in Roosevelt, Works, XII, p. 419* Hornaday is "a trained naturalist, an explorer of and dweller in the world's waste spaces, a man who has been a mighty hunter in the proper sense of the word, but whose chief work for many years has been the effort to preserve and not destroy wild life."; and Roosevelt, "African Nature Notes and Reminiscences," rpt. in Roosevelt, Works, XII, P. 355* "Mr. Selous is much more than a mere ‘big-game hunter, however; he is by instinct a keen fieId-naturalist."

14 For the details on Grinnell*s instigation, see Reiger, American Sportsmen, chpt. V.

15 See the revealing letter written to his mother on 16 Mar. 18?9» rpt. in Roosevelt, The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols., ed. EltingE. Morison (Cambridge, Mass.: Rarvard University Press, 1951)» I» P« 37* after rhapso­ dizing about the beauties of the Maine woods under snow, he informed her, "I shot a buck, a coon, some rabbits and partridges and trapped a lynx and a fox — so my trip was a success in every way." 219

16 R.L. Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoorsman (New York: Winchester Press, 1971), pp. 7-8; Paul Russell Cut- right, Theodore Roosevelt, The Naturalist (New York: Har­ per & Bros., 195&J» PP« 9» 33.

17 Roosevelt, An Autobiography, rpt. in Roosevelt, Wor k s , XX, pp. 16 , S5 . 18 Outright, Theodore Roosevelt, The Naturalist, pp. 53, 54.

19 See Grinnell, "President Roosevelt as a Sportsman," Forest and Stream, 61 (1903), p. 4-37, Burroughs, Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906), passim; Henry Fairfield Osborn, "Theodore Roosevelt, Naturalist," in Impressions of Great Naturalists (New York: Scribner*s, 19240: and Outright, Theodore Roosevelt, The Naturalist, passim. 20 Roosevelt wrote to Burroughs on 6 July 1903* "Ninety-five per cent of the 'School of the Woods' stuff is deliberate invention of an arrogantly silly type," rpt. in Roosevelt, Letters, III; "Nature-Fakers," Everybody1s Magazine, Sept., 1907, rpt. in Roosevelt, WorksT V , pp. 375-383. 21 Howard Umansky, "The Roosevelt Family: A Case of Sibling Rivalry," unpublished paper read before the American Historical Convention, San Francisco, 29 Dec, 1973. 22 Amory, Man Kind?, pp. 25-31.

23 Jack Willis, quoted in G. Edward White, The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience: The West of Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister (iNfew haven: Yale University Press, 1066), p. 87, 24 Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoorsman, p. 24. 220

25 Ibid., p. 29. 26 See Roosevelt’s comment rpt. in James Morgan, Theodore Roosevelt, The Boy and the Man (New Yorki Grosset &n>unIap7_T^T^TT—P^- J^5il "As we grow older, I think most of us become less keen about that part of the hunt which con­ sists in the killing. I know that as far as I am concerned I have long gone past the stage when the chief end of a hunting trip is the bag. One or two bucks, or enough grouse and trout to keep the camp supplied, will furnish all the sport necessary to give zest and point to a trip in the wilderness."

27 Roosevelt, "The Master of Game," rpt. in Roosevelt, Works, XII, p. 353.

28 Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, rpt. in Roosevelt, Works, III, p. 125. PART II

The Last Hunts

Hunting Tradition and Receding Wilderness

in Twentieth-Century America

221 222

During the twentieth century, environmental changes

signified by wildlife regulation and receding wilderness

habitat forced writers to re-evaluate the place of hunting

in America. Some found hunting incompatible with industrial

society. But most writers attempted to justify hunting, or

at least to beg the question in favor of celebrating past

hunting. Few called for a resurgence of the savage urge

to hunt; most sought an accomodation, a moderation of

hunting in accordance with wise conservation practice.

Most writers agreed that hunting no longer enjoyed

such an integral role in American experience. Technology

increasingly supplied the physical needs once supplied by the products of the chase, and new forms of entertainment superseded hunting as intellectual, mythical, and psycho- sexual satisfaction. With the frontiers closed, the

Indians subjugated, many of the fiercer beasts nearly extinct or rendered innocuous, nature in essence under man*s control, hunting lost much of its previous, strongest rationale: that the American had to hunt in order to con­ quer the adversary of wilderness. In the twentieth century, hunting would become recreation.

Some writers responded to this trend with nostalgia for the lost wilderness, for times when hunting had been a profoundly primal confrontation with the wilderness.

These writers invoked the heroic past; they wrote of past glorious hunters or hunting feats in an attempt to give the sport a new gloss or intellectual "boost. Some sought to rejuvenate hunting by investing it with a new mysticism, a neo-primitivism. For many writers, hunting was still the best mode of environmental perception, if the hunter could only retreat to remaining wilderness areas. Ambivalence over nature did not evaporate with the triumph of tech­ nology, but became more complex with the introduction of

*'back-to-nature" schemes and ideas. Within the sport of hunting, intrusion of technological advances threatened to destroy old hunting traditions. Some writers addressed their writings to this problem of deterioration of hunting tradition. American involvement in World War II added another dimension to the justification of hunting. The sporting magazines tried to rescue hunting from its morose condition by claiming hunting as invaluable, necessary military training. Wars, they argued, were fought in the wildernesses, so the soldier had to have a ready familiarity with that environment. Even though wilderness was fast receding, most writers agreed that hunting was too venerable an American tradition to be consigned to mere recreation. Chapter XI

“The Lost Good Country":

Hunting Tradition and Receding Wilderness in Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams Stories

ZZk Regulation of hunting and loss of wilderness habitat brought significant change to American hunting. Dissatis­

fied with diminishing big game reserves, twentieth-century

American hunters traveled to foreign frontiers to hunt the abundant fauna. Jack London implied that gratification

of blood lust rested beyond American boundaries or in the

Northern wilds. Theodore Roosevelt took his later hunts in

Africa and South America. Twenty years later, Ernest

Hemingway led the literary charge after African rhino, lion, and wildebeest. In the twentieth century, the white safari big-game hunter became the spiritual heir of the nineteenth century savage hunting impulse. The popularity of this image suggested that somehow hunting in the American wilds was defunct or tame. The safari rhetorical stance ignored what hunting still meant in America in the early twentieth century. Despite depredations by market hunters and the fact that wildlife management was in its formative stages, game animals still existed in the American wilderness. This habitat, however, was fast receding before rampant human settlement. Y/hen American writers turned to hunting for their subject, they wrote on the conflict between hunting tradition and a disappearing wilderness. In his Nick Adams stories, Ernest Hemingway explored the theme of initiation into hunting ritual and tradition hard pressed by white encroaching civilization in the Michigan woods. 226

Hemingway's public image always overshadowed his literary reputation. The picture of the bellicoset bully, swaggering macho, expatriate, boxer, deep-sea fisherman, bull-fight aficionado, war correspondent, sweating writer, king of American letters, anti-intellectual raging lion attained celebrity status in the American media. Part of that glorified composite was the image of Hemingway as the cool, cerebral, lethal big-game hunter. Alfred Kazin wrote of this image: "As the years went by, one grew accustomed to Hemingway standing like Tarzan against a backdrop labeled Nature; or, as the tedious sportsman of Green Hills of Africa, grinning over the innumerable beasts he had slain." The image was not; entirely mythic. No American hunter was so insistent in explaining and defending his urge to hunt and his satisfaction with killing. In two non­ fiction works, Death in the Afternoon (1932) and Green Hills of Africa (1935)» Hemingway expounded his linked aesthetic 2 of killing cleanly and writing truly. As critic Richard

Hovey observed, Hemingway's "pursuit of violence and his preoccupation with artistic probity look like two aspects of 3 the same inward drive."

Supporting the sportsmanship code, Hemingway preached that the good hunter killed quickly, gracefully, and humanely. The infinitive, "to kill cleanly," and its attendant metaphysic, became associated with Hemingway. 22?

In Death in the Afternoon, he dramatized this ethos in the

halletic beauty of the matador's "ritual hunt" of the bull.

"Killing cleanly," he asserted, "and in a way which gives

you aesthetic pleasure and pride has always been one of the

greatest enjoyments of a part of the human race." In

Green Hills of Africa, he documented his own enjoyment of

killing cleanly during his African safari. To be able to

hold to the code proved one's manhoods "Since I still loved

to hunt I resolved that I would only shoot as long as I

could kill cleanly and as soon as I lost that ability I 5 would stop." That ability assured the hunter a vital role

in natural ecological cycles:

I did not mind killing anything, any animal, if I killed it cleanly, they all had to die and my interference with the nightly and the seasonal killing that went on all the time was very minute and I had no guilty feeling at all.°

When a hunter failed to meet this critical standard, such as by gut-shooting a sable bull, as Hemingway did in Africa, 7 he became a butcher. To this extent, Hemingway stood in direct lineage from the hunter-naturalist, strenuously advocating the principles of sportsmanship and investing the sport and the kill with a high aesthetic.

For Hemingway, hunting had also a more personal, and morbid, message. Always glowering at anyone who dared to down a larger animal than he had, Hemingway lived for the 8 trophy. At its very roots, hunting alleviated Hemingway's 228

preoccupation with death. Haunted by his father's suicide

in 1928, and perhaps by foreglimpses of his own eventual

self-destruction, Hemingway killed to stave off his own

death. He once revealed that sentiment to an interviewer.

Speaking in the third person, Hemingway commented, "Since

he was a young boy he has cared greatly for fishing and

shooting. If he had not spent so much time at them... he might have written much more. On the other hand, he might 9 have shot himself." Killing must involve the hunter's total attention; the hunter must always court danger, traverse the rim of the abyss, fight the bull face to face, pull the trigger with grace under pressure. The rationale for the African hunting trip which resulted in Green Hills of Africa displayed this bravado* "They would all so there 10 and purify themselves with a little danger." Hunting in such a way, according to Hemingway, dispelled the dread incurred from spiritual wounds, such as his own from World

War I. As critic James Bryan noted, "Hemingway has from the earliest Nick Adams stories held the hunting trip and 11 the fishing idyll to be therapeutic and regenerative."

Richard Drinnon placed Hemingway's morbid concern with killing within a long American tradition related to the savage urge to hunt:

Prom Davy Crockett's slaughter of bears, Buffalo Bill's of Indian food, Sergeant York's of Germans, down to Hemingway's soldiers and bulls and big game, the ecstasy of killing flows from inner fears.*2 229

To that extent, Hemingway departed from the hunter-

naturalist tradition. He was rarely interested in an

animal for scientific purposes; he was interested in an 13 animal only if he could kill it.

Ironically, Hemingway wrote little about hunting in

the American wilderness. His major books on the hunting

ethos, and two of his best short stories, "The Short Happy

Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro,"

were concerned with hunting and ritual killing in Spain and

Africa. In so far as American sportsmen absorbed his

cultish pontifications, the books had validity in regards

to American hunting. Curiously enough, Hemingway spent

much time in the West after 1930, and died there in 1961.

He hunted bighorn sheep in Montana, stalked and shot a

goodly number of grizzly bear on frequent trips to the

Nordquist Ranch in Wyoming, and established himself as sort

of a resident celebrity hunter at Sun Valley, Idaho. Once while crossing the prairie, he "tried potting prairie dogs 14 from the moving car with his Colt pistol." On July 2,

1961, he pulled the trigger on the largest game in his

canon, himself. Why'Hemingway transmuted none of this

American big-game hunting into literature remains enigmatic.

Perhaps his driving urge to keep up his Matador/B'wana

image precluded writing on what he considered such mundane topics as contemporary American hunting. Maybe American wilderness hunting no longer offered the necessary glory 230

and exhilaration. Since the war was over, he thought, the hull ring was the "only place where you could see life and 15 death, i.e., violent death." In Green Hills of Africa,

Hemingway returned his focus to America, and commented bitterly:

It is easier to keep well in a good country by taking simple precautions than to pretend that a country which is finished is still good,,,. Our people went to America because that was the place to go then. It had been a good country and we had made a bloody mess of it and I would go, now, somewhere else as we had always had the right to go somewhere else and as we had always gone. Ycu could always come back.16

Only in the Nick Adams stories did Hemingway write about his hunting in America. Those stories evoked nostalgia for when the country had been good, when hunting had meant an innocent appreciation of the wilderness. For these elegiac stories, Hemingway drew heavily on his boyhood hunting.

In his authorized biography of Hemingway, Carlos Baker sorted out much of the myth from the facts and provided invaluable details of Hemingway's early experiences with nature. Although he grew up in middle-class Oak Park,

Illinois, Hemingway received early exposure to nature while on frequent family trips to the Michigan woods. His parents greatly furthered his environmental education. His mother read from and showed him nature picture books; he astounded her by rapidly mastering at age three identification of 17 seventy-three birds in one of the books. Hemingway's 231 father inducted him into the knowledge and practice of 18 hunting and fishing lore, woodcraft and camplore. Young

Hemingway joined the local Agassiz Club, a nature-study 19 group organized by his father, Hemingway*s later

hunting beliefs derived from those of his father, as here

described by Bakers

Along with his compassion for wounded animals went a belief that God had provided wild game for the nurture and enjoyment of mankind. He shot all kinds of edible animals for the cooking pot, and taught Ernest from the begin­ ning to like venison, squirrel, possum, and raccoon, as well as pheasant, duck, quail, partridge, doves, and all kinds of fish. He was merciless with predators, which he re­ ferred to as "vermin.*'20

The education went deep; all throughout school, Hemingway

preferred to hunt and shoot than to play team sports or to 21 study. The fond memories of his father's expert hunting

and his own initiation into the sport supplied much of the

material and emotional impetus when he later wrote his

poignant Nick Adams stories,

Hemingway wrote the Nick Adams stories in a random

fashion over a period of twelve years. Appearing in

different books in various order, the career and character

of Nick Adams seemed fragmentary. Then in 1972, when

critic Philip Young arranged the stories in sequence and

inserted several unpublished pieces, the Nick Adams stories formed a coherent, almost archetypal pattern. Baker argued that Nick's experience differed "in no essential way from 232

that of almost any middleclass American male who started 22 life at the beginning of the present century." Based

partially upon Hemingway’s own childhood, adolescence, and

war service, the Nick Adams stories chronicled the pro­

gressive initiation of a boy into the innocent pleasures

of hunting and fishing, the revelations of death, birth,

suicide, parental cowardice, first love, homosexuality,

whores, battling hobos, killers, world war, wounds, return

to America and spiritual regeneration, marriage, fatherhood,

and recognition of his own eventual death. Witness to and

player in this panoply of events was Nick Adams, described

by Philip Young as "a sensitive, humorless, honest, rather

passive male. He is the outdoor man, who revels in the life

of the senses, loves to hunt and fish and takes pride in 23 his knowledge of how to do such things." In three of the

Nick Adams stories, initiation into hunting tradition in a 2 k receding wilderness played an integral role.

In "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," Nick appeared as a young boy. He watched his father being humiliated by

local ruffians, and then by his mother's shallow piety.

The doctor retreated from her stinging criticism, sitting down to clean his treasured shotgun. After his disgruntle- ment subsided, the doctor started to go out for a walk.

His wife asked him to send Nick in to her. But when the father found Nick and told him, Nick responded immediately,

"I want to go with you." His father easily relented. "I 233

know where there*s black squirrels, DaddyNick offered.

"All right, let's go there," answered the father, (p. 15.)

The story was deceptively simple. Nick chose for hunting

and male solidarity and flight from civilizing agencies as

represented by his pious, carping mother. He also deserted

his reading for this hunt. Nick knew that even though his

father commanded little physical respect in society, over

the woods he exercised special mastery. Early in Hemingway

came the notion of the woods as a symbolic antithesis to

civilization. Flight to and contact with the woods was a

spiritually regenerative activity, an innocent respite from 25 the relentlessness of white settlement.

In 1936, Hemingway wrote "Fathers and Sons," modelled the action and sentiments on his own recent experience.

Nicholas Adams, now grown up and a father in his own right, ir- drove across the countryside with his son, asleep beside him. The territory was unfamiliar, and Nick hunted the countryside figuratively, guessing the flight patterns of quail. The thought triggered remembrance of his father, who like Hemingway's had committed suicide. Nick recalled his father's hunting superiority, his almost superhuman vision, and how his father taught him to hunt. He also painfully recollected the sexual myths his father had passed on to him, the Victorian cant against buggery, masturbation, and venereal disease. In Nick's mind, initiation into 234 hunting aligned ironically with his introduction to sex with the Indian girl, Trudy. Both had occurred in the woods when the country was good, when the primitive and vital qualities remained. When Nick's son awoke and asked about life among the Indians, Nick ran over again in his mind the connection between sexual encounter and hunting.

Nick forgave his father for misinformation on the former, but thanked him for valuable training in the latter.

Toward the close of the story, Nick and his son discussed the boy's upcoming initiation into hunting, Nick's father's great hunting abilities, and Nick's eventual death and burial. The story ended on the elegiac note of Nick pro­ mising his son a visit soon to his grandfather's tomb.

"Fathers and Sons" benefited from a fine tension in

Nick's mind between memories of hunting in the past and prospects for the future. He equated his experiences with his father, his hunting, the woods, the Indians, the girl, and the first sex with the lost primitive qualities of the receding wilderness ("Long time ago good. Now no good, p. 244.) Something "good," had been removed from the land.

As Nick drove through the countryside in 1936, he was not certain he could transmit this traditional hunting know­ ledge and experience to his own son. The eventuality of his own death matched in his mind fears about the future loss of more wilderness, more of the primitive past. 235

In one other Nick Adams story, Hemingway returned to

the time when the woods were good, but being threatened by

the institution of game laws. "The Last Good Country"

revolved around Nick's flight from game wardens pursuing**him

for shooting a buck out of season and selling trout to a

local restaurant. The story may have had its inception in

a similar incident in Hemingway's adolescence, On a picnic

with his eleven-year old sister, Sunny, Ernest "impulsively"

shot a blue heron. The son of the local game warden saw

the killing and reported it. Hemingway had to flee and

hide out, until his father settled the matter in court.

Baker, who recorded the event in his biography, also wrote

that Hemingway "set down a puerile story based on the in- 26 cident." But the story, unfinished as it was, was much

better than Baker's estimate. Overtones barkening back

to the environmental debate in Cooper's The Pioneers rang

through the tale. Philip Young placed the story, which he referred to as a "sky-blue pastoral" and a "mythopoeic narrative," within the literary tradition of flight from 27 advancing society.

The narrative followed the factual incident closely, except that the younger sister went along on the escape in the story. Nick had killed a buck in an attempt to crease

its neck, a technique used throughout the West to stun and capture mustangs. That unfortunate shot, and suspicion about his undercover trout dealings, brought two game 236

v/ardens down on his trail. Warned "by his sister, and aided

by the hired girl and the couple who ran the restaurant,.

Nick and his sister fled to the woods. There they lived

an idyllic interlude, supplementing the food they brought

with berries and game that Nick shot. The woods took on a

religious glow to the runaways, (pp. 75•) Throughout

the narrative, the woods remained edenic. Nick shot the

abundant grouse for meat and sport. His sole worry was

that the warden’s son might remember the spot from tracking

Nick in the past.

The message of "The Last Good Country" was implicit in

the title. The agency of civilization, game laws and game

wardens, was threatening to tame the woods, God's own wilder­

ness. Hunting was an activity aligned with the good of the

woods, an encounter with the wilderness in an idyllic way.

Although the tone and thrust of the story was brashly

defiant, the victory v/ould seem to lie with the wardens.

Hemingway painfully sensed the decline of the "last good

country," The freedom to kill, to hunt, to forage off the

land was clashing with constricting civilization. All that

the good hunter, the boy trained in the ways of the woods,

could do was to protest by fleeing to whatever remained of

the last good country. For Hemingway, the urge to hunt was too valuable a human tradition to be lost to the

receding wilderness. 237

NOTES 1 Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Si’Eerature (Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor, 195&T* P« 261. 2 Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (New York: Scribner’s, 1932); Hemingway, Green Hills of Xfrica (New York: Scribner's, 1935)*

3 Richard B. Hovey, Hemingway: The Inward Terrain (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968J, p. 113; see also John Reardon, "Hemingway's Esthetic and Ethical Sportsmen," University Review (Kansas City), 34 (1967)* pp. 13-23; and see Carlos Baker's comment in his biography, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 308-369* "Nothing but writing could give him as much genuine pleasure as killing a bear, a buffalo, a kudu, a black-maned lion...."

4 Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, p. 232.

5 Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa, p. 148.

6 Ibid., p. 272.

7 Ibid., pp. 271-272. 8 Baker, Ernest Hemingway, pp. 298-299* Hemingway com­ peted with friend Charles Thompson to see who could bag the biggest bear. Hemingway persisted until he won the match. This psychology prevailed in Green Hills of Africa.

9 Hemingway, quoted in Georges Schreiber, ed., Portraits and Self-Portraits (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936)t p. 57* rp-tf. in Hovey, Hemingway: The Inward Terrain, p. 117* 10 Hemingway, paraphrased by Baker, Ernest Hemingway, p. 279. 238

11 James E. Bryan, "Hemingway as Vivisector," University Review (Kansas City), 30 (1963)* p. o. 12 Richard Drinnon, "In the American Heartlands Heming­ way and Death," Psychoanalytic Review, 52 (1965)* p. 28.

13 Novelist and hunter-naturalist Robert Cantwell once remarked of Hemingway, "He was never interested in any animal unless he could kill it." Related to this writer by Dr. William T. Hamilton, Otterbein College, October, 1974; Cantwell and Hemingway were friends; Cantwell and Hamilton share birdwatching enthusiasm and a better than passing acquaintance.

14 Baker, Ernest Hemingway, p. 252.

15 Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, p. 2. 16 Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa, pp. 284-285.

17 Baker, Ernest Hemingway, p. 11.

18 Ibid., pp. 17-18.

19 Ibid., p. 12.

20 Ibid., p. 18,

21 Ibid., p. 33. 22 Carlos Baker, Hemingway: The Writer as Artist (Princeton: Princeton University jPress, 1963)p p. 131

23 Philip Young, "Adventures of Nick Adams," in Robert P. Weeks, ed., Hemingway, A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 19^2), p. Ill; see 239

also Harvey Curtis Webster's characterization of Nick in "Ernest Hemingway, The Pursuit of Death," Texas Quarterly, 7 (1964-), p. 154: "An existentialist before the existent- ialists, an empiricist without benefit of philosophical training, he confronts life at its most basic."

24 References are to the arrangement by Philip Young and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses; Hemingway, The Nick Adams Stories, ed. Philip Young (New York: Bantam Books, 1972); "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" originally appeared in In Our Time (New York: Scrib­ ner’s, 1925)i "Fathers and Sons" in The Snows of Kiliman­ jaro and Other Stories (New York: Scribner's, 1936J, and '^The Last Good Country" was recovered from Hemingway's unpublished manuscripts by Philip Young in 1969.

25 Leslie Fiedler gave currency to the theory of flight from woman and civilization as an archetypal pattern in American experience. See Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel (New York: Stein and Day, I960), passim. 26 Baker, Ernest Hemingway, pp. 32-33.

27 Young, Three Bags Full (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1972J, p. 7jJ, Young, '"Big World Out There': The Nick Adams Stories," Novel, 6 (1972), p. 11. Chapter XII

"The Best of All Breathing": The Wilderness Career

of Isaac McCaslin in William Faulkner's

"The Old People," "The Bear," and "Delta Autumn"

240 241

Like Hemingway, novelist William Faulkner adhered to

idealistic conceptions about hunting and lamented the loss

of wilderness. An enthusiastic Mississippi hunter, Faulkner participated in elitist fox-hunts and local, rip-roaring communal coon and bear hunts. Hunting, for Faulkner was man's fundamental mythic activity: "the best game of all, the best of all breathing and forever the best of all 1 listening." The prospect that the American would ruth­ lessly dismantle the arena in which the game was played, the wilderness, dismayed him. The disappearance of the wilderness was ominously detrimental to man's spiritual needs, not only in the South, but throughout America and the rest of the earth. Faulkner touched on this in an interview response:

Well, of course the destruction of the wilder­ ness is not a phenomenon of the South, you know. That is a change that's going on every­ where, and X think that man progresses mechan­ ically and technically much faster than he does spiritually, that there may be something he could substitute for the ruined wilderness, but he hasn't found that. He spends more time ruining the wilderness than he does finding something to replace it.2

Faulkner was not a complete primitivist or preservationistt man must use or destroy the wilderness for positive aims only. If wilderness destruction made "more education for more people, and more food for more people, more of the good things of life, it is worth destroying the wilderness," he posited elsehwere in the interview, "But if all the 242 destruction of the wilderness does is to give more people automobiles just to ride around in, then the wilderness was 3 better."

Faulkner's fiction reflected his intense concern for the wilderness and its spiritual lessons. In Go Down, Moses

(1942), particularly in the trilogy of hunting stories, "The

Old People," "The Bear," and "Delta Autumn," he eloquently expressed his environmental perceptions. Through the hunting initiation and wilderness career of Isaac ("Uncle

Ike") McCaslin, Faulkner registered his passion for the 4 ideals of the hunt.

In "The Old People," McCaslin shot his first deer, under the tutelage of Sam Fathers, and graduated from shooting rabbits to shooting larger game, "hunter's meat."

From the kill and initiation ceremony, Ike learned the seemingly paradoxical qualities of pride and humility requisite to true appreciation of the kill and the wilder­ ness. The story contained all the elements of an archetypal hunting initiation* the eager supplicant, the wilderness- wise primitive priest, the sacrificial prey, and a quasi- magical environment. The opening scene suggested the archetypal essence of the event:

At first there was nothing. There was the faint, cold, steady rain, the gray and con­ stant light of late November dawn, with the voices of the hounds converging somewhere in it and toward them. Then Sam Fathers, standing just behind the boy as he had been standing 243

when the boy shot his first running rabbit with his first gun and almost with the first load it ever carried, touched his shoulder and he began to shake, not with any cold. Then the buck was there. He did not come into sight; he was just there, looking not like a ghost but as if all of the light were condensed in him and he were the source of it, not only moving in it but disseminating it, already running, seen first as you always see the deer, in that split second after he has already seen you, already slanting away in that first soaring bound, the antlers even in that dim light looking like a small rocking- chair balanced on his head. (p. 163*)

Into that dynamic imagistic scene, Sam Fathers interjected the command, "Now, shoot quick and slow." Ike shot true, but the speed and meaning of the kill eclipsed his memory

of it:

The boy did not remember that shot at all. He would live to be eighty,... but he would never hear that shot nor remember even the shock of the gun-butt. He didn't even remember what he did with the gun afterward. He was running. Then he was standing over the buck where it lay on the wet earth still in the attitude of speed and not looking at all dead, standing over it shaking and jerking, with Sam Fathers beside him extending the knife. (pp. 163-164.)

Sam cautioned the dazed boy on how to approach the slain beast; the boy must be cautious of the beast even in the middle of newfound reverence, (p. 164.)

Following Sam's directions, Ike slit the deer's throat, and then awaited his blood ablution, his initiation rite, which Sam stepped forward to perform. "Sam stooped and dipped his hands in the hot smoking blood and wiped them back and forth across the boy's face." (p. 164.) When 244

the rest of the hunting party arrived to survey the kill,

Sam pronounced Ike's worthiness as a hunter: "He done all

right." (p. 165.) At that point, Faulkner halted the

narrative, and sculpted a verbal frieze of the boy and his

mentor, suspended in the moment which would resonate

always through Ike's memory:

They were the boy, marked forever, and the old dark man sired on both sides by savage kings, who had marked him, whose bloody hands had merely formally consecrated him to that which, under the man's tutelage, he had already accepted humbly and joyfully, with abnegation and with pride too. (p. 165.)

Sam Father introduced Ike to the full range of the hunter's

code: "He taught the boy the woods, to hunt, when to shoot

and when not to shoot, when to kill and when not to kill,

and better, what to do with it afterward." (p. 170*)

The narrative then reverted back to the time when Ike was nine, when "he already knew all about hunting in this

settled country that Sam or anybody else could teach him."

(p. 174-.) Sam praised Ike's ability in limited, easy terrain, and promised that he would hunt bigger game in more primordial woods when he turned ten: "I done taught you all there is of this settled country. You can hunt as good as I can now. You are ready for the Big Bottom now, for deer and bear. Hunter's meat." (p. 174-.) By pre­ viewing Ike's initiatory hunt, Faulkner underscored the connection between hunting and manhood: "He would draw the 245 the blood, the big blood which would make him a man, a hunter." (p, 175 *) Ike reached ten and went on his first hunt to the Big Bottom. Then and there Sam taught him the requisite patience. "I'll never get a shot," complained

Ike, "I'll never kill one." Sam immediately rebuked him,

"Yes you will. You wait. You'll be a hunter. You'll be a man." (p. 176.)

Then the story returned to Ike's first kill, which happened on the last day of the yearly hunt when he was twelve. As the hunting party was leaving camp, another enormous buck darted out in front of them. All the hunters scattered in pursuit. Ike stayed next to Sam, now moving deliberately through the woods, both man and boy knowing that the deer was circling them, "perhaps conscious also of the eye of the ancient immortal Umpire." (p. 181.) Ike then realized the import of his first kill that morning:

Because he was just twelve then, and that morning something had happened to him; in less than a second he had ceased forever to be the child he was yesterday. Or perhaps that made no difference, perhaps even a city-bred man, let alone a child, could not have understood it; perhaps only a country-bred one could comprehend loving the life he spills. He began to shake again. (p. 181.)

Sam and Ike continued their slow pursuit of the buck, and then heard shots in the distance. Ike reckoned that Walter

Ewell, the crack shot, had downed the buck. But Sam said only, "Wait." Soon the buck appeared, suddenly, as had the 246

first one that morning, stately, “its head high and the eye

not proud and not haughty hut just full and wild and

unafraid,1' (p. 184.) Sam then addressed the deer in his

old native tongue, with reverence and kinship in his voice,

"Oleh, Chief. Grandfather." That incident, combined with

the first kill, had an epiphanous effect on Ike. He sensed

his own interconnection with natural cycles, a relationship

inseparable from hunting the wilderness creatures.

The later conversation between Ike and his older

cousin, McCaslin Edmonds, which closed the story, deepened

Ike's conviction. Ike protested to McCaslin that he had

indeed seen the large buck. In apparent disbelief, McCaslin

instead gave him a long lecture on the cyclical nature of

the earth and the futility of endeavor. McCaslin asked

rhetorically why a deer would encounter them when there were “plenty of places still unchanged from what they were when the blood used and pleasured in them while it was still

blood." (p. 187.) Ike had an answer: “But we want them.

We want them, too. There is plenty of room for us and them, too." McCaslin countered, “That's right. Suppose they don't have substance, can't cast a shadow— " But Ike interrupted him, “But I saw itl I saw himl" Ike had seen the deer and realized the meaning of Sam Father's salute to the buck.

McCaslin then admitted that he too had experienced that revelation: “Iknow you did. So did I. Sam took me in there once after I killed my first deer." (p. 187.) Ike carried 247

his firm conviction of his role as a wilderness hunter

throughout his life. For Ike, and for Faulkner, this close

connection to the animal world served as the best human

mode of environmental perception,

"The Old People" served, as one critic so aptly phrased

it, "as prelude to the fully orchestrated wilderness sym- 5 phony of 'The Bear.'" For sheer complexity of meaning,

"The Bear" occupied in Faulkner's works roughly the same

position Moby-Dick did in Melville's. As Francis Lee Utley

noted, "The Bear" invited an "infinity of readings":

It is the tall tale of an epic hunt for an immortal Hunted Bear who like God is also mortal, the realistic tale of how one boy is initiated into pride and humility, and the romantic tale of how that boy is pre­ pared by his culture for one massive and courageous act of repudiation of a land tainted by slavery and miscegenation.®

What Ike learned throughout the tale was manifold: awe and wonder at the powerful driving forces of nature, pride and humility in his role as a good hunter, but that the wilder­ ness would fall to the unbeliever first, to greed, rapacity, and mechanization symbolized by the railroad, and that all men, including himself, were implicated in the destruction

of the wilderness.

The hunting action in "The Bear," that is, parts— I-* II,

III, and V, occurred over a stretch of eight years, 1877- 7 1885. When viewed against the irreversible environmental decay described in "Delta Autumn," the origins of that 248

decay, as shown in "The Bear," provided historical rele­

vance. Faulkner dated the disintegration of the Southern

wilderness to those post-Reconstruction years, and even

earlier to I865, when the railroad entered the wilds. As

both participant and witness, Ike observed this deterior­

ation of the woods, this failure of humi3ity and pride to

prevent the death of the wilds and the demise of the old

primitive ways, as symbolized by the old bear. With Major

de Spain and General Compson's hunting party, Ike kept

"yearly rendezvous with the bear they did not even intend

to kill," and attended "the yearly pageant-rite of the old

bear’s furious immortality." (p. 194.)

Ike had sensed the parameters of this environmental

dilemma while on his first trip to the Big Bottom at age

ten, when "his cousin McCaslin brought him for the first

time to camp, the big woods, to earn for himself from the wilderness the name and state of hunter provided he in his turn were humble and enduring enough." (p. 192.) The demise of the wilderness Ike "divined" as inexorable: "that doomed wilderness whose edges were being constantly and punily gnawed at by men with plows and axes who feared it because it was wilderness." (p. 193.) To those men, and

somewhat to Ike, the wilderness was "a place of darkness 8 and doom, danger and death,"

Emblematic of that wilderness was the bear, Old Ben, who "had earned a name" in a land where men were "myriad 24-9 and nameless even to one another." (p. 193.) Through this

wilderness ran the old "bear, "too hig for even the very

country which was its constricting scope," (p. 193.) Even

before Ike went to the big woods, the bear had "loomed and

towered in his dreams" like a godly vision, (p. 193.)

Among the rest of the populace, Old Ben had acquired a bad

reputation for rapine activities and a mythic, totemic

stature as a near-god:

The long legend of com-cribs broken down and rifled, of shoats and grown pigs and even calves carried bodily into the woods and de­ voured and traps and deadfalls overthrown and dogs mangled and slain and shotgun and even rifle shots delivered at point-blank range yet with no more effect than so many peas blown through a tube by a child — a corridor of wreckage and destruction beginning back before the boy was bom, through which sped, not fast but rather with the ruthless and irresistible deliberation of a locomotive, the shaggy, tremendous shape, (p. 193.)

Ironically, it would be the railroad, the mechanical har­ nessing of nature's ferocious forces, that would subdue the wilderness. Until then, Old Ben presided as the avatar of that wilderness; he represented for Faulkner the "obsolete 9 primitive." Old Ben ran through the canebrakes and the swamps

not even as a mortal beast but an anachronism indomitable and invincible out of an old dead time, a phantom, epitome and apotheosis of the old wild life which the little puny humans swarmed and hacked at in a fury of abhorrence and fear like pygmies about the ankles of a drowsing elephant; — the old bear, solitary, indomitable, and alone; widowered childless 2 5 0

and absolved of mortality— old Priam reft of his old wife and outlived all his sons. (PP. 193-194.) Positioned against the wilderness, and courting it,

pursuing Old Ben with admiration and without intent to kill

were the hunters on the annual November hunt. The hunt

served as a deeply satisfying social event and represented 10 a masculine democracy. These were "not white nor black

nor red" men, but just "men, hunters, with the will and

hardihood to endure and the humility and skill to survive."

(p. 191.) For* Ike all of the ritual aspects of the hunt were exhilarating. The men and dogs vied with the bears and

deer "in the ancient and unremitting contest according to

the ancient and immitigable rules which voided all regrets and brooked no quarter." (p. 192.) The ensuing endless talking and reminiscence compounded the dignity of the hunt*

The voices quiet and weighty and deliberate for retrospection and recollection and exactitude among the concrete trophies — the racked guns and the heads and skins— in the libraries of town houses or the offices of plantation houses or (best of all) in the camps themselves where the intact and still-warm meat yet hung, the men who had slain it sitting before the burning logs on hearths when there were houses and hearths or about the smoky blazing of piled wood in front of stretched tarpaulins when there were not. (p. 192.)

The stimulation of everpresent alcohol added a feeling of homeopathic magic to the scene and a ritual salute to the beasts * 251

There was always a bottle present, so that it would seem to him that those fine fierce instants of heart and brain and courage and wiliness and speed were concentrated and distilled into that brown liquor which not women, not boys and children, but only hunters drank, drinking not of the blood they spilled but some condensation of the wild immortal spirit, drinking it moderately, humbly even, not with the pagan's base and baseless hope of acquiring the virtues of cunning and strength and speed but in salute to them. (p. 192.)

Given such mythically fulfilling activities, hunting was indeed for Ike, and for Faulkner, "the best game of all, the best of all breathing and forever the best of all listening." (p. 192.)

Within the hunters' camp, the measure of a hunter was equal to his pride and his humility, as well as his ability to shoot. Boon Hogganbeck, the violent, mindless halfbreed, who had neither pride nor humility nor shooting skill, was the worst of the hunters. Sam Fathers probably qualified as the best. Ike, of course, aspired to inherit Sam's mythic and spiritual legacy. After the vicious dog, Lion, came, and it became apparent that the old bear could now be apprehended, Ike devoutly wished that the bear's slayer possess the requisite pride and humility. When Sam came to

Ike and announced the possibility of the bear's death

("Somebody is going to, some day"), Ike responded fervently

"I know it. That's why it must be one of us." (p. 212.)

Ike could not bear the thought of a meaningless kill; if the wilderness that the bear symbolized had to die, let the 252

hunter who lived truly for that wilderness perforin the

coup. Thus Ike continued, "So it wont be until the last

day. When even he dont want it to last any longer." (p.

212.) As Ike's spiritual commitment to the hunter's code

deepened, the more he hoped for perpetuation of the bear and the annual ritual of the mythic hunt. Ike sought the bear out, not to blast him away, but rather to worship him, to gather his wisdom before the wilderness vanished into

so many toothpicks and railroad ties. With the help and

instruction of Sam Fathers, Ike hunted Old Ben, trailed him closer than did any of the experienced old-time hunters, and earned his pride and humility.

Ike encountered Old Ben nine times throughout "The 11 Bear" in a "series of ritual epiphanies." At first, Ike felt that Old Ben was hunting him, much as Jim Doggett, in

"The Big Bear of Arkansas," thought that the "unhuntable 12 bar" was pursuing him. On his first hunt, Ike only heard

Old Ben at a distance from the stand where he and Sam were stationed. Sam explained to Ike, "He comes to see who's here, who's new in camp this year, whether he can shoot or not, can stay or not." (p. 198.) On the second occasion,

Ike did not see the bear, but saw his distinctive footprint in the mud. Ike knew then that the bear was not solely a creature of legendry or his dreams, but was mortal. Yet the track inspired mixed emotions in Ike: "an eagerness, passive; an abjectness, a sense of his own fragility and 253

impotence against the timeless woods, yet without doubt or

dread.” (p. 200.) Two weeks after first hearing Old Ben,

Ike sensed that the bear was spying on him from a hidden

spot. (p. 203.)

The bear still having eluded his vision, Ike asked

Sam exasperatedly for advice, "You aint looked right yet,"

Sam told him. "It's the gun," he advised Ike, "You will

have to choose." (p. 206.) Ike realized that he would

have to meet the bear on the bear's terms, untainted by

civilized trappings. He discarded the gun, and set off

into the woods with only a stick to fend off snakes. After

tromping for nine hours, Ike still had not seen the bear.

Then he deduced that he still was tainted, by carrying his

watch and compass. Divesting himself of those instruments,

Ike "relinquished completely" to the wilderness. Only when

Ike became lost did Old Ben appear:

Then he saw the bear. It did not emerge, appear; it was just there, immobile, fixed in the green and windless noon's hot dap­ pling, not as big as he had expected, bigger, dimensionless against the dappled obscurity, looking at him. Then it moved. It crossed the glade without haste, walking for an instant into the sun's full glare and out of it, and stopped again and looked back at him across one shoulder. Then it was gone. It didn't walk into the woods. It faded, sank back into the wilderness without motion as he had watched a fish, a huge old bass, sink back into the dark depths of its pool and vanish without even any movement of its fins. (p. 209.)

Along with Sam Fathers, the old bear became Ike's tutors in 2 5 ^

the wilderness: "If Sam Fathers had been his mentor and the

backyard rabbits and squirrels his kindergarten, then the

wilderness the old bear ran was his college and the old

bear itself, so long unwifed and childless as to have become

its own ungendered progenitor, was his alma mater." (p.

210.) Faulkner placed Ike in the same tradition with Fark-

man's Henry Chatillon and Melville's Ishmael, hunters who viewed their wilderness experiences as schooling better

than that in classrooms.

The fifth revelation of the bear occurred when once

Ike was still-hunting, using Walter Ewell's gun. Ike saw

the bear "cross a long corridor of down timber where a

tornado passed. It rushed through rather than across the

tangle of trunks and branches as a locomotive would, faster than he had ever believed it could have moved." (p. 211.)

Shortly thereafter, Ike met up with Old Ben again, held at bay by Ike's mongrel dog, Ike refrained from firing in

order to rescue the dog from from the bear:

When he overtook and grasped the shrill, frantically pinwheeling little dog, it seemed to him that he was directly under the bear. He could smell it, strong and hot and rank. Sprawling, he looked up where it loomed and towered over him like a thunderclap. It was quite familiar, until he remembered: this was the way he had used to dream about it. (p. 211.)

The seventh, eighth, and final meetings with Old Ben happened during three yearly hunting campaigns on which 255

the wild, "blue dog led the chase. On the first (1881),

Ike watched Old Ben escape the dogs by losing his trail in

the river. (p. 22b.) The next November, Ike saw General

Compson draw blood from the bear. (p. 225.) On the hunt

in December, 1883* when Ike was sixteen, he witnessed the

final assault on Old Ben, (pp. 24-241.)

Lion led the charge on Old Ben, jumping up at the bear's throat and holding on, working hideously at the neck.

The bear retaliated by raking open the dog's belly. This

enraged Boon, who had come to identify with the vicious, blue dog, so much as to sleep in the same room with it.

Boon ran in, hurtled the other hounds, and knifed the old bear from behind. For a moment the action froze in Ike's mind: "They almost resembled a piece of statuary: the clinging dog, the bear, the man stride its back, working and probing the buried blade." (p. 24*1.) After more heaving and thrashing, the old bear toppled: "It didn't collapse, crumple. It fell all of a piece, as a tree falls." (p. 24-1.) When the struggle subsided, the hunters discovered Sam Fathers, face down in the mud, not dead, but dying. (p. 242.)

This climactic, titanic battle drew much attention from the critics. Some saw the struggle as an antagonistic confrontation between the wilderness and civilization, that

Lion and Boon were representatives of impending mechanization* precursors of the railroad and logging camp. Such a view 2 5 6

13 also read Lion as the antithesis of Old Ben. A more

plausible might be that Lion embodied "the fierce attitudes

of the hunters without humanity that serves as a check on

their ferocity.” Boon, the worst of the hunters, the one

lacking precisely that restraint, was the one who killed

the bear. What Ike witnessed was not only the tragic death

of Old Ben and the demise of Sam Fathers (also so steeped

in the wilderness as to be part of it), but the complicity

of all men, including himself, in the destruction' of that

wilderness. Sam had been the one who had trained Lion, had

channeled the dog's brutality into man's service.* Perhaps

Sam acted out of retribution for being racially oppressed;

perhaps he wanted to bring on his final freedom. Ike him­

self had not hated nor feared Lion, even though he foresaw

Lion's destined role in the killing of the bear. (p. 226.)

Nor did he hate Boon; instead he defended Boon from the

accusations by McCaslin, after Boon had shot Sam Fathers,

probably upon Sam's request. (p.- 254.) For the rest of

his wilderness career, Ike would be partially guilty of

destroying the woods, because he would lead to those woods

the men who would later complete the destruction. The hunts

after Old Ben, and especially the formidable last fight,

revealed to Ike the fearsome forces at work in the woods, and the evil within every man's breast. The railroad and

logging camps were but more refined examples of man's final failure to appreciate the wilderness environment. 257

Part IV of "The Bear" added an historical and social dimension to the wilderness theme. In that section, Ike discovered with horror the long train of incest and misce­ genation committed by his ancestor, Carothers McCaslin.

That disclosure, and what Ike had learned on the bear hunts, drove him to repudiate his McCaslin patrimony at age twenty-one, in favor of a life as a carpenter and hunter.

In Part V, Faulkner returned his narrative to 1885» to the summer nearing two years after the deaths of Old Ben and Sam Fathers. Ike went back to the Big Bottom, to visit the scene of the deaths, and Sam's grave, before the lumber company came in to cut. While wandering, Ike mused about the time when the railroad had first some into the woods, back in 1865» when once "it had been harmless." (p. 319.)

Ike recalled the incident of a locomotive scaring a bear cub into a tree, where it remained, petrified, for thirty- six hours. Boon and Ash, the cook, had guarded the cub, so no one would shoot it. But now, as Ike went through the wood and heard the train in the distance, he knew it was differ­ ent. He recognized the railroad as a symbol of doom for the wilderness, as the end of all the good woods and good past hunting. (pp. 319-320.)

With that uneasy knowledge in mind, Ike continued on through the woods in search of Boon, who he was supposed to meet for a hunt. On the way, Ike stopped at the scene of the old bear's toppling, but didn't seek out Sam's grave. He sensed that Sam knew he was there, had known as soon as

Ike had entered the woods. Ike resigned himself to the

idea that Sam, and Lion and Old Ben, all buried in that

same vicinity, were now free within the earth, restored,

not restrained by it. (pp. 328-329.) As he left the area,

he came across a rattlesnake, the Serpent in the Garden,

"the old one, the ancient and accursed about the earth...,

evocative of all knowledge and an old weariness and of

pariah-hood and of death." (p. 329.) As Sam had done six

years before in the presence of the big buck, Ike addressed

the snake, "Chief. Grandfather." (p. 330.) That marked

Ike's affirmation of evil in the post-edenic wilderness.

That was the equivalent of the blood markings that Sam had daubed on his face six years before. The role of the hunter allowed for no true innocence despite one's pre­ tensions, The hunter should have pride and humility and endurance and will, and several other virtues, but the actual act of killing engaged the hunter in evil.

"The Bear" concluded with Ike tracing the loud sharp sound to Boon, sitting at the base of a large gum tree and beating apart his gun. This scene, roundly debated by the critics, had a pathetic quality quite removed from Ike's 15 recognition of evil in the woods. Boon, having acquired a sense of longing for the hunting he had loved in spite of his clumsiness, tried to protect a patch of woods from the advancing lumber company. The reason why he sat under the 259

tree filled with squirrels and "beat apart his gun was

ambiguous. Perhaps Boon was reacting to his continual

frustration with the mechanical world — his gun had jammed—

or perhaps he was trying to repair the gun so he could

shoot the squirrels, the only game he had ever been able to

kill. If the latter reason held, then Boon's act of

guarding the tree was ignoble and selfish, fraught with the

Faustian desires and lust of any man trying to expropriate

nature for himself. If the former suggestion proved true,

then Boon acted out of love for the animals, by attempting

to protect them from his own and the railroad's rapacity.

This scene may have had roots in the treed bear cub scene

earlier in Part V. Although the story ended without any

comment by Ike about the gum tree scene, perhaps the image

confirmed for him what he had sensed long before* the sad,

inexorable doom of the wilderness and the failure of the hunter to prevent that demise. The sight of the "frenzied vortex," the "maelstrom" of "leaping and darting" squirrels, frightened by the railroad's sound and the hunter beneath the tree, the animals penned up in one last refuge of wild­ erness , encapsulated for Ike the trend he had expected but hoped against for the preceding eight years.

If "The Old People" served as prelude to the wilderness symphony of "The Bear," then "Delta Autumn" functioned as a sort of coda. In this story, set close to the time of the 260

book's perspective, near 19^0, Ike McCaslin, nearing eighty,

conducted hunting tours for descendants of some of the men

he had hunted with in the previous century. The main

thrust of the story came from Ike's slow discovery that yet

another McCaslin had engaged in miscegenation and had been

trying to buy his way out of the dilemma. But along with

that social content, Ike compared contemporary hunting with

that of the old days. He recollected the "keen heart-

lifting anticipation of hunting." (p. 335*) All that had

changed now for Ike:

But that time was gone now. Now they went in cars, driving faster and faster each year because the roads were better and they had farther and farther to drive, the territory in which the game still existed drawing yearly inward as his life was drawing inward, until now he was the last of those who had once made the journey in wagons without feeling it. (p. 336.)

Ike tried to lecture the younger hunters on the meaning of this alteration of the land. Conjecturing upon what must have been God's reactions at creation* Ike thought that if

God had not implanted the hunting urge in man that he knew

it would be there or man would teach it to himself. (p. 3^8.)

For Ike, God had also added the moral strictures that Ike had come to associate with the hunter's code, with retri­ bution for ruining the wilderness:

He put them both here: man, and the game he would follow and kill, foreknowing it. I believe He said, "So be it." I reckon He even foreknew the end. But He said, "I will give him his chance. I will give warning 261

and foreknowledge too, along with the desire to follow and the power to slay. The woods and fields he ravages and the game he de­ vastates will be the consequence and signa­ ture of his crime and guilt, and his punish­ ment. (p. 3^9.)

Ike went on in his mind, remembering in vivid detail his

first deer kill with Sam Fathers back in the Big Bottom, recalling what he had been unable to phrase then, his deep sensation of pride and humility at the deer's death: "I slew you; my bearing must not shame your quitting life. My conduct forever onward must become your death." (p. 351■)

Once in the last remaining parts of the Southern wilderness,

Ike beamed forth his long-held sentiments as strongly as ever:

He could almost see it, tremendous, primeval, looming, musing downward upon this puny evanescent clutter of human sojourn which after a single brief week would vanish and in another week would be completely healed, traceless in the unmarked solitude. Because it was his land, although he had never owned a foot of it. He had never wanted to, not even after he saw plain its ultimate doom, watching it retreat year by year before the onslaught of axe and saw and log-lines and then dynamite and tractor plows, because it belonged to no man. It belonged to all; they had only to use it well, humbly and with pride. (p. 35^*)

Ike fashioned in his mind the belief that he was coeval with the wilderness, that like Sam Fathers before him, they would endure only in proportion to the wilderness that was their support and psychological sustenance and was reflected in their wilderness careers as hunters. (p. 35^*) Until 262

that day of deliverance, Ike had to live on earth, and to

view the wretched work of his fellow men; "this land which

man has deswamped and denuded and derivered in two gene­ rations," (p. 36b.) His anguish at the environmental

change forced him to cry out in his thoughts: "No wonder

the ruined woods I used to know dont cry for retribution! he thought: The people who have destroyed it will accom­ plish its revenge." (p. 364-.) For Ike McCaslin, and for

Faulkner, this pessimistic vision of a wasteland over­ coming and supplanting the once vibrant big woods, of the loss of hunting and its traditions, "the best of all breathing," of the spiritually nourishing qualities of the wilderness, seemed a telling condemnation on twentieth- century American conceptions of progress. 263

NOTES 1 William Faulkner, "The Bear," in Go Down, Moses (New York: Random House, 194-2), p. 192. All references to the three stories discussed here from Go Down* Moses are from this edition and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses. 2 Faulkner, quoted in Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph L. Blotner, eds., Faulkner in the University (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1938)* rptV in Francis Lee Utley, Lynn Z. Bloom, and Arthur F. Kinney, eds., Bear, Man, and God: Eight Approaches to William Faulkner's "The Bear" (New York: RandomHouse,-l£7l)7 PP. 112-118; quote is from p. 115. This casebook is a very valuable introduction to the complexities of "The Bear.”

3 Ibid., pp. 117-118. 4 This study seeks to explicate only the wilderness theme in "The Bear." Questions pertaining to the unity of Go Down, Moses as a novel, the artistic merits or non-merits of Part IV, Ike McCaslin*s failure as a social being, the validity or non-validity of his racial theories, his repud­ iation of the patrimony, his marriage as described in Part IV, matters of style, form, and dialect, and debate over the meaning of the dog, Lion, or the gum tree scene, all such questions are beyond the scope of this chapter. Only Ike*s hunting initiation and wilderness career are pertinent here. Readers interested in those other issues are referred to the fine, annotated bibliography in Utley, Bloom, and Kinney, eds., Bear, Man, and God, pp. 317-334.

5 Gloria R. Dussinger, "Faulkner*s Isaac McCaslin as Romantic Hero Manqu6," South Atlantic Quarterly, 68 (1969)* p. 380. 6 Francis Lee Utley, "Pride and Humility: The Cultural Roots of Ike McCaslin," in Utley, Bloom, and Kinney, sds., Bear, Man, and God, p. 167. 264

7 See Thomas J. Wertenbaker, Jr.'s elucidating chronology of Ike McCaslin and "The Bear," College English, 24 (1962), pp. 169-178» rpt. in Utley, Bloom, and Kinney, eds., Bear, Man, and God, pp. 312-315. 8 Leonard Gilley, "The Wilderness Theme in Faulkner’s ’The Bear'," Midwest Quarterly, 6 (1965)1 p. 381; Gilley made a strong case for a puritanical conception of the wilderness in "The Bear," that Ike joined in savage acts of hunting in a hostile wilderness. The theory seems too overwrought. To be sure, Ike learned of his complicity in evil within the wilderness, but throughout the story, the wilderness appears not always as a place of doom and moral degradation. Often the woods had a magical, almost pastoral lilt about them. Gilley's reading is too narrow; certainly Ike did not view the woods as a morally dangerous place, but rather as an uplifting, spiritually ennobling locus,

9 Faulkner, quoted in Gwynn and Blotner, eds,, Faulkner in the University, rpt. in Utley, Bloom, and Kinney, eds,, bear, Man, and God, p. 113. 10 See Utley's perceptive observation: "Many Northern boys know a hobby called hunting; most Southern boys know hunting as a way of life." Utley, "Pride and Humility," in Utley, Bloom, and Kinney, eds,, Bear, Man, and God, p. 167.

11 Ibid., p. 169; Utley listed only eight epiphanies; he neglected to count when Ike first saw the footprint, as clear an epiphany as any other. 12 For parallels between the two tales, see Carvel Collins, "Faulkner and Certain Earlier Southern Fiction," College English, 16 (1954), p. 96.

13 See W.R. Moses, "Where History Crosses Myth: Another Reading of 'The Bear'," Accent, 13 (1953), pp. 21-33.

14 Lynn Altenbernd, "A Suspended Moment: The Irony of History in William Faulkner's 'The Bear'," Modern Language Notes, 75 (I960), p. 575* see also Joyce W. Warren, "The Role of Lion in Faulkner's 'The Bear'," Arizona Quarterly, 24 (1968), pp. 252-260. 265

15 For one characteristic exchange, see H.H. Bell, Jr., ',rA_F??tnote *fco Faulkner’s ’The Bear,,,, College English. 24 (1962), pp. 179-183 and E.R. Hutchison,” Footnote to the Gum Tree Scene," College English. 24 (1963), pp. 564-565. Chapter XIII

•'It War Some"-* Hunting Tradition and Receding Wilderness

in Five Representative Western Regionalist Novels

266 267 In the American West, during the 19^0's and 1950's,

regionalist writers such as A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Vardis

Fisher, Frederick Manfred, Walter van Tilburg Clark, and

Frank Waters faced the psychological closing of the frontier

by looking back to earlier Western hunting and hunters.

Wallace Stegner, one Westerner whose novels hewed more

closely to contemporary Western experience, chided his

colleagues for their retrospective emphasis:

Why haven't Westerners ever managed to get beyond the celebration of the heroic and mythic frontier?... Until some Westerner manages to do for his part of the West what Faulkner did for Mississippi, and discover a usable continuity between past and present, Western literature is going to stay mired in the past.^

In his Pulitzer-Prize-winning Angle of Repose (1971)» Steg­ ner attempted to construct such a bridge between eras.

Most regionalist writers, however, confirmed Stegner's pointt they remained riveted to the past. Some looked back with less love than did others. Guthrie's view of the mountain man was much less nostalgic than that of Fisher.

Manfred imputed heroic, but gruesome virtues to the Western hunter. Other writers sought to re-invigorate hunting by infusing it with a neo-primitivism. Clark and Waters both imparted a new mysticism to hunting as environmental per­ ception in their novels. Finding the present Western contact with wilderness adulterated by regulations, money­ making schemes, and tourism, these writers harkened back to times when hunting was purer wilderness adventure. 268

Whatever the writers' moral perspective on hunting and

hunters, survival hunting assumed a significant part in

their novels. In The Big Sky (19*f7). Guthrie chronicled

the rough and quarrelsome fur trade of the 1830*s. Fisher

drew on legends surrounding "Liver-Eatin*" John Johnston

for Mountain Man (1965). Similarly, Manfred drafted the

Hugh Glass legend for Lord Grizzly (195*0. In The Track of

The Cat (19^9)» Clark described three brothers hunting a

symbolic mountain lion in the Nevada Sierras around 1900,

Frank Waters, in The Man Who Killed the Deer (19*H)» exam­

ined the cultural conflict between the Pueblo Indians and

the federal government over hunting in the early twentieth- 2 century Southwest,

I

Speaking in 1972, A.B. Guthrie said that he wrote

The Big Sky out of the "conviction that justice hadn't been

done to the mountain man, that mixture of hardihood, dis­

sipation, heroism, brute action, innocence and sin,"

Guthrie elaborated further on his intentions*

I wanted to show the mountain man as he was... not the virtuous, if unlettered Leatherstocking, but the engaging, rude, admirable, odious, thoughtless, resourceful, loyal, sinful, smart, stupid, courageous character that he was and had to be.3

Fraught with those paradoxical qualities, mountain men were the first white hunters in the trans-Mississippi West.

Their reasons for coming West were various. Many came to 269 get rich quickly off the expanding fur trade, others to

evade the law and constricting civilization in the states,

and others still to shepherd into those territories the

American way of life. Their conceptions of just what this wilderness was to remain as also varied. Some forecast

that the Indians, mountain men, buffalo, and beaver would

occupy the lands, as they alone could survive the rigorous

climate of the West. Others saw the wilderness as meeting their wants for the moment, but eventually falling away before the advancing white civilization, farmers, towns, and cities. Many worshipped the land, the animals, and the life-supporting natural features with an Indian-oriented emulation and respect; others viewed the West as a giant playground for free spirits, free women, free land, and free animals. Often those two sentiments mixed in the mind of the same mountain man. Rapacity combined with respect, vigilant hunting tempered dissipated orgies, and profound understanding of natural ecology met an outright disregard for that ecology. The general tenor was that the West "war some," that the great pleasures of Western hunting would never lapse, that riotous rendezvous would always follow the winter of solitary trapping and hunting. As the fur trade began to fade during the l830*s, these mountain men saw their dream of untrammeled wilderness evaporate. In

The Big Sky. Guthrie depicted these divisions in the moun­ tain men's concepts of the wilderness. Through the careers 2?0

of his characters, Boone Caudill and Dick Summers, and

their long internal debate over the future of the West,

Guthrie evoked both the doomed mountain man, who denoted

"the bankruptcy of primitivism" in the West, and the mountain man who accomodated himself to westward American k progress.

Boone Caudill appreciated the Western environment as a near-Eden compared to civilized haunts like Kentucky,

Throughout the novel, Boone exemplified the "elbow room" notions of his namesake: "It didn't suit him to be where people were so thick." (p. 65.) After a family fracas in

Kentucky, Boone went westward to the Missouri River fur- trading country. Out there he received a wilderness education from the older mountain man, Dick Summers. Soon

Boone grew acclimated to mountain man ways. Even on his first trip out in I830, Boone sensed his future satisfaction with the hunter's life: "This made living worth a man's time. This and buffalo ahead, ready to be shot." (p. 100.)

Nature, for Boone, was abundant and providential. He drew his powers from the fruits of the land: "How much fresh meat could a man eat? It went into the stomach and spread right out into blood and strength, leaving the belly ready for more." (p. 127.) His instinctive love for the land approached pantheism; the country they entered "kept getting freer and bigger until sometimes, looking out over it from a rise, Boone felt he was everywhere on it, like the air 271

or the light." (p. 127.)

Perhaps most illustrative of Boone's enthusiasm for

the Western wilderness was the scene wherein he, Jim

Deakins, and Summers met up with Boone's Uncle Zeh, another

mountain man of long experience. Hearing that his nephew

and Deakins intended on becoming mountain men, Zeb roared

that they were ten years too late* "This was man's country

onc't. Every water full of beaver and a galore of buffler

any ways a man looked, and no crampin' and crowdin'" (p.

150.) Summers answered, "She ain't sp'iled, Zeb. Depends

on who's lookin'." (p. 151.) Zeb continued, predicting that beaver would vanish in five years and buffalo in fifty. His gloominess failed to daunt Boone. His comment on the issue expressed his naive zest for the West* "She still looks new to me, new and purty." (p. 152.)

Seven years later, the edenic qualities of the wilder­ ness environment still appealed to Boone, who had in the interim become an accomplished mountain man:

It was good enough, Boone thought to himself. What did a man want as long as he had marrow­ bones and hump ribs and a fire to keep him warm and a free country to move around in? It took something to beat a place where you could kill a buffalo every day and not half try and take just the best of it and leave the rest to the wolves. (p. 169.)

His companion, Jim Deakins, observed of Boone's close association with the wilderness: "He was like an animal, like a young bull that traveled alone, satisfied just by earth and water and trees and the sky over him. It was as 272

if he talked to the country for company, and the country

talked to him, and as if that was enough.” (p. 185-) Of

course, Deakin's point, and Guthrie's, was that such an

attitude was admirable but not complete enough for a man,

that it was socially sterile, that the adamic mountain man

had no sense of time or change. Yet even after criticism

and suggestions by Summers that the fur-trader's way of

life would fade away, Boone clung to his earlier concepts*

This was the way to live, free and easy, with time all a man's own and none to say no to him. A body got so's he felt every­ thing was kin to him, the earth and sky and buffalo and beaver and the yellow moon at night. It was better than being walled in by a house, better than breathing in spoiled air and feeling caged like a varmint., better than running after the law or having the law running after you and looking to rules all the time until you wondered could you even take down your pants without somebody's say- so. Here a man lived natural. Some day, maybe, it would all end, as Summers said it would, but not anyways soon — not so soon a body had to look ahead and figure what to do with the beaver gone and churches and court­ houses and such standing where he used to stand all alone. The country was too wild and cold for settlers.

Convinced that the land was his for a long time to

come, even if the fur trade was waning, Boone chose to

remain in the mountains. By 184-2, he married Teal Eye, the

Indian woman he had saved from the Blackfeet twelve years previous, and moved into a Piegan village. The indolent

life there pleased Boone. He could sit around without any

one nagging him, bask in the sun, watch the moon, and when he felt the urge, trap the abundant beaver, or shoot meat. 273 But Boone's sense of idyllic existence ended when he met up with Elisha Peabody, who headed an Oregon-bound wagon train.

In trying to convince Boone to guide the train through the

South Pass, Peabody, an ingenious Yankee, conjured up a vision of the "inevitable destiny" of American progress in

the Wests "Transport, merchandising, agriculture, lumbering,

fisheries, land! I can't imagine them all." (p. 278.)

Peabody wasn't too concerned with harvesting the native wildlife: "I'm not interested in beaver," he told Boone,

"It is development I'm interested in, future development.

You appear to think, because the Indians haven't made use of this great western country, that nobody can." (p. 277.)

Boone, who by that year was more Indian than white in temperament, resented the remark. "They live in this country," he retorted, "They live off of it, and enj'y themselves and all." (p. 278.) Peabody then delivered a speech justifying dispossession that progressivists would amplify over the next fifty years*

When country which might support so many actually supports so few, then, by thunder, the inhabitants have not made good use of the natural possibilities. That failure is justification for invasion, peaceful if possible, forcible if necessary, by people who can and will capitalize on opportunity. (p. 278.)

Peabody succeeded in getting his wagons through despite

Indian attacks, but for Guthrie, he represented a type equally untenable for the Western environment, the Yankee filling up the Big Sky country with Eastern forms of life. 274 Not until a year later, after Boone had killed Jim

during an unwarranted fit of jealousy over Teal Eye, and

had gone hack to see his family in Kentucky, did he admit

the inexorability of American westward progress. On his

way back west from Kentucky, Boone stopped in at Dick Sum­

mer's farm in Missouri. Drinking and reminiscing with

Summers, Boone complained, "It's all sp'iled, I reckon,

Dick. The whole caboodle." Summers nodded in agreement

and spoke a eulogy for the mountain man's way of life:

I don't guess we could help it. There was beaver for us and free country and a big way of livin*, and everything we done it looks like we done against ourselves and couldn't do different if we'd knowed. We went to get away and to enj'y ourselves free and easy, but folks was bound to foller and beaver to get scarce and Injuns to be killed or tamed, and all the time the country gettin* safer and better known. We ain't seen the end of it yet, Boone, not to what the mountain man does against hisself. Next thing is to hire out for guides and take parties acrost and sp'ile the country more.... It's like we heired money and had to spend it, and now it's nigh gone. (p. 385.)

Perhaps realizing the truth of Summer's lament, Boone con­ fessed his part in spoiling the land and the dream, that he killed Jim Deakins and left Teal Eye. Boone cursed the spoiling and staggered away, fading from Summer's sight.

For Guthrie, Dick Summers maintained a more realistic view of the wilderness and civilization in The Big Sky.

Summers had been a mountain man for years, but he bowed both to age and civilization. As opposed to the mythic mountain man, who retained a vibrant stature in American 275 frontier mythology, Summers was closer to the historical

mountain man, most of whom, providing they survived the 5 first couple of winters, returned to Jacksonian society,

Jourdonnais, the organizer of the 1830 venture, noted that

tendency in Summers:

All hunters are crazy. You like the lonely fire, the danger, what you call freedom, and, sometime the squaw,,,. But you are not all mountain man, Summers, Half of you is grayback farmer..,. You do not so off, like the hermit, to stay forever, (p. 70.)

Unlike Boone, Summers was "an easy man without the dark

strain of violence that ran so often in mountain men."

(p. 116.) Summers would adapt and survive the changes

wrought by white settlement. He, unlike Boone, had a sense

of time and society as well as an impeccable knowledge of

the wilderness. Deakins recognized that shortly after Dick

left him and Boone to go back to Missouri: "Summers under­

stood how a man felt and he understood animals and nature,

too, and they all seemed to fit together with him and make

him at home wherever." (p. 220.) Summers fit smoothly

into the farmer's life. Even when Boone visited in 184-3,

Dick felt he had made the right choice. For a moment, he

longed to experience the mountain man's life again, "to

trap and hunt and to know danger and good loneliness," but when he thought it out, Dick knew that farming was "the

right caper" for him. (p. 384-.) The novel ended with an

ambiguous scene of Dick watching Boone weave away into the

darkness, and then finding in the cabin cold greens and ham 276

on the table, his wife having gone to bed. Boone's lament

had aroused old sensations in Summers, In Guthrie's next

novel, The Way West (194-9)* Summers changed his mind about

farming. His wife having just died in childbirth, Dick

signed on to lead a wagon train to Oregon. He guided the * train to its destination, but decided to travel through the mountain country once more. Summers found Boone's estimate about the spoiled freedom, the tamed wilderness, tragically true. Electing to go to what was left of uncharted land,

Summers headed for the Popo Agie River area.

For Guthrie, the vision of the young West, the Big Sky country, where everything seemed new and innocent, where mountain men reveled in the bounties of nature, proved to carry the seeds of its own destruction. However appealing that unfettered life of hunting and trapping must have been to men like Boone Caudill, the truth remained that white civilization would eclipse that life. Like Ike McCaslin in the Southern wilds, the mountain men contributed to their own decline by guidir.’ into the wilderness the very people who would superimpose ;!*■ American design of progress there.

Also by capturing nearly all the beaver and slaughtering the buffalo later on, by pretending or actually believing that natural resources were inexhaustible, the hunter cut off his own reason for existence. If Guthrie set out to depict a paradisical time and place, he also reminded the reader that that Eden was doomed by contact with civilization, that 277 the mountain man's environmental ideas, no matter how

colored with mystical respect for animals, foreshadowed

more methodical domination of the wilderness by later

settlers like Elisha Peabody. As a hunter himself, and native Montanan, Guthrie deplored the loss of that pristine

country, but he pointed out that the twentieth-century hunter could not look back on his mountain man forerunners as innocent, heroic men frolicking in virgin country.

XX

Behind the fictional, poetic tone of The Big Sky lay authentic Western sources. Guthrie drew heavily from nineteenth-century works such as Frederick Ruxton's Life in the Far West, Irving's Adventures of Captain Bonneville, and the journals of such travelers as John Bradbury and 6 Henry Marie Brackenridge. For his novel, Mountain Man,

Vardis Fisher likewise looked to Western sources, to the 7 legendry surrounding "Liver-Eating” John Johnston. In his over-written novel, which despite its 1965 publication date resembled more a work of previous decades, Fisher softened and sentimentalized his mountain man protagonist. Fisher dropped all references to cannibalism, and instead invested his hero, Sam Minard, with cultured refinement ludicrous among action-oriented mountain men. Minard played classical music on his mouth organ and expounded almost a pastoral conception of the wilderness. He rioted in his belief that he was part of an all-embracing natural cycle. 2?8

Despite Minard*s preference for classical music and

his philosophical concepts of unity with nature, the land

in which he lived was extremely violentt

No day passed in which he did not see creatures killing other creatures. No day passed in which enemies did not look at him and covet his flesh. This was not a country for persons dedicated to the prevention of cruelty by the living on the living, (p. 10.)

Th# passage recalled Wolf Larsen*s view of his surroundings.

This wilderness was indeed a merciless antagonist, and the firm message of Fisher's novel was that the early West thrived on such violence. The plot of Mountain Man spun on

Minard*s vengeance raids on the Crow Indians, who had killed the children and husband of Kate, the crazy woman on the

Musselshell River, and who had murdered his own Flathead squaw, Lotus. Whenever this plot seemed to lag, Fisher cluttered the plot with other legendary tales of animal and

Indian violence, such as John Colter outrunning the Black- feet in 1805, or Jim Bridger shooting a cougar. Throughout this prevalent pattern of environmental mayhem, Sam kept up his romantic ideals about the hunter's life. Even if the mountain men were violent, their contact with nature stayed beyond the ken of civilized understanding, which could not comprehend

the redmen and mountain men, who month after month shot thousands of healthy beautiful animals and took only a few pounds of flesh, leaving the remainder to the wolves and vul­ tures ;... who caught and killed lovely creatures, such as beaver and otter, for no more than their skins, (p. 69.) 279 For Minard, and for Fisher, environmental violence was an

integral part of a unified natural cycle.

The same threatening wilderness also nourished the hunter. Fisher devoted long passages to detailed accounts

of the mountain man’s epicurean delights. At the various rendezvous he attended, Minard reveled in the sensual aspects of the victuals, the smells and invigorating aromas, the wilderness sounds, the feel of fresh water, evergreens, new furs, the visual clarity of the Western woods. These details piled up into nearly-pastoral portraits approaching

Thoreauvian complexity, enough to lure any subur"ban-bound twentieth-century hunter into romantic ideas about his own hunting experiences. Yet side by side with these inviting scenes were the violent scenes, menacing bears, malevolent wolves, and lurking Indians. The novel evinced a curious theory of environmental perception. The same wilderness both killed and nourished, and in the man who confronted that wilderness most directly, the mountain man, flowed a passion for hunting violence that was connected to the most divine instincts of his soul. Read from such points of view. Mountain Man provided one of the most vehement and vicarious justifications of hunting in America.

Ill

In his novel, Lord Grizzly, Frederick Manfred similarly drew upon Western legendry for his subject. Selecting the gruesome tale of Hugh Glass's survival of a grizzly bear 280

mauling along the Missouri River in 1823, Manfred painted

an absorbing portrait of the mountain man, much more real­

istic than Fisher’s. Lord Grizzly depicted a heroic man

fighting a perilous wilderness by assuming the powers of

the beast that nearly killed him.

Hugh Glass was an old but competent hunter on Gen.

William Ashley’s 1822 expedition to the Missouri River fur

country. Hugh disliked trapping, and preferred hunting

instead* "He liked hunting and scouting better, alone, at

which he was the acknowledged master. Making meat and

scalping red devils was an honorable profession for a

brave.” (p. 18.) Hunting provided for Hugh an exhilarating,

cathartic contact with nature. Firing at buffalo, chasing

a "stampeding herd of brown monsters," Hugh surrendered to

the savage urge*

Hugh forgot himself... was lost in the glor­ ious roaring chase, killing killing killing — all of it a glorious blood-letting and a complete forgetting, (p. 67.)

Hugh was master of his environment* he was more Indian than

white in temperament and mode of living. He lived close to

the land, relished the viands of the chase. He courted

danger enough to slake his hunting lust, but he also kept

a wary distance from nature's monsters.

Of the category of nature's monsters, Hugh respected

most of all the grizzly bear, "the lord of the American wild." (p. 75.) The bear's unpredictability seemed to

symbolize the capriciousness of nature. For Hugh, nature 281

promised both frivolity and enormous lethal power. Grizzly

bears, Hugh thought, "were unpredictable. One day a grizzly

might amble away from a man with an indifferent air; the

next day he might suddenly attack with a rushing roar."

(p- 75 •) Most mountain men feared the bear outright and

agreed with this dictum voiced by one hunter: "I still say

around a grizzly it's best to shoot on sight and ask quest­

ions after." (p. 76.) But Hugh kept a more open attitude toward the bruins. At a campfire, he told tales about the bears, one of whom was whimsical and curious, another of whom ran a mile with a bullet in her heart, (pp. 76-77.)

This dual perspective of the grizzly bear matched Hugh's double conception of nature as something playful and yet lethal for mam.

Hugh's sympathy and respect for the grizzly arose from his own identification with the beast. Because of his huge body, shaggy aspect, and gruff demeanor, Hugh had won the name "White Grizzly" from the Indians. Manfred supported this comparison recurrently: "There was about him too the lonesome aggrieved mien of the touchy old grizzly bear,"

(p. 18.) Like many a hunter, Hugh drew his strengths and characteristics from the very animal he hunted and re­ spected.

When after that campfire, Hugh met his next grizzly bear, his identification with that beast counted for little.

Nature unleashed on Hugh a full assault of savage power. Bridling over an order to shave off his beard, Hugh left

camp to hunt in the nearby hills. There he accidentally

encountered and provoked a she grizzly with cubs. This

bear was quite different from the totemic one with which

Hugh identified. This she bear was dead earnest in her

desire to protect and kill. She advanced on the surprised

mountain man, and batted away the rifle and pistol he tried

in vain to aim. Hugh had no other choice but to close for

hand-to-hand combat. Even though he had a knife, Hugh ,rfelt

very puny.” His pride held up; he couldn't imagine death

from a "monster varmint." (p. 93*) The struggle, which

Manfred termed "The Wrestle," approached epic proportions,

yet the bear held the greater advantage of brute strength.

The description of the fight, one of the most gruesome

scenes in American writing, suggested the tremendously

violent force of the wilderness. The bear repeatedly

lifted Hugh and threw him down, breaking bones until he

sank away into unconsciousness, (p. 9^.)

Hugh's companions, rushing to the spot of the noise,

saved him from death by shooting the bear. The mountain

men assumed that Hugh's wounds were mortal, and left him

to die, guarded by two men who would bury him. But Hugh

persisted in living, and the two men, fearing for their own

safety, dug his grave, laid him in it, and stole away.

This action precipitated the plot of Part III, "The Show­ down," wherein Hugh sought revenge on the two men he thought had deserted him. Before that mission, however, Hugh per­

formed one of the most incredible feats of human endeavor.

He crawled two hundred miles across desert wilderness back

to civilization.

In Part II of the novel, "The Crawl," Manfred ex­

plored man's relationship with nature at its most funda­ mental, grueling level. Hugh's crawl corresponded to "a progression of man from the animal level to the human 8 level." The crawl was a parable of human evolution. At first, Hugh could only wriggle on his belly because of his wounds. After regaining part of his strength, he crawled on all fours, and nearing full powers, he lurched along upright. Realizing he was still miraculously alive, Hugh funneled all his energy into stark survival, fighting off wolves, eating carrion, healing his wounds. Strong enough to attempt the journey, Hugh also regained his intelligence, his powers of thought. On the long, agonizing crawl, he kept his wits about him, evaded the Indians, foraged off the flora wherever possible, and relied upon his knowledge of the terrain to pull him through. Impelled by thoughts of revenge, Hugh endured the ordeal. After a while, he began to hallucinate about the bear pursuing him. One critic suggested that this phantom bear denoted the "Bear- 9 in-Hugh," his awareness of evil within himself. Hugh sur­ vived his wounds and wilderness trial, and in a sense, even conquered the bear, whose rotting carcass he had eaten and 2Qb whose claws he kept as talismans and testimony of his

encounter. Man prevailed, yet the epic wrestle with the

bear and the agonizing crawl through the desert showed that

nature would exact a harsh penance from man, that the wild­

erness threatened with capricious and violent forces. Like

Fisher's novel, Manfred's tale displayed a perception of

the environment as a brutal arena, and supported the savage

urge to hunt.

IV

In The Track of the Cat, Walter Van Tilburg Clark

examined three different attempts to fathom the wilderness

by hunting. Set in Nevada around 1900, the novel followed

the encounters of the three Bridges brothers, Arthur, Curt,

and Hal, with a black panther symbolic of the wilderness.

Like the white whale in Moby-Dick, Clark's mountain cat

took on different meanings for each brother, and also for

the old, reticent hired Indian man, Joe Sam. The moral

worth of each hunter depended upon his degree of harmony

with the wilderness.

Arthur, the eldest brother at age forty, maintained a

meditative view of nature. Given to long, solitary walks

through the forest and periods of contemplation at a crag

called Cathedral Rock, Arthur sought an intellectual and mystical meaning in the wilderness. Like Joe Sam, Arthur quietly espoused a sort of paganism. He carved out totems

of the animals he respected, including one of the black cat. 285 He wore a hooded parka, which Curt mockingly compared to a

monk's cowl. Brooding always on the significance of nature,

Arthur meekly refused to kill. He felt wanton killing was

improper worship of the animal. "Slaughter for the joy of

it is a thing that comes hack on you in time," he told Curt,

(p. 13.) Arthur viewed the whole American westward ex­

pansion as an act of rapacity, one which he and his family

had furthered:

That was a kind of dream, too, a big, fat one, and it's over. We've gone from ocean to ocean, Curt, burning and butchering and cutting down and plowing under and digging out, and now we're at the end of it. Virginia City's where the fat dream winked out. Now we turn back. (p. 14.) Yet Arthur was the first brother to fall victim to the cat.

Accompanying Curt on the hunt in the near blizzard, Arthur

had no firm intention of killing the cat. He did not load his gun. Like Ike McCaslin, Arthur wanted only to meet up with the beast and try to ascertain its secrets. The cat, and the wilderness it symbolized, did not discriminate between men. The cat jumped Arthur and ripped open his throat, while he was struggling to load his gun. In one sense, Arthur was "a martyr, and his death propitiation for 10 the guilt of the white man in despoiling the West." But

Clark also was demonstrating in Arthur's death the sterile ineffectiveness of the meditative view of nature, a mystic­ ism which hindered positive assertion of will, an outlook which robbed Arthur of the capacity of action. 286

The opposite philosophy proved equally fallacious in

Clark's novel. Because of his capability and directness as

a hunter, Curt stood in marked contrast to Arthur. The

Bridges* father testified to Curt's hunting prowess*

Curt's about the best hunter I've ever known. He has a gift for it. He knows right away, without giving it a thought, what other men can't even figure out. He knows what a cat will do; he knows what a deer will do, better than they know it themselves. He'll outguess them every time. He doesn't need tracks. Just a start, and he knows what they'll do. He's a remarkable shot, too, one in a thou­ sand, one in ten thousand, (p. 43.)

Yet Curt was a rapacious hunter who had no respect, only

contempt for nature. He saw the black- cat as the person­

ification of evil, his own and that around him. Nature as

symbolized by the cat was for Curt a heartless foe: "What

the hell's the use of hunting a cat as big as a horse," he

taunted Arthur, "especially when it hates men worse than

anything, and lives forever, and a slug just goes through it and it keeps a-comin'?" (p. 13.) Curt took a keen delight

in the hunt when he realized that the cat was killing live­

stock not for meat, but for sport, (p. 60.) After finding

Arthur's corpse, Curt added revenge to his motives for the hunt: "Don't you worry, Art, I'll get the son-of-a-bitch if

I have to chase him to the Pacific." (p. 85.) Compelled by those motives, and also by the desire to affirm his virility — he had leeringly promised Harold's fianceS that he would return with the cat's hide for her wedding bed—

Curt set out grimly stalking the cat. The cat evaded Curt's 287 determined pursuit in the snowstorm. Curt cursed the cat

and nature, "the malicious and chancy god of things,” v/hich

enabled the cat to see in the dark and rendered the hunt

unequal. (p. 289.) Unable to relinquish his hatred, Curt

fell victim to his own cold hunter's logic. His animosity

turned into hallucinated perceptions of the cat as a monster

chasing him. Half-delirious and furious at his failure to

apprehend the cat, Curt ran about cursing the beast, and

accidentally plunged headlong down a cliff to his death.

Harold, the younger brother, was the one who would

kill the cat. Possessing the best traits of his brothers,

Arthur's respect for animals and Curt's ability for action, . t Harold hunted down and killed the cat. Yet the cat he shot

was beige or cream, not black. Joe Sam, who Harold had

taken along, pointed out the discrepancy right away. "Not

black painter," he told Harold, and "made a wide gesture with his arm, which might have meant it was in the mountains

above, or that it was everywhere and not confined to one

place." (p. 336.) Like Melville's whale, Clark's lion

represented the ultimate inviolability of nature. Americans

had made a frenetic, rapacious assault on the wilderness, yet they had been unable to possess or understand, unable to apprehend nature. Clark posited a neo-primitivism which barely allowed Joe Sam's mysticism, his "second sight," as

Curt termed it, to recognize that the black cat and the wilderness it represented were finally unfathomable. 288

V

Frank Waters* novel, The Man Who Killed the Deer, also

invoked a neo-primitivist notion about hunting. Waters' tale concentrated on the struggle of a young Pueblo Indian named Martiniano to regain his Indian-oriented environ­ mental consciousness. Martiniano had been sent away to the reservation school, had learned the white man's trade of carpentry, and had returned to his tribe a disillusioned man. The novel described his initiation back in to tribal ways, his long trial before the tribal elders. Martiniano for a while took peyote to ease his alienation by succumbing to the stupors of the trance. That road proved false for him, so he concentrated his efforts on revering what his ' ancestors had always worshipped. He longed to sense the

"heart-beat of the great, ancient cottonwood, and the heart­ beat of the old men at its foot; of all the primeval forests and all the vanished tribes before them, but whose pulse still echoed unbroken and unchanged." (p. 41.) Still

Martiniano felt his distance from that mystical appreciation of natural cycles.

Early in the novel, he killed a deer out of season on the reservation. Besides involving him with white law enforcers who failed to understand his motives, the act haunted him throughout the novel in a mystical way. The deer kept reappearing in his dreams and visions, giving him warnings and instructions. Martiniano remained baffled and 289 afraid of these portents, until he began to understand the deer's message: the unity of all natural cycles. By the end of the novel, Martiniano had realized the full import of the deer's deaths

And suddenly he knew why the deer he had killed troubled him no more. And he knew how that there is nothing killed, nothing lost, if one looks far or deep or high enough to see how its transmuted meaning is imprinted for all men to read, (pp, 216-21?,)

Martiniano had attained the Pueblo environmental conscious­ ness, an awareness completely antithetical to white per­ ception. This polarity arose in the killing of the deer and Martiniano's subsequent arrest and trial.

The hunt of the deer became significant in the tribal struggle to reclaim the wilderness, Martiniano killed the deer for fresh meat for his bride, and also for the ritual ceremony he so longed to recapture, but in the eyes of the government he had committed a crime. Resisting arrest, he charged a warden with a knife and drew an assault charge under white man's law. The tribal council viewed the event as unfortunate, not only because it might eventuate in re­ criminations against the tribe, but that it showed that

Martiniano did not yet possess sufficient humility in order to understand nature. Through his later tests, Martiniano learned that humility. Matching Martiniano's success, the tribe regained possession of Dawn Lake, the mountain pool which they considered contained all natural deities. The 290

government remained characteristically unsympathetic and

opaque throughout the negotiations, but finally relinquished

the mountaintop for tribal religious rites.

By re-emphasizing the primitive and mystical aspects

of hunting, Waters reaffirmed the ancient worthiness of the

practice. Like his colleagues who depicted violent patterns

of nature in their novels, Waters offered a pantheistic rationale for hunting: animals did not die, because death was simply a transformation from bodily existence to the spiritual plane. Hunting, when performed in a reverent

'manner, was a divine action, furthering nature's ends and

implicating the hunter in grand ecological cycles. That was Martiniano's great lesson in the novel, his conversion from acquisitive white perceptions to reverent Pueblo environmental awareness. 291 NOTES

1 Wallace Stegner, MBorn a Squares The Westerner's Dilemma," Atlantic Monthly, Jan., 1964, pp. 46-50; rpt. in Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Waters The Changing American West (Garden City, N.y7: Doubleday, 1969). pp. 170-185. Quote is from pp. 176, 179. 2 A.B. Guthrie, Jr., The Big Sky (Boston* Houghton Mifflin, 1947)i Vardis Fisher. Mountain Man. A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American West (New York: Pocket Books, 1967); Frederick Manfred, Lord Grizzly (New York: Signet Books, 1964); Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Track of the Cat (New York* Signet Books, 1950)? Frank Waters, The Man~Who Killed the Deer (New Yorks Pocket Books, 1971)? alT references are to these editions and will be incorporated within the text wiihin parentheses.

3 Guthrie, "Why Write About the West?" Western American Literature, 7 (1972), p. 164.

4 Richard Astro, "The Big Sky and the Limits of Wilderness Fiction," Western American Literature, 9 (1974), P. 110,

5 See William Goetzmann's fine article on this subject, "The Mountain Man as Jacksonian Man," American Quarterly, 15 (1963), PP. 402-415. 6 Richard H. Cracroft, "The Big Sky* A.B. Guthrie's Use of Historical Sources," Western American Literature, 6 (1971). PP. 163-176.

7 Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Blanker collected much of the extant material on Johnston for their book, Crow-Killer, The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson (New York* Signet Books, n.d.). nrom-'that book and Fisher's novel, John Milius and Edward Anhalt drew the materials for their fine screenplay of Jeremiah Johnson (1972), one of the rare cinematic treatments of the West which portray the Western hunter realistically and still engender myth. 8 John R. Milton, "Lord Grizzlyt Rhythm, Form, and Meaning in the Western Novel." Wesxern American Literature, 1 (1966), p. 7. 292

9 Ibid., p. 10. 10 Chester E. Eisinger, Fiction of the Forties (Chicago* University of Chicago Press, 1963)* pp. 316-317* Chapter XIV

"Mallards and Messerschmitts"i American Hunting

Magazines and the War Effort during World War II

293 294

The connection between hunting capabilities and

military prowess was deep-seated in American experience.

Although America had her Cincinnatus figures, notably

George Washington, military experience for many early

Americans was an extension of their hunting. Training in

gun-handling, marksmanship, and woodcraft proved valuable

to the army whose success depended upon how well it con­

fronted both the human enemies and the wilderness in which

it fought. Wilderness-wise scouts were vital to military

campaigns. How accurate these hunters and sharpshooters were remains a matter of conjecture. Yet many American

politicians and thinkers believed that the contribution of

hunting to American military victories was maximally

effective. One such believer was "Old Hickory," President

Andrew Jackson. According to rumor and myth, and later

folk ballads such as "The Hunters of Kentucky," the long- rifles of the backwoodsmen had carried the day on the foggy battlefield near New Orleans in January, 1815. Jackson, prime beneficiary of that victory, later remarked*

England has used us ill from first to last; but after all, she has conferred upon us, as a race, some signal advantages. And among these, I mention the ardent and passionate desire for hunting and wild-sports which animates the vast bulk of our citizens in every section of the States. We have been taught — and we have been apt scholars, too— to use the rifle* not solely for the pleasure of taking heads off the ranks of British officers who have invaded our shores. Had we not been such good marksmen in our wilds and prairies, we should not have taught our enemies 295

such a severe and so salutary a lesson as we have recently done. I would conjure you, ray friends, not to let your rifles rust. They are first-rate instruments for extending your power and consolidating your liberties.*

Not all exponents of this equation of hunting and war

prowess were Americans. Some testimony came from victims

themselves. About a century after Jackson made his boast,

some members of Pershing's expeditionary force recovered

this diary notation in the belongings of a dead German

soldier* "God save us from these Americans. They shoot

like devils. They kill us like animals. They are the best 2 marksmen in the world." Trench warfare resembled perhaps

duck-shooting or still-hunting from a blind, only the game

shot back. American familiarity with weaponry through

hunting experience clearly aided rapid mobilization during

World War I.

When the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor, American

hunters rose again to support the war effort. Many

thousands enlisted or otherwise offered their hunting and

gun-handling knowledge to the government. Sporting magazines such as Outdoor Life and Field and Stream joined

in supporting the war mobilization by stressing the long connection of hunting and national defense. For those who could not enlist, civilian militias composed of hunters' groups volunteered to fend off any invasion. Keeping the game herds trimmed down, warding off predators from needed agricultural supplies, and providing game for meals to ease 296

meat boycotts and rationing, all became patriotic duties.

Although the sportsmen objected to ammunition shortages

and the possibility of gun confiscation, they angrily

denounced the Axis powers, not the U.S. government, for

depriving them of their wilderness recreation. The war,

in turn, increased interest in post-war hunting, and

introduced some technological advances in hunting weaponry

and equipment. Hunting magazines re-inforced the alliance

of hunting and war performance from cover to cover. Many

articles pertaining to the trends mentioned above recurred

throughout the wartime issues* advertisements and other

illustrations further amplified this connection.

In February, 19*f2, the editors of Hunting and Fishing

called on American sportsmen to aid the war effort and to

boost homefront morales

Never before has the sportsman been able to do so much for his country as he is doing today. Everyone can help, but none so much as the man who has kept himself fit through outdoor living, who owns guns and knows how to use them, and who doesn't get panicked when things go wrong. No other single group can offer as much as that.3 ■a - — * The editors pointed to beleaguered England as an example of a nation which had neglected its hunting tradition. America, to the contrary, could rely on the "moral fiber — guts is a better word for it— " of twelve million sportsmen to fight the battles, protect domestic security, and train the armed

forces. The editors applauded the fact that one-fifth of 297

the trainees were sportsmen: "We can't help thinking what a

pleasant surprise it must have been to the range officers at

Devens, Edwards, Dix, Bragg, and Benning when some of their

rookies grabbed a Springfield or Garand and began to pour k .30 calibre slugs into the target like veterans," And

those men out of uniform, "America's great army of sports­

men," should keep themselves in physical and mental health

by hunting and also keep the victory spirit vibrant.

Other hunting magazines also stepped into the foray

and stressed the importance of hunting and the war effort.

In May, 19^2, Field and Stream printed an article on how

skeet shooters were training soldiers* Outdoor Life two

months later followed with a similar report. This theme

arose again in Outdoor Life articles by Arthur Grahame in 6 Novemberr 19^2, and July, 19kk, Both Field and Stream and

Outdoor Life published monthly honor rolls of those sporting

goods firms which were making major contributions to the

effort. Field and Stream ran a monthly feature called "Give

'Em Guns," a report on its own fund-raising activities on behalf of arming the troops and keeping domestic hunters well-armed also. Both magazines urged the public and other hunters to buy war bonds.

David M. Newell, editor of Field and Stream, kept up a running c< amentary on the war effort by sportsmen. His editorials repeatedly claimed the valuable military training 298

inherent in hunting. In the October, 194-2 issue, Newell

forcefully demonstrated this equation*

Wars are fought with guns, and a nation of gunners is a strong nation. Hunting is a survival of one of man's earliest instincts. In the first days of the race he had to be a good hunter, or starve. Present-day hunting breeds physical fitness and re­ sourcefulness. It produces a knowledge of firearms, and we have come to see once more the terribly vital importance of such know­ ledge.

This knowledge was obvious and practical to men of the

same mind as Newell* "A youngster who has grown up with a

gun has a tremendous advantage in the field. If he can hit

a running deer, he can hit a running Jap, If he can swing

fast enough for a mallard, he can knock down a Messer- 7 schmitt." The following May, Newell expanded his argument

to dwell on the recreational and economic boons of hunting*

Armies and big business have found that healthful recreation is necessary to the human system. Fishing and hunting come right up at the top of the list. They lay the groundwork for military training and have very definite economic value in war time.®

And in December, 1944, with victory only a few months off,

Newell returned to the theme*

We have repeatedly stressed the importance of the fact that millions of American boys knew how to handle guns and were good shots when this war hit us.... No other sport training has been as valuable as this know­ ledge of guns.9

In addition to editorial comment, hunting magazines included advertisements and illustrations which buttressed 299

the connection of hunting and war effort. "You know, anti­

aircraft gunnery and duck-shooting have a lot in common,"

ran a Remington Arms Co. advertisement in the October, 194-2

Outdoor Life. "Hunting has greatly contributed to the war ■ 10 effort," concluded that blurb. Two months later, Win­

chester Arms Co. pictured a patrol boat anti-aircraft 11 gunner saying, "Here's where my hunting pays off." In the May, 194-2 Field and Stream, an advertisement for Weaver

Scopes Co. proclaimed, "Good shooting will help to win this war!” and the next month advised the nation's hunters, 12 "Keep your shooting eye in trim. Uncle Sam may need it!"

Next May, Weaver asked rhetorically, "Why do American snipers score so high?" and answered, ”1) Americans have always been handy with rifle or shotgun and 2) second they're using the world's finest today in their grim hunt 13 for the enemy."

Advertisements by Western Ammunition Co. and Stevens

(Savage) Arms Co. also supported the soldier/hunter image.

In the June, 194-3 Outdoor Life, Western asserted that

"millions of boys, like many Americans in our armed forces, learned to be straight shooters with Western .22 cart­ ridges." The next month. Western assured the hunter, "Now your ammunition is getting bigger game." And in August,

Western continued the theme* "Many thousands of our fighters 14- learned to shoot in the nation's duck marshes." Stevens ran a series of advertisements entitled "Able Defenders of 300

America," which depicted at the top a current-day hunter or old-time minuteman and at the bottom a World War II 15 soldier shooting. Perhaps a Remington advertisement in the October, 19^3 Outdoor Life best expressed the force of this advertising rhetoric. A strapping adolescent sat in his room in the midst of his hunting paraphernalia and mused, "Wonder where I'll be hunting next season,.,. Bet 16 it's some place I'll be glad I'm not such a lousy shot."

The magazines' covers during those war years departed often from the traditional formula of pastoral hunting or fishing scenes and sketches of harrowing outdoor danger to re-inforce the war support. The covers for both Outdoor

Life and Field and Stream for July, 19^2, exclaimed "United

We Stand" and showed hunters and soldiers together, or hunters raising a flag. The August, 19^2 Outdoor Life cover featured soldier's face outline with a montage of hunting scenes double-exposed within the image. The Nov­ ember, 19^2 issue of the same magazine displayed a soldier and a phantom hunter on the cover. In July, 19^» both magazines chose covers which urged "true sportsmen" to buy war bonds.

Sporting magazines encouraged homefront sportsmen to maintain hunting traditions. Field and Stream's David

Newell argued heatedly against possible governmental con­ fiscation of sportsmen's guns, claiming that such action would open the way for fifth columnists, revolutionists, 301

17 and invasion. Newell elsewhere urged sportsmen to endure

the hunting restrictions and ammunition shortages, and to

support the Allied effort to return the world to peace and 18 restore peacetime hunting. Instead of giving up their

guns, hunters argued to keep their weapons and to form

local militias comprised of ready hunters, which groups were then illegal in many states. In his article in the

May, 1942 Outdoor Life, entitled "Minute Men of 1942,"

Andrew Boone reported on attempts by General Paul B. Malone to form hunters' armies in California. Boone also noted similar movements underway in Oregon, Maryland, New Mexico, 19 Pennsylvania, Maine, Washington, and Connecticut. In

Field and Stream, Newell likewise claimed that an aroused 20 hunter population could stave off a Japanese invasion.

Along with attempts to organize hunters' militias, there came campaigns to teach woodcraft to future soldiers and the public. The idea was that the populace should be prepared to live in the woods in case of an invasion. The

April, 1943 Outdoor Life described such efforts in courses taught in Buffalo and Ithaca, New York. Famous hunter- naturalist Edwin Way Teale wrote the piece and explained the rationale behind the courses:

Long before the birth of our republic there developed a great American type: the woods­ man. It was he and his successors who pushed back the wilderness frontiers, became the vanguard and protector of settlers who surged from East to West. Courageous, shrewd in the 302

ways of wildlife, the woodsman needed nothing but his gun and his knife; nature provided all else. That heritage of self-reliance has been handed down from one generation of sportsmen to the next. Now, in this war year of 194-3, as battle rages from glacier to jungle, it assumes a new and vital importance. Learn here how men of the outdoors are impart­ ing age-old knowledge to both civilians and fighting men, and why other modern woodsmen are needed to help in the work. Wars are fought outdoors— trained outdoorsmen will win them!21

Hunting to keep down the herds of wild animals and to

prevent predators from despoiling necessary agricultural

crops and livestock became a patriotic responsibility for

the hunting fraternity. So claimed Arthur Grahame in his

article, "Hunting Is Now A Patriotic Duty," in the October, 22 194-2 Outdoor Life. Similarly, Newell, at Field and

Stream, recommended no letup in harvesting the duck flocks 23 which threatened grain crops. A Remington Arms Co. ad­ vertisement in the June, 194-3 Outdoor Life supported this point. "I'm sorta in the army now!" shouted a boy who hunted coyotes on his father's ranch to keep the livestock 24- safe. A corollary recommendation was that every meal supplied by hunting game animals alleviated the domestic meat shortage or freed more farm-fed meat for the troops.

Newell touched on that issue in his article, "Why Fishing and Hunting?" but the best illustration of the argument was in an advertisement for Peters Ammunition Co. The scene showed a typical family eagerly eating roasted game birds, while Adolf Hitler glowered in an insert, "The meal that 303

Hitler hates!" ran the blurb, "Every game dish is one less 25 purchased from the butcher."

As with other wars which accelerated technological research, World War II provided its share of new advances.

Hunters would be able to use some of these new products in post-war hunting, pointed out the hunting magazines. As

early as December, 194*3* Arthur Grahame previewed for the hunters new equipment developed by the army. Such gear 26 ranged from rifles to parkas to prepared food rations.

In May, 1944, Rob Sanderson predicted in Outdoor Life that after the war small planes would become available for the 27 hunters' pleasure. In February, 194*5» an article in

Outdoor Life speculated on the possible merits of an M-l 28 carbine as a deer-hunting rifle. If the army and the war had deprived hunters of ammunition, these new advances would more than compensate for such inconvenience.

As the tide of war turned favorably for the Allies, the hunting magazines turned their focus to the matter of post-war hunting. Indicative of this concern was a Western

Co. advertisement in the December, 194*3 Outdoor Life which 2 9 showed a soldier dreaming of hunting pheasants at home.

As early as September, 194*4*, both Grahame at Outdoor Life and Newell at Field and Stream advocated expansion of existing governmental sportsmen programs to meet the expected crunch of returning and new hunters. There had been a low murmur in the wartime hunting issues that the funds from 304

the licenses under the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act were

lying idle, Those funds had to be activated now, wrote

Grahame and Newell, and even more had to be appropriated.

Writing in 1944, they both anticipated a significant

increase in the number of post-war hunters. Grahame put

the number at twenty-two million, nearly one and one-half

times as many as before the war, Newell agreed and called

on the government to create outdoors-related jobs for the 30 veterans. The rhetoric assumed that the reverse effect

of what happened after World War I would occur after World

War XI ended, that the soldiers, having seen Paris, would go back to the farms. Probably the argument was overblown and polemical in order to secure more funding for hunters' groups,

Yet there was some evidence that the war increased hunting interest. In February, 1946, Nature Magazine published results of a survey taken by a Col. Van Orden of the Marines, Col. Van Orden polled over 5»000 returning

Marines and found that 65.6$ of them said they would most definitely hunt after the war was over. Another 18.6$ responded that they might consider hunting with a rifle.

Only 15.8$ claimed they would definitely not hunt. Col.

Van Orden debunked the theory that the war had necessarily improved marksmanship, as most of the soldiers had used automatic weapons. But he did conclude that the war had 305

increased hunting interest*

In review, from what we have determined through our tests of the returned veteran, there is little doubt that target and field sports stand on the threshhold of a great expansion, a many-fold increase in the number of sportsmen on the ranges and in the fields.31-

Even discounting the percentages somewhat because those polled were noted for their military enthusiasm, Grahame and Newell's predictions seem to have held. Perhaps these returning soldiers sought to keep prepared for possible attacks in the future. Maybe many of them had discovered hunting as an acceptable outlet for innate aggression. In either case, hunters and sporting magazines supported the

World War II war effort, and the war returned the favor by increasing hunting interest and even imparted an aura of moral legitimacy to sport hunting in America. The war years were undoubtedly hunting's finest hours during the twentieth century. 306

NOTES

1 Andrew Jackson, quoted in "The Literature and Philosophy of Hunting and Field-Sports," Eclectic Review, 99 (1855). P. 740. 2 Incident and diary entry cited in Arthur Grahame, "Making American Soldiers the World's Best Riflemen," Outdoor Life (hereafter denoted by OL), July, 1944, p. 13*

3 "Sportsmen in the War," Hunting and Fishing, Feb., 1942, p. 19.

4 Ibid., p. 19.

5 Bob Nichols, "Skeet — For Victory," Field and Stream (hereafter denoted by FS), May, 1942, pp. 88-b9; Franc is A . Marvin, Jr., "Crack Skeet Shots Train Air Fighters," OL, July, 1942, pp. 10-13+ . 6 Grahame, "Ace Marksmen Teach Our Fighters to Shoot," OL, Nov., 1942), pp. 22-24 ; Grahame, "Making American Soldiers the World's Best Riflemen," pp. 13-17.

7 David M. Newell, "Food for Thought," FS, Oct., 1942, p. 15. 8 Newell, "Why Fishing and Hunting?" FS, May, 1943, p. 31 *

9 Nev/ell, "Editorial," FS, Dec., 1944, p. 15. 10 OL, Oct., 1942, inside of front cover.

11 OL, Dec., 1942, p. 55*

12 FS, May, 1942, p. 89; FS, June, 1942, p. ??. 307

13 OL, May, 1943, P. 81. 14 OL, Jane, 1943, p. 66* OL, July, 1943* p. 67* O L , Aug., lW3, P* 53.

15 See for example the Stevens advertiement in OL, Oct., 1942, p. 61. 16 OL, Oct., 1943» inside of front cover.

17 Newell, "Give 'Em Guns," FS, May, 1942, pp. 14-15.

18 Newell, "Editorial," FS, Dec., 1942, pp. 13-14.

19 Andrew R, Boone, "Minute Men of 1942," OL, June, 1942, pp. 2 6 - 2 8 . 20 Newell, "Editorial," FS, Jan., 1943* pp. 12-13. 21 Edwin Way Teale, "Woodcraft Goes to War," OL, Apr., 1943, P. 9. 22 Grahame, "Hunting Is Now A Patriotic Duty," OL, Oct., 1942, pp. 13-15+ .

23 Newell, "Editorial," FS, Feb., 1943, pp. 12-13.

24 OL, June, 1943* p. 75*

OL, Nov., 1943, p. 70. 26 Grahame, "New Gear That Sportsmen Will Use," OL, Dec., 1943* PP. 13-17+ .

27 Roh F. Sanderson, "You Can Have Your Own Plane," OL, May, 1944, PP. 17-19. 308

28 0Lt Feb., 19^5* PP» 22-23.

29 OL, Dec., 19^» inside of front cover.

30 Grahame, "What We Must Do to Provide Fish and Game for Twenty-Two Million Postwar Sportsmen," OL, Sept., 19^i pp. 13-15* Newell, "Editorial," FS, Sept., T944, p. 15.

"Veterans as Gunners," Natiure Magazine, Feb., 1946' p. 89. EPILOGUE

Chapter XV

"Going for the Grizzer"* Hunting in

Norman Mailer’s Why Are We in Vietnam?

309 310

In his first novel, The Naked and the Dead (1948)•

Norman Mailer found the roots of motivation for American 1 national violence embodied in the Texas hunter. Sam Croft, the platoon sergeant for west Texas who led the driven assault on Mt. Anaka in the book, personified that hate.

In the "Time Machine" section devoted to Croft, Mailer designated him "The Hunter," and portrayed him in terms which matched the archetypal American hunter*

A lean man of medium height but he held him­ self so erectly he appeared tall. His narrow triangular face was utterly without expression. There seemed nothing wasted in his hard small jaw, gaunt firm cheeks and straight short nose. His gelid eyes were very blue.... he was efficient and strong and usually empty and his main cast of mind was a superior contempt toward nearly all other men. He hated weakness and he loved practically nothing. There was a crude unformed vision in his soul but he was rarely conscious of it. (p. 124.)

Croft typified the ruthless, insensitive hunter. The "crude unformed vision in his soul" was synonymous with violence, with killing men for the same pleasure as killing animals.

Mailer went on to re-create Croft’s early hunting ex­ periences, In one of them, Sam had tracked and scared up a deer, had drawn a bead on the buck with his rifle, only to watch his father shoot first and claim the deer as his own,

Sam burned with a vengeance that intensified over the years.

Mailer then depicted how Sam later transferred that rage and innate aggression onto his frustrated marriage, his

National Guard duty (on which he shot a striker as he would 311 a deer), and eventually his military service, which on the

Japanese-held island became a sublimated hunt. Croft's composite vision was that of the hateful hunteri

You're all fuggin whores, he thinks His ancestors pushed and labored and strained, drove their oxen, sweated their women, and moved a thousand miles. He pushed and labored inside himself and smoldered with an endless hatred. (You're all a bunch of fuggin whores) (You're all a bunch of dogs) (You're all deer to track) I HATE EVERYTHING WHICH IS NOT IN MYSELF (p. 130.)

Hunters like Croft vented their rage in the extensive man­ hunts of World War II; expending such fury carried over into their environmental attitudes.

Eighteen years later, with America mired in an undeclared war in Vietnam, Mailer again looked to the Texas hunter as his model and paragon of national environmental violence. In Why Are We in Vietnam? £— (1967)* Mailer tried to answer his double-edged title. Americans, felt Mailer, boiled with violent psychic urges which found their worst outlet in defoliating Vietnam. Taking the title the other way. Mailer posited that Americans displayed plenty of domestic violence in the forms of racial fear and oppression, corporate dullness, intellectual pollution, and environ­ mental disregard, so why export it abroad? Mailer explored these military motivations in his novelistic account of

Texans hunting grizzly bear in Alaska. Why Are We in

Vietnam? delivered a scathing and scatological commentary 312

on American environmental perception during the mid-1960's.

Although Mailer clearly intended that the actions and

ideas of his novel parallel, reflect, and parody those

aroused by the Vietnam war, he also presented a cheerless

picture of environmental degradation in current-day hunting.

His hunters in Alaska forsook the challenge and ordeal of

true hunting for the easy kill assisted by technological

apparatus, such as helicopters. All the hunters came armed

to the teeth with weapons whi.ch could kill by impact alone,

if not by accuracy. Mailer meticulously described these

firearms in Chapter V of the novel. The hunters viewed the

wilderness as a belligerent antagonist and possessed little

love or respect for the animals. What mattered finally was

killing in order to augment status, to garner a trophy

whose size signified so much sexual and ego gratification

and peer esteem back in Texas. Even the names with which

they christened the bears, "Griz," and "Grizzer," which were

so reminiscent of crass advertising mentality, reflected

the hunters' alienation from nature. With their techno­

logical toys at their ready disposal, and imbued with their

corporation mentality, the hunters went to Alaska not for any spiritually ennobling ceremonial hunt, but for purposes

of venting aggression and fortifying status. No tourist trip, the Alaska trek had military overtones* "We broke

open a war between us and the animals," (p. 10^.) Why Are

We in Vietnam? offered a radical critique of frontier values, 313

3 the values of the hunter. Making broad allusions to the

venatic literature of American intellectuals, Mailer both

parodied and recapitulated the savage urge to hunt and

twentieth-century justification of hunting.

Mailer told the tale through his narrator, Ranald

Jethroe Jellicoe Jethroe, alias "D.J.," self-styled

schizoid disc jockey, who fancied himself half hip Texan

and half crippled Harlem spade. D.J. "broadcast" the

monologue from his brain out to America two years after the

Alaska bear hunt, while at a party in Dallas, celebrating

his departure for Vietnam. D.J. spiced his tale with much

imaginative profanity and literary allusion to convince the

reader that the events of the bear hunt had molded his

murderous intents. D.J.'s mother*s psychiatrist diagnosed

him fairly as*

recalcitrant, charming, gracious, anti- Semitic, morally anesthetized, and smoldering with presumptive violence, a host of incense, I mean incest fixes, murder configurations, suicide sets, disembowelment diagrams and diabolism designs, mandalas! ..., he's a humdinger of a latent homosexual highly over­ heterosexual with onanistic narcissistic and sodomistic overtones, a choir task force of libidinal cross-hybrided vectors, (p. 12.)

But as D.J. assured us, he himself "sees through to the

stinking roots of things," he "suffers from one great

American virtue, or maybe it's a disease or ocular dys­ function — D.J. sees right through shit.” (pp. 35» 50*)

By the end of the novel, D.J. had assimilated the violent 314-

lessons of the hunt and had become an eager candidate for

the Vietnam adventure. "Vietnam, hot dam," he shouted to

end the tale. (p. 224-.)

Heading the bear hunt was D.J.'s father, Rutherford

David Jethroe Jellicoe Jethroe. Known ironically as

"Rusty," D.J.'s father was a version of Sam Croft grown

scared and soft from corporate ease, who was desperately

trying to reassert his manhood and Texas will power.

According to D.J., Rusty was a man who had "the sexual

peculiarities of red-blooded men, which is to say that one

of them can't come unless he's squinting down a gunsight."

(p. 9.) Rusty's frustrations stemmed from his deep

insecurities about changes in America, racial and sexual

emancipation, interracial copulation, adolescent insolence,

loss of workmanship in production, rise of Communism and

European anti-American sentiment, "jerk-off" dances and drugs and motorcycles, and departure of white champions in boxing and other sports, (pp. 115-116.) The only remedy

in Rusty's mind for these threats to American life as he conceived it was for him to renew his superiority by killing a grizzly bear:

He, Rusty, is fucked unless he gets that bear, for if he don't, white men are fucked more and they can take no more. Rusty's secret is that he sees himself as one of the pillars of the firmament, yeah, man — he reads the world's doom in his own fuckup. (p. 116.) 315

D.J. dreaded his father as a symbol of corporate power.

He called him the "highest grade of asshole made in America."

(p. 38.) Rusty was an executive for Central Consolidated

Combined Chemical and Plastic, an outfit which leaped into

the cancer market to manufacture cigarette filters, which in

turn caused lip cancer. To keep up his bloated image, Rusty

also belonged to an arm's-length list of booster organ­

izations. (pp. 32-3^») Two of Rusty's subordinates also went along on the trip, mainly to earn corporate points with their boss. D.J, tagged them as "Medium Assholes," they were sycophants who tried to emulate Rusty. Also along on the hunt was D.J.'s close friend, Gottfried "Tex" Hyde, Jr., son of a prominent Dallas undertaker. To D.J,, Tex's half-

German, half-Indian ancestry signified his heritage of violence: "Redskin and Nazi all in one paternal blood,"

(p. 15.) Tex perfectly resembled the Sam Croft type of hunter. "He's a killer, baby," quipped D.J., "and got one of those dull Texas faces to prove it." (pp. 169-170.) By the end of the novel, Tex had joined D.J. as his "killer brother"; he had also enlisted for Vietnam.

Those five Texans comprised the group which headed for

Alaska, an environment characterized by D.J. as "a riptide impact and collision area marginated halfway between civil­ ization and a nature-primitive constellation." (p. 95*)

There they met up with the Moe Henry and Obungekat Safari

Group and contracted for a hunt in the Brooks Range above 316

the Arctic Circle. Serving as leader on the expedition was

"Big Luke" Fellinka, "head guide and hunter extraordinaire."

(p. 39.) D.J. introduced Big Luke as "a sweet old bastard, who's so tough that old grizzly bears come up and kiss his ass." (p. 39.) Luke had earned his credentials in the wilderness, and also had attained a sort of corporate charisma:

D.J. and Tex read right away the #1 reason all the minions of the Great Plastic Ass­ hole were slobbering over the bear grease on Big Luke's boots. It wasn't because among Alaska guides he was primus inter pares,,, it wasn't because he got eight clients out of the Brooks Mountains once in a record September blizzard, or fought a grizzly or two bare hand to a kind of draw and had the scars to show it... it wasn't even his rifle work which 3n off­ hand shooting could put in 25 one-inch five-shot clusters at 100 yards, and at two hundred yards in a half-ass clearing of woods could now and then drop a bullet into the eye of an Alaska wolf as directly as you could drop your finger in your own eye --no, what made Big Luke The Man was that he was like the President of General Motors or General Electric, (p. 47.)

But when on that expedition Rusty convinced him to guide,

Luke's confidence had begun to erode. He was giving way to comfort and big salaries and growing scared of the con­ sequences of sloppy hunting. Compared to Sam Fathers in

"The Bear," Big Luke Fellinka marked a clear deterioration of the image of the wilderness-wise old hunter, (p. 62.)

Not only had the image of the Great Hunter cheapened, but the whole hunting expedition business had evolved into 317

a highly lucrative enterprise. As if he were selling in­

surance, Kenneth Easterly, the Tour Guide Coordinator,

explained the contract to Rustyi

Well, sir... you have a guaranteed bear trophy in the specifications of the safari contract — that's for shit-and-sure. Yes- sir, there's a rebate of five hundred per head if we neglect to get you in proper range for a shot a visible grizzly, al­ though I want to tell you, we've never had to rebate it. (pp. 65-66.)

Easterly then tried to convince Rusty that even if the guides failed to find bear, the wilderness camping was fine compensation. Rusty appreciated the group's hard-nosed corporate rhetoric, but stood by his first demand: "That's

A-OK, but the bear is the integral part of this expedition."

(p. 67.) The Group representatives countered that bears were becoming harder and harder to track, that due to over- hunting and use of airplanes, the "wild game is changing its psychology." Ollie Water Beaver, the Indian guide assigned to the trip, spoke to that point, "Brooks Range no wilderness now. Airplane go over the head, animal wild no more, now crazy." Rusty retorted, "I didn't come to Alaska to debate the merits and vices of technological infiltr­ ation." (p. 68.) Beside linking the narrative of the hunt to the war in Vietnam, Rusty's remark clearly showed the dichotomous environmental perception which informed the novel. As D.J. commented about Rusty, "He can't begin to consider how to go back without a bear. He got a 318

corporation mind. He don't believe in nature* he puts his

trust and distrust in man." (p. 55*)

The agreement having been sealed, the guides and group

took off for the outpost in the Brooks Range. First to draw

blood up there in the wilderness was Tex. He shot a wolf which had wandered near camp. (p. 72,} The shooting

pleased Big Luke, who gave the boys a cup of the wolf's

blood to drink as an initiation to the Alaskan wilds. The

blood's "taste of wild meat like an eye looking at you in the center of a midnight fire," triggered violent sensations

in D.J. (pp. 72-73.) Ollie Water Beaver asked Tex if he wanted the wolf's head, but Tex contemptuously declined*

"I don't want no wolf for a trophy." (p. 74.) Ollie then decapitated the wolf, set the head up as a totem facing

North, and prayed to it. Rusty, displaying his disregard for the primitive and his alienation from any understanding of nature, immediately ridiculed the ritual* "Always re­ member, boys, you don't get your proper paganism until you pay these dee-luxe prices." (p. 75*)

The next killing illustrated further the degradation of this hunt. Fete, one of Rusty's yes-men, wounded a caribou, whose escape threatened to alert all the wildlife to the hunters' presence. As the bull wasn't wounded badly, the retrieval would be difficult. So Big Luke called in a helicopter to trace the bull. After finding the bull and landing close to him, Pete finished the task with an anal 319

shot which devastated all the internal organs. To teach

these louts their lesson, Luke fed them the bilious meat.

Also he kept the helicopter at hand to facilitate the

slaughter:

The helicopter was new to him, you read, and for some parties in the last year or so he'd begun to use it, for some not, but he was an American, what the fuck, he had spent his life living up tight with wilderness and that had eaten at him, wilderness was tasty but boredom was his corruption, he had wanted a jolt, so sees it D.J., Big Luke now got his kicks with the helicopter. He was forever enough of a pro not to use it with real hunters, no, man, but he had us, gaggle of goose fat and asshole, killers of bile-soaked venison, so the rest of the hunt, all next seven days he gave what was secretly wanted, which was helicopter, and it was curious shit, all rules and regulations, for of course we did not hunt from the air, no freakmen from TV land us, but rather noble Dallasassians, so we broke open a war between us and the animals, (pp. 103-104.)

The use of technological infiltration caused D.J. some remorse after he shot a mountain goat. He felt partly in unity with the animal kingdom, but the stigma of the techno­ logy canceled total sympathy* "Part he was of gasoline of

Texas, the asshole sulfur smell of money-oil clinging to the helicopter, cause he had not gotten that goat by getting up in the three A.M. of morning and climbing that mountain."

(pp. 104-105.) The rest of the party, and D.J., once his remorse vanished,shot up a goodly number of caribou, goats, and Dali sheep. They cut up the meat for shipment home, and prepared their trophies for future mounting in their 320

drinking dens. But the grizzly bear still eluded their

pursuit: "Going for the grizzer wasn't nearly so good."

(p. 111.) That omission upset Rusty, who interpreted it

as a sexual failure and equated it with his own marital

insecurity* To get that bear, now he "had to get it up,"

he had to "steel his guts before necessity." (pp. 112-

113.) Pressured by Rusty, Big Luke made a "military decision"

on how to hunt the bears, how to deploy his half-tested

adolescents and incompetent adults. That the bears had been charging without provocation made Luke uneasyj he knew

that technological infiltration had been "violating the divine economy which presides over hunters." (p. 120.) On

the expedition, they sighted a bear from the air and landed near it. Several hunters got a shot at the bear, but Luke awarded the beast to Pete. The bear still evaded Rusty's

grasp.

Seething inside, Rusty, and D.J. (who "too has to get grizzer"), left for their own hunt. Rusty's decision im­ pressed D.J., who felt his father was discarding some of his "corporation layers." (pp. 133-13^*) More amazing to

D.J. were Rusty's discourses on the local botanical spec­ imens, and his disgust that the bald eagle, a scavenger bird, was the national symbol, (pp. 135-139.) But D.J.'s respect or near-love was short-lived. Recalling a child­ hood beating, he felt murderous Oedipal impulses toward 321

his father. The sudden appearance of a grizzly bear

quelled those desires. The bear came roaring out of the

bush. D.J. heard in its roar Hthe crazy wild ass moan of

every animal they'd gunned down.” (p. 1^9.) With the bear

charging as "fast as a locomotive," D.J. managed to "smash

a shot into that wall of fur.” Rusty fired once, and D.J.

also shot once more, but the bear turned and ran. After

tracking the bear like "combat men flushing out a sniper," they found the bear looking like a tame, stuffed teddy,

sitting in a pool of its own blood. Rusty wanted to take no chances* he wanted to plug the bear with a few more rounds. But D.J. stopped him, and approached the bear to perceive the moment and meaning of its death and to beg forgiveness. Rusty, however, "wetting his pants, doubtless, from the excessive tension" sent home the last shot, and the bear collapsed. Dismayed, D.J. remained silent all the way back to camp, where Rusty delivered the final stroke by claiming the bear for himself. Rusty's rapacity completely antagonized D.J.s "Final end of love of one son for one father." (p. 157.)

Thoroughly disgusted by that obscene display of cor­ porate power hunger, D.J. and Tex started out for the mountains to purify themselves. Like Ike McCaslin in "The

Bear," the boys threw back their gear in order to commune more authentically with the wilderness*

No sleeping bags. No food. 322

No compass, (p. 18?.)

Unlike McCaslin, they awoke to the folly of their choice

in the cold, Arctic air, and returned for some of their

equipment. Still, they left their guns behind, and took

only what they needed to survive. Tex and D.J, had "to

get all the mixed glut and sludge out of their systems.”

(p. 192.) Out in the forest, they encountered a wolf, which they stared back down with psychic will power, and watched from a tree a grizzly bear eat berries, then chase, kill, and devour a caribou calf. The culmination of their trek was a vision of violences

For God was a beast, not a man, and God said, ”Go out and kill — fulfill my will, go and kill," and they hung there each of them on the knife of the divide in all conflict of lust to own the other yet in fear of being killed by the other and as the hour went by and as the lights shifted, something in the radiance of the North went into them, and owned their fear, some communion of tele­ pathies and new powers, and they were twins, never to be near as lovers again, but killer brothers, owned by something, prince of dark­ ness, lord of light, they did not know. (p. 219.) To seal their fraternity, D.J. and Tex pricked their fingers and touched together their blood. Favored by that murderous message, the boys returned to camp, and thence to

Dallas. Vietnam would be the practice ground for their innate aggression and environmental violence.

In Why Are We in Vietnam?, Mailer recapitulated much of American hunting literature. Through D.J.'s irreverent patter, Mailer both paid homage to and parodied the long 323 tradition. Ike McCaslin's ritual ceremonies, Hemingway and Roosevelt's image of the Great Hunter, the Western brag and bravado of Crockett, Cody, and the tall-tale hunters, and London's brutal Alaskans all found reflection in the novel. Through his running comparisons to Vietnam, Mailer pointed back to the slave-hunts and Indian-hunts. The novel depicted the deterioration of modem hunting, the dead-end of the hunting tradition, the distance hunters had traveled from Leatherstocking's ecological consciousness, and the easy triumph of callous technology over the wilder­ ness. For Mailer, the final direction of American hunting was into environmental and human holocausts like the Vietnam war and domestic racial riots. Like those phenomena, the

American hunter perceived the wilderness as a battle to be won rapidly with means that could engender the hunter's own destruction, and that triumph, ironically, as the proof of the white hunter's superiority over nature. A very pessimistic outlook on environmental matters, Why Are We in

Vietnam? detailed hunting as a mode of defoliation of the wilderness, as an exemplification of increasing American alienation from its continental wildlife. NOTES 1 Mailer, The Naked and the Dead (New York* Signet Books, 1948), further citations are to this edition and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses. 2 Mailer, Why Are We in Vietnam? (New York* Putnam*s, 1968)i further citations are to the Berkley Medallion paperback and will be incorporated within the text within parentheses, 3 See Richard Pearce, "Norman Mailer’s Why Are We in Vietnam? A Radical Critique of Frontier Values," Modern" Fiction"Studies, 17 (1971), pp. 409-414. In this perceptive article, Pearce described Mailer's novel as "a parody of Texas brag, American superiority, the cults of viriaity, big­ ness, and power, the hunger for quantity, the exaggeration of advertising, the energy which compensates for the dull reality of the product and of contemporary life, and the escalation of corporate business and military power," (p. 409.) BIBLIOGRAPHY

General Works

Allen, Walter. The Urgent West, The American Dream and Modern Man. New Yorks Dutton, 1969.

Bausum, Henry S, "Edenic Images of the Western World1 A Re-Appraisal.*’ South Atlantic Quarterly, 67 (1968), 672-687.

Bewley, Mariuse The Eccentric Design* Form in the Classic American Novel. New YorkT Columbia University Press. 1963. Bigsby, C.W. E. "Two Types of Violence." University Review (Kansas City), 32 (1965), 129-155T

Billington, Ray Allen. The Far Western Frontier* 1830- 1860. New York* Harper & Row, 1956.

Bohannan, Paul, and Plog, Fred, eds. Beyond the Frontier* Social Process and Cultural Change. New York* Natural History Press, 196?.

Carson, Gerald. Men, Beasts, and Gods* A History of Cruelty and kindness to Animals. New York* Scribners. 1972. ------

Chase, Richard. The American Novel and Its Tradition. New York* Doubleday, Anchor fiooks, 1957.

Dary, David A. The Buffalo Book* The Full Saga of the American Animal, Chicago* Swallow Press, i974.

DeVoto, Bernard. The Year of Decision* 18^6. Boston* Houghton Mifflin, 194&.

19kyjr• Across the Wide Missouri. Boston* Houghton Mifflin.

Ekirch, Arthur A. Man and Nature in America. New York* Columbia Universlty Press, 1963•

325 Feidelson, Charles, Jr. Symbolism and American Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Pres~s,~ i953.

Fiedler, Leslie A. An End to Innocence: Essays on Culture and Politics. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955*

, Love and Death in the American Novel. New York: Stein and Day, i960.

, Waiting for the End: The Crisis in American Culture and a Portrait of Twentieth Century American Literature. New York: Stein and Day, 1964.

, The Return of the Vanishing American. New York: Stein and Day, 1968.

Frohock, W.M. The Novel of Violence in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1950.

Fussell, Edwin. Frontier: American Literature and the American West"! Princeton: Princeton University Press, v & r . ------Geismar, Maxwell. Writers in Crisis: The American Novel, 1925-194-0. New York: Dutton, lp47.

Hazard, Lucy Lockwood. The Frontier in American Literature. New York: Crowell, i£27.

Heilbrun, Carolyn, "The Masculine Wilderness of the American Novel." Saturday Review, 29 Jan. 1972, -d o . 4 -1 -4 4 . ------

Hoffman, Daniel. Form and Fahle in American Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Huth, Hans. Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer­ sity of California Press, 1957.

James, Stuart B. "Western American Space and the Human Imagination." Western Humanities Review, 24 (1970). 147-155* Kaul, A.N. The American Vision: Actual and Ideal in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. New Haven: Yale~Universit.v Press, 196J.

Lawrence, D.H. Studies in Classic American Literature. New York: Viking Press, 1923.

326

; Leuy, Gaylord C. "American Innocence Reconsidered." Massachusetts Review 4 (1963)» 623-646.

Lewis, R.W.B. The American Adam: Innocence. Tragedy. and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago^ Uni­ versity of Chicago Press,

Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissancei Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. New York* Oxford UniversityPress, 1^4l.

Matthiessen, Peter. Wildlife in America. New York: Viking Press, 1959.

Moore, Arthur K. The Frontier Mind. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1957.

Morris, Wright. The Territory Ahead: Critical Interpret- ations in American Literature. New York: Athenaeum. TWT. ------

Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967.

Noble, David W. The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden: The Central Myth in the American Novel Since ibjO. New York: George Braziiler, 196b.

Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought. 3 vols. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1930.

Pearce, Roy Harvey. Savagism and Civilization: A Study of the Indian and the American Mind. Balt imore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965.

Pomeroy, Earl. "Rediscovering the West." American Quarterly, 12 (i960), 20-30.

Porte, Joel. The Romance in America: Studies in Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and James'! Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press^ 1969.

Rourke, Constance. American Humor: A Study of the National Character, New York: Narcourt, brace & Jovanovich, v?sr.—

327 Saum, Lewis 0. "The Fur Trader and the Noble Savage." American Quarterly, 15 (1963). 55^-571.

Schmitt, Peter J. Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America. New York* Oxford University Press,

' r m ------Slotkin, Richard S, "Dreams and Genocidej The American Myth of Regeneration through Violence." Journal of Popular Culture 5 (1971). 38-59.

, Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-186(5: Middletown, bonn.i Wesleyan University Press, 1973•

Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. New~York: Vintage Books, 1950.

Spiller, Robert E. et al., eds. Literary History of the United States. 3rd ed,f rev-; New York: Macmillan, TO

Steckmesser, Kent Ladd. The Western Hero in History and Legend. Norman: University of Qklahoma Press, 1965.

Weaver, Richard M. "The American as a Regenerate Being." Southern Review, n.s. 4 (1968), 633-6^6.

Webb, Walter Prescott. "The American West: Perpetual Mirage." Harper1s , May, 1957. pp. 25-31.

, "Ended: ^00 Year Boom," Harper *s, October, 1951. pp. 25-33.

• "The Great Frontier and Modern Literature." "Southwest Review, 37 (1952), 85-100.

The Great Plains. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, i93r:------Westbrook, Max. "The Practical Spirit: Sacrality and the American West," Western American Literature, 3 (1968), 193-206.

Young, Mary. "The West and American Cultural Identity: Old Themes and New Variations." Western Historical Quarterly. 1 (1970), 137-160':

328 Introduction

Amory, Cleveland. Man Kind? Our Incredible War on Wildlife. New York: Harper & Row, l^W,

Beach, Rex. Oh Shoott Confessions of an Agitated Sportsman. New York: Harper & Bros., 1921.

Bourjaily, Vance. Country Matters, Collected Reports from the Fields and Streams of Iowa and Other Places.. New York: Dial Press, 19?3.

"Hunting Is.Humane." Saturday Evening Post, 15 Feb, 1964, pp. 6, 8 .

. The Unnatural Enemy. New York: Dial Press, 1963.

Brant, Irving. "Mighty Hunters." Outlook, 4 June 1930, pp. 182-184 .

Caesar, Gene. "Anatomy of the Hunter." Holiday, Nov., I960, p. 24 .

. Mark of the Hunter. New York: William Sloane, 1953.

Calkins, Frank. Rocky Mountain Warden. New York: Knopf, 1971. Caras, Roger A. Death as a Way of Life. Boston: Little,. Brown, 1970.

Clarke, C.H.D. "Autumn Thoughts of a Hunter." Journal of Wildlife Management, 22 (1958), 420-427.

Cleveland, Grover. Fishing and Shooting Sketches. New York: Outing Publishing do., 19<)6.

Derieux, James C. "Seven Million Men Go Hunting Every Year." American Magazine, 97 (1924), 46-48.

Devoe, Alan. "The Massacre of the Mammals," American Mercury, June, 1940, pp. 239-242.

Doig, Herbert E. "The Hunting Ethic." Conservationist, 26 (1971), 15-16. Foltz, Donald E. "Boobs ifa the Woods." Saturday Evening Post, 13 Oct., 1962, pp. 8 .

329 Gaines, Charles. "Old Dance on the Killing Ground." Playboy, Oct., 1974*, pp. 118-120 .

Gard, Wayne. The Great Buffalo Hunt. Lincoln* University of Nebraska Press, 1959.

Gerstacker, Friedrich, Wild Sports in the Far West. London* Routledge, Wames , & Rouiledge, 1859.

Gilbert, Bil. "Hunting Is A Dirty Business." Saturday Evening Post, 21 Oct. 1967» p. 10+ .

Gilligan, Edmund. "Why I Quit Hunting." Saturday Evening P o s t , 1 Dec. 1962, pp. 64— 67.

Gohdes, Clarence, ed. Hunting in the Old South* Original Narratives of the Hunters. Baton Rouge* Louisiana State University Press, 1967.

Gwynne, Peter, "Hunting under Fire." National Wildlife, 12 (1974-), 38-4-1.

Hayes, James R. "I Am A Hunter," Nature, Mar., 194-9, p. 14-6.

Hazel, Bob. "Why Hunting is Good for Game." Field and Stream, Mar., 1972, pp. 64— 66, 233-235.

Herbert, Henry William. Frank Forester*s Field Sports of the United States ancl British Provinces, of1 NortH America^ 2 vols. New York* Stringer and Townsend,

Herne, Peregrine. Perils and Pleasures of a Hunter*s Life; or the Romance of Hunting. Philadelphia* Bradley, ------

Heuser, Ken. "Huntersl...Wake Up." Field and Stream, Jan., 1972, pp. 4-8-4-9 .

Jones, Robert F. "Putting Some Fun Back into the Gun." Sports Illustrated, 10 Feb. 1975* PP* 4-9-53.

Keats, John. "The Man Who Hunted Bears." Esquire, Oct., 1974-, pp. 190-191 + . Kimball, David and Jim. The Market Hunter. Minneapolis* Dillon Press, 1969. ""

Koller, Larry, The Treasury of Hunting. New York* Odyssey Press, 1965.

330 Krutch, Joseph Wood and Anthony, Harold E. "The Sportsman or the Predator?" Saturday Review, 17 Aug. 1957, PP. 8-10 .

Lee, Richard B. and DeVore, Irven, eds. Man the Hunter. Chicago* Aldine-Atherton, 1968.

Leffingwell, William Bruce. Wild Fowl Shooting. Chicago* Rand McNally, 1888.

Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press, 19^9.

Mann, E.B. "Hunters* the Endangered Species." Field and Stream, Apr., 1975, P. 10+ .

"Our Endangered Tradition." Field and Stream, Jan., 1975. P. 16+ . Mannix, Daniel P. A Sporting Chance* Unusual Methods of Hunting. New York* Button, 1957.

Mayer, Alfred M., ed. Sport with Gun and Rod. New York* Century Co., 1883.

Murphy, John Mortimer. American Game Bird Shooting. New York* Orange Judd, 1882^

. Sporting Adventures in the Far West. New York* Harper & Bros., 1B8O.

Ortega y Gasset, JosS. Meditations on Hunting. Trans. Howard B. Wescott. New York* Scribners,1972.

Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Hunting in the United States — Its Present and Future Role. Sxudy Report Washington, D.C., 1962.

Page, Warren. "The New Minority." Field and Stream, Apr., 1972, pp. 62-63, 189-191.

. One Man*s Wilderness. New York* Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973*

Rutledge, Archibald. An American Hunter. New York* Fred­ erick A. Stokes, 193/'-

"Sayonara Bambi." Sports Illustrated, 18 Feb. 197^. PP. 78- 85.

331 i

Shepard, Paul. Man in the Landscape! A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature. New York: Knopf, 1967.

. The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game. New York* Scribners, 1973.

Sherrill, Robert. The Saturday Night Special and Other Guns with Which Americans ffon Phe West,‘Protected Bootleg Franchises, Slew Wildlife, Robbed Countless feanks, Shot Husbands Purposely and By Mistake & Killed Presidents --.Together with tne Debase over Continuing SamtH New York: Charterhouse,T9?3•

Skutch, Alexander F. “Man as a Hunting Animal.” Nature, 51 (1958), 96-99. Smith, Mason. "Lone Watch in a Gold-Fobbed Forest." Sports Illustrated, 25 Nov. 1974, pp. 58-63.

Stevens, Montague. Meet Mr. Grizzly: A Saga on the Passing of the Grizzly. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1944.

Thiebaux, Marcelle. "The Noble Art of Venery." The Satur­ day Book, 26 (1966), 130-146.

Thomas, Sir W. Beach. "May We Kill?" Atlantic Monthly, Sept., 1929, pp. 32-319.

Toliver, Harold E. Pastoral Forms and Attitudes. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CalifomiaTress, 1971.

Trefethen, James B, "The Face of Starvation." National Wildlife, 6 (1968), 22-23.

, et al, eds. The New Hunter's Encyclopedia. Harris- burg: Stackpole Books, 1966.

U.S. Dept, of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Survey of Fishing and Hunting, A Report of ffie First Nationwide Economic Survey of ^porx Fishing and Hunting in the United Sta-fces during tne Calendar Year 1955. Circular #44. Washington, D.C., 1956.

U.S. Dept, of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. National Survey of Fishing and Hunting, I960. Circular #120. Washington, D.C.7 1961.

. 1965 National Survey of Hunting and Fishing. Resource Publication #27. Washington, £>.C., 1966.

332 . National Survey of Fishing and Hunting, 1970. Resource Publication #95. Washington, D.C., 1971.

Wallo, Olav. Twilight over the Wilderness. Minneapolis* T.S. Denison, 1971.

Waterman, Charles F. The Hunter's World. New York* Random House, n.d.

. Hunting in America. New York* Holt, Rinehart and V/ins ton, i973.

Webber, Charles W. The Hunter-Naturalist* Romance of Sporting; or, Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters'! Phila­ delphia* Lippincott, lb5^.

White, Stewart Edward. "Why Not Be a Sportsman?" North American Review, 244 (1937)» 130-14-5.

Wolf, Bill. "The New Leisures America's Happy Hunters." Saturday Evening Post, 21 Nov. 1953» pp. 4-2 .

Woodworth, Jim. The Kodiak Bear. Harrisburg: Stackpole Books, 1958.

Wright, Sam. "On the Trail of the Grizzly* A Bear Hunt for Survival." American West, 7 (1970), 32-37.

Wright, W.H. "The Trapper's Real Character." World's Work, 12 (1906), 7536-75^6.

Wulff, Lee, "Sermons and Buckshot." Esquire, Nov., 1964-, pp. 109 .

Chapter I

Primary Sources

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Deerslayer; or the First War­ path. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 184-1.

, The Pioneers; or the Sources of the Susquehanna. 3 vols. Londons John Murray, 1823.

. The Prairie* A Tale. 2 vols. Philadelphia* Carey, Lea & Carey, 162?.

Secondary Sources

333 Bier, Jesse, "Lapsarians on The Prairie; Cooper*s Novel," Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 4 (1962), 49-37. Brady, Charles A. "James Fenimore Cooper, Myth-Maker and Christian Romancer," Rpt, in Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., ed. American Classics Reconsidered, New York: Scribner's, 1^56.

Brenner, Gerry, "Cooper's 'Composite Order': The Pioneers as Structured Art." Studies in the Novel, 2 (1970), 264-275.

Davis, David Brion, "Deerslayer, A Democratic Knight of the Wilderness." Rpt. in Charles Shapiro, ed. Twelve Original Essays on Great American Novels. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1958.

Dekker, George. James Fenimore Cooper, The Novelist. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.

Flanagan, John T. "The Authenticity of Cooper's The Prairie." Modern Language Quarterly, 2 (194177 99- IT347 Grossman, James. James Fenimore Cooper. New York: William Sloane, 1949.

Harrington, Evans. "Cooper's Prairie as Wasteland," University of Mississippi Studies in English, 4 (1963). 27-40.

House, Kay Seymour. Cooper's Americans. Columhus: Ohio State University Press, 1965.

Kammen, Michael. People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization. New York: Random House, 1972.

McAleer, John J. "Biblical Analogy in the Leatherstocking Tales.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 17 (1962), 217- 235. Mills, Gordon. "The Symbolic Wilderness: James Fenimore Cooper and Jack London." Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 13 (1959), 329-340.

Monteiro, George. "Fenimore Cooper's Yankee Woodsman.” New York Folklore Quarterly, 12 (1962), 209-216.

Bverland, Orm. The Making and Meaning of an American Classic: James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie. New ^ork: Humanities Press, 1973.

334 Parkman., Francis, Jr. "The Works of James Fenimore Cooper," North American Review, 74 (1852), 147-161.

Pearce, Roy Harvey. "The Leatherstocking Tales Re-examined," South Atlantic Quarterly, 46 (1947)* 524-536.

Ringe, Donald A, James Fenimore Cooper. New York* Twayne, 1962. . "Man and Nature in Cooper's The Prairie." Nine­ teenth-Century Fiction, 15 (196l), 313-323.

Smith, Henry Nash. "Consciousness and the Social Order." Western American Literature, 5 (1970), 177-194.

Vance, William L, "*Man ajad Beast': The Meaning of Cooper's The Prairie." PMLA, 88 (197^). 323-331.

Walker, Warren S. "Buckskin West: Leatherstocking at High Noon." New York Folklore Quarterly, 24 (1968), 88- 102. , James Fenimore Cooper: An Introduction and Inter­ pretation. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1962.

, ed, Leatherstocking and the Critics. Chicago: Scott, !Foresman, 19657

Wasserstrom, William. "Cooper, Freud and the Origins of Culture." American Imago, 17 (I960), 423-437.

Zoellner, Robert H. "Conceptual Ambivalence in Cooper's Leatherstocking." American Literature, 31 (I960), 397-420. "

Chapter II

Primary Sources

Irving, Washington. Astoria; or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains. New fort: _P~utnams, ltJ85.

. The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far W e s Ed. Edgeley W. Todd. Norman: Universiiy of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

. A Tour on the Prairies. Ed. John Francis McDermott. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956.

. The Western Journals of Washington Irving. Ed. John Francis McDermott. Norman* University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. 335 Secondary Sources

Chittenden, Hiram M. The American Fur grade of the Far West. 3 vols. New York: Francis P. Harper, 1902.

Cracroft, Richard H. Washington Irving* The Western Works. Boise State University Western Writers Series, no. 14, Boise* Boise State University, 1974*.

Ellsworth, Henry Leavitt. Washington Irving on the Prairie, or a Narrative of* a Tour of the Southwest in the frear 183^* Eds. Stanley T. Williams and Barbara D. Simison. New York* American Book Co., 1937.

Latrobe, Charles Joseph. The Rambler in North A-merica. 2 vols, 2nd ed. New Yorks Harper & Bros. 1835.

Lyon, Thomas J. "Washington Irving's Wilderness." Western American Literature, 1 (1966), 167-174-.

Martin, Terence. "Rip, Ichabod, and the American Imagi­ nation." American Literature, 31 (1959)# 137-14-9.

Pourtales, Count de. On the Western Tour with Washington Irving* the Journal and Letters of Count de t^ourtales. Norman* University or Oklahoma Press, 196B.

Ringe, Donald A. "New York and New England* Irving's Criticism of American Society." American Literature, 38 (1967)# 4-55-4-67. Short, Julee. "Irving's Eden* Oklahoma, 1832." Journal of the West, 10 (1971), 700-712.

Todd, Edgeley W. "Washington Irving Discovers the Frontier." Western Humanities Review, 11 (1957)# 29-39.

Young, Philip. "Fallen from Time* Rip Van Winkle." Three Bags Full: Essays in American Fiction. New York* Harcourt, ^Brace & Jovanovich, 1972, pp. 204— 233.

Chapter III

Primary Sources jjDlark, Williamd An Account of Colonel Crockett's Tour to the North and Down East. Philadelphia* Carey and Hart, T 5 3 J : ------

"Col. Crockett in a Quandary." Spirit of the Times 6 (1836), 214-.

336 Crockett, David. The Life of Martin van Buren. Phila­ delphia: John B. Perry, 1635.

. A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State Of Tennessee. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, TEW. . A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett. Ed. Joseph J1. Arpad. New Haven: College

Davy Crockett*s Almanack of Wild Sports in the West. Nash- ville, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston, 183^-1856.

(^French, James Strange^ Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee, tfew York, TE 3 T. ------Paulding, James Kirke, The Lion of the West; or, A Trip to Washington. Ed. James N. Tidwell. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1954.

[Smith, Richard PennJ Col. Crockett1s Exploits and Adventures in Texas'^ Philadelphia: T.K. and P.G. Cillins, 1836.

Secondary Sources

Blair, Walter. "Six Davy Crocketts." Southwest Review, 25 (1940), 443-462.

Dorson, Richard M., ed. Davy Crockett, American Comic Legend. New York: Rockland Press, 1939.

Lynn, Kenneth S., ed. The Comic Tradition in America: An Anthology of American HumorT New York: Norton, 1958.

Rourke, Constance. Davy Crockett. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1934.

Shackford, James A. David Crockett: The Man and the Legend. Ed. John B. Shackford. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956.

Wecter, Dixon. The Hero in America: A Chronicle of Hero- Worship. New York: Scribners,—1941.

337 Chapter IV

Primary Sources

Anderson, John Q., ed. With the Bark On: Popular Humor of the Old South. Vanderbilt: Vanderbilt University Press, i9t>7.

Chittick, V.L.O., ed. Ring-Tailed Roarers: Tall Tales of the American Frontier! Caldwell, Idaho: C axton Printers, 19^3.

Cohen, Hennig and Dillingham, William B., eds. Humor of the Old Southwest. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964.

Porter, William Trotter, ed. The Big Bear of Arkansas, and Other Sketches. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Bros,, TWT.

Robb, John S. Streaks of Squatter Life, and Far West Scenes. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1847.

Spirit of the Times, 31 vols. New York; 1831-1861.

Taliaferro, Harden E. Fisher’s River (North Carolina: Scenes and Characters. riew York: Harper & Bros., T m r . ------

Thomas Bangs Thorpe, Colonel Thorpe’s Scenes in Arkansas. Ed. William T. PorTTer! Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Bros., 1858.

. The Hive of'The Bee-Hunter,* A Repository of Sketches. New York: Appleton & Co., 1854.

Turner, Arlin, ed. Southern Stories. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, i960.

Secondary Sources

Anderson, John Q. Louisiana Swamp Doctor: The Life of Henry Clay Lewis. Baton kouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1962.

. "Mike Hooter — The Making of a Myth." Southern Folklore Quarterly, 19 (1955)* 90-100.

Boatright, Mody C. Folk Laughter on the American Frontier. New York, 195°.

DeVoto, Bernard. "Frontier America." Saturday Review of Literature, 1 June 1929, pp. 1067-1068.

338 Dondore, Dorothy. "Big Talk1. The Flyting, the Gabe, and the Frontier Boast," American Speech, 6 (1930), 45- '55. Gurko, Leo, Heroes, Highbrows and the Popular Mind. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953*

Hoffman, Daniel G. "Folklore in Literature: A Symposium." Journal of American Folklore, 70 (1957)» 7-23.

Lemay, J.A. Leo. "The Text, Tradition, and Themes of 'The Big Bear of Arkansas’," American Literature, 4? (1975). 321-3^2 . Lynn, Kenneth S. Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor. Boston: Little, Brown, 1959.

Rickels, Milton. Thomas Bangs Thorpe; Humorist of the Old South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, r o t

Taylor, William R, Cavalier and Yankee: The Old South and American National Character. New York: George Braziller, 19&1;

Yates, Norris W. William T. Porter and The Spirit of the Times: A Study of the BIG BEAft School of Humor^ Baton Rouge: Louisiana state University Press, 1957.

Chapter V

Primary Sources Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick, or the Whale. Eds. Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker. New York: Norton, 1967.

Melville, Herman. "Mr. Parkman's Tour." Literary World, 31 Mar. 1849, pp. 291-293. Parkman, Francis, Jr. The California and Oregon Trail: Being Sketches of Rrairie and Rocky Mounxain Life. New York: cJeorge P, Putnam, lJJ4'9.

Secondary Sources

Arvin, Newton. Herman Melville. New York: William Sloane, 1950. Beaver, Harold. "Parkman's Crack-Up: A Bostonian on the Oregon Trail." New England Quarterly, 48 (1975). 84- 103.

339

/ Bezanson, Walter. “Moby-Dicki Work of Art," Moby-Dick Centennial Essays. EdsT Tyrus Hillway and Luther Mans?ield. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1953* Rpt. in Studies in Moby-Dick. Ed. Howard P. Vincent. Coiumbus* Charles E. Merrill, 1969. 87-103. Braswell, William. Melville's Religious Thought. Durham* Duke University Fress,

Brodtkorb, Paul, Jr. Ishmael's White World, A Phenomen­ ological Reading of Moby Dicl^ New Haven* Yale University Press, 1965.

Chase, Richard. Herman Melville. New York: Macmillan, 19/4.9 ,

Clough, Wilson 0. "The American Frontier as Metaphor." Rendezvous, k (1969). 1-13*

Doughty, Howard. Francis Parkman. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

Flanagan, John T. "The Spirit of the Times Reviews Melville." Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 6k (1965). 5 7 ^ k ------Foster, Charles H. "Something in Emblems* A Reinterpret­ ation of Moby-Dick." New England Quarterly 3k (1961), 3-35. Hart, James D. "Patrician Among Savages* Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail." Georgia Review, 10 (1956), 69- 73.

Hayford, Harrison and Parker, Hershel, eds. Moby-Dick as Doubloon. New York* Norton, 1970.

Lanzinger, Klaus. Primitivismus und Naturalismus in Prosa- schaffen Herman Melville's^ Innsbruck* Universit£ts Verlag Wagner, 1950.

Leyda, Jay. The Melville Logs A Documentary Life of Herman Melville,>l8i9-ib9l. New" ¥ork* Harcourt. Brace & Co., VKT. ------

McDermott, John Francis. "The Spirit of the Times Reviews Moby Dick." New England Quarterly, 30 (1957). 392- 595. Metcalf, Eleanor Melville. Herman Melville, Cycle and Epicycle. Cambridge* Harvard University Press, 1953.

340 Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in tHe Era of Poe and Melville. New York* HarcourtBrace & World, 1956. 1

Mumford, Lewis. Herman Melville. Rev. ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962.

Nichol, John W. "Melville and the Midwest." PMLA, 66 (1951). 613-625. Olson, Charles. Call Me Ishmael. San Francisco: City Lights, 1947.

Parkman, Francis, Jr. "Autobiography." Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 8 , p. 353; rpt. in Familiar Quotations. Ed. John Bartlett. Boston: kittle, Brown, 1955» P* 628. . The Journals of Francis Parkman. 2 vols. Ed. Mason Wade. New York: harper & Bros., 1947.

. The Letters of Francis Parkman. 2 vols. Ed. Wilbur R. Jacobs. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, I960.

Pease, Otis A. Parkman1s History: The Historian as Literary Artist. New Havenr^Yale University Press, 1953.

Powers, William. "Bulkington as Henry Chatillon." Western American Literature, 3 (1969). 153-155*

Sealts, Merton M., Jr. Melville's Reading, A Checklist of Books Owned and Borrowed. MadisonY university of Wisconsin Press, 1966.

Seelye, John. Melville: The Ironic Diagram. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970.

Stanonik, Janez. Moby Dick: The Myth and the Symbol. Ljubljana: Ljubljana University Press, 1962.

Stern, Milton R, ed. Discussions of Moby-Dick. Boston: Heath, i960.

Tribble, Joseph L. "The Paradise of the Imagination: The Journeys of The Oregon Trail." New England Quarterly, 46 (1973). 523-542. ------

Vincent, Howard P, ed. The Merrill Studies in Moby Dick. Columbus: Charles E. Merrill, 19b£.

341 Vincent, Howard P. and Mansfield, Luther S., eds, Moby- Dick, or, The Whale, New Yorks Hendricks House, 1952.

Watters, R e g i n a l d E. "Melville's 'Sociality'." American Literature, 17 (1945). 33-49.

Weathers, Willie T. "Moby Dick and the Nineteenth-Century Scene." Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 1 (I960), ------

West, Ray B,, Jr. "Primitivism in Melville." Prairie Schooner, 30 (1956), 369-385.

Zoellner, Robert H. The Salt-Sea Mastodon, A Reading of Moby-Dick. Berkeley and Los Angeles* University of California Press, 1973.

Chapter VI

Primary Sources

Thoreau, Henry David. The Writings of Henry David Thoreau. 20 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906.

Secondary Sources

Alcott, Bronson. "Thoreau." Concord Days. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1872.

Anderson, Charles R. The Magic Circle of Walden. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968.

. "Thoreau Takes a Pot Shot at Carolina Sports.” Georgia Review, 22 (1968), 289-29^

Burroughs, John. "Henry David Thoreau." Indoor Studies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1895*

Cook, Reginald L. "Ancient Rites at Walden." Emerson Society Quarterly, 39 (1965)* 52-56.

. Passage to Walden. New York: Russell & Russell, 1 9 ^ ------Gozzi, Raymond Dante. "Tropes and Figures: A Psychological Study of David Henry Thoreau." Diss. New York Uni­ versity 1957.

Harding, Walter. The Days of Henry Thoreau. New York: Knopf, 1965.

342 Harding, Walter, ed. Henry David Thoreau: A Profile. New Yorki Hill and Wang, 1971•

. Thoreau: A Century of Criticism. Dallas: Southern Methodis-fc University Press, 195^*

Krutch, Joseph Wood. Henry David Thoreau. New York: William Sloane, l M T

McIntosh, James. Thoreau as Romantic Naturalist: His Shifting Stance toward foature^ Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1

Marble, Annie Russell. Thoreau, His Home, Friends and Books. New York: Crowell, 1902.

Miller, Perry. Consciousness in Concord: The Text of Thoreau*s Hitherto "Lost Journal" tld*4-0-lfci4l) Together witfii NoEes and Commentary by Perry ftliXler"! Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

Paul, Sherman. The Shores of America: Thoreau*s Inward Exp lor at ion" tfrbana: University of Illinois Press, 1 9 3 B. -----

Pickard, John B. "The Religion of 'Higher Laws'." Emerson Society Quarterly. 39 (1965)* 68-72.

Salt, Henry S. Life of Henry David Thoreau. London: Walter Scot’t, lb96.

Sanborn, Franklin B. Henry David Thoreau. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. "Henry David Thoreau: His Char­ acter and Opinions." Cornhill Magazine, 4-1 (1880), 665-682.

Whitford, Philip and Kathryn. "Thoreau: Pioneer Ecologist and Conservationist." Scientific Monthly, Nov., 1951* 291-296.

Chapter VII

Primary Sources

Custer, George Armstrong. My Life on the Plains. Ed. Milo Milton Quaife. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1952. . My Life on the Plains. Ed. Edgar I. Stewart Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962, Hildreth, Richard. Archy Moore, The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulliean. 1B33. Osofsky, Gilbert, ed. Puttin* On Ole Massa* The Slave Narratives of Henry 6 ibb, William WeT!Tsl3rowia. and Solomon HorthupT New York* Harper and flow, l96<).

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. 2 vols. Boston* Phillips, Sampson & do., 1856.

. The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. New Yorks Arno Press and The New York Times, 196B.

. Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York: Signet Books, 1966.

Washburn, Wilcomb E., ed. The Indian and the White Man. Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor, l9b4.

Weld, Theodore Dwight, ed. American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of A Thousand Witnesses. New YorteV American Anti-slavery Society, 1839.

Winks, Robin W. et al., eds. Four Fugitive Slave Narratives. Reading, Mass.* Addison-Wesley, 1969.

Secondary Sources

Bird, Robert Montgomery. Nick of the Woods, or The Jibbenainosays A Tale of Kentucky. Philadelphia* Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1837. i Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers* Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 135G-Ib60. tfew York* Norton, 1972.

Catterall, Helen Tunnicliff. Judicial Cases concerning American Slavery and the toegro. $ vols. New York* Negro University Press, 1^20.

Custer, Elizabeth Bacon. Boots and Saddles, or. Life in Dakota with General Custer, blew York* harper & Bros.. t b b t ------

. Following the Guidon. Norman* University of Okla- homa Press, 1966.

. Tenting on the Plains, or. General Custer in Kansas and Texas7 New York~:~~Harper & Bros., 1887.

Deloria, Vine, Jr. Custer Died for Your Sins* An Indian Manifesto. New York* Avon Books, 1969.

3^4 Gara, Larry, The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Under- round Railroad, Lexing'fcon: University of Kentucky fress,~ T96i. Hall, James, "The Indian Hater," The Western Souvenir, 1829. Hofling, Charles K. "George Custers A Psychoanalytical Approach." Montana, 21 (1971)* 32-47.

Jackson, Helen Hunt. A Century of Dishonors A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some’~of the Indian Tribes. New Yorks Harper & Bros,,' Tbr8l7

Jordan, Winthrop D. White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812. Baltimore: Penguin Books, W 7T. ------

Leonard, John C. "Red, White and the Army Blue: Empathy and Anger in the American West," American Quarterly, 26 (1974), 176-190.

Melville, Herman. The Confidence Man: His Masquerade. New York: Dix, Edwards & Co., 1857T

Monaghan, Jay. Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959,

Rosenberg, Bruce A. Custer and the Epic of Defeat. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania state University Press, 1974.

Sandoz, Mari. The Buffalo Hunters: The Story of the Hide M en. New York: Hastings House, 195^.

. Cheyenne Autumn. New York: Hastings House, 1953.

Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. New York: Vintage kooks, 1956,

Stanton, William. The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race inTvmerica, ibl5-59. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.

Stewart, Edgar I. "A Psychoanalytical Approach to Custer: Some Reflections." Montana, 21 (1971)* 74-78.

Sydnor, Charles S. "Pursuing Fugitive Slaves." South Atlantic Quarterly, 28 (1929)* 152-164.

345 White, John I. "Red Carpet for a Romanoff." American West. 9 (1972), 4-9. ------

Zolla, E16mire. The Writer and the Shaman: A Morphology of the American Indian. Trams. Raymond Rosenthal. New YorkT Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1969.

Chapter VIII

Primary Sources

Cody, William F. The Adventures of Buffalo Bill. New York* Harper & Bros., 1904.

. An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill. New York* Cosmo- polTEan-EoolTCorpTt-T92751

. Life and Adventures of "Buffalo Bill". Chicago* Stanton and van Vliet, l9l7.

. The Life of Hon. William F. Cody. Known as Buffalo Bill, An Autobiography. Hart ford* Frank"' E. Hi is s, T57T* "Preserving the Game." The Independent, 6 June 1901, pp. 1292-1293.

Secondary Sources

"Buffalo Bill." The Outlook, 24 Jan., 1917. p. 136.

"Buffalo Bill as the Typical Plainsman." World’s Work, 28 (1924), 359-60.

Burke, John. Buffalo Bill, The Noblest Whiteskin. New York* Putnam's, 1^73.

Curti, Merle. "Dime Novels and the American Tradition," Yale Review, 26 (1937). 761-778.

Gray, John S. "Will Comstock, Scout* The Natty Bumppo of Kansas." Montana, 20 (1970), 2-15.

Harvey, Charles M. "The Dime Novel in American Life." Atlantic Monthly. 100 (1907). 37-45.

Russell, Don. The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill. Norman* University of Oklahoma Press,1960.

346 Chapter IX

Primary Sources

London, Jack, The Call of the Wild, and Selected Stories. New York: Signet Books, I960.

, The Sea-Wolf, and Selected Stories. New York: Signet Books, 196*f.

Secondary Sources

Alexander, Sidney. "Jack London's Literary Lycanthropy." The Reporter, 2k Jan. 1957» pp. k6-k&*.

Baskett, Sam S. "Jack London's Heart of Darkness," American Quarterly, 10 (1958), 66-77.

Benoit, Raymond. "Jack London's The Call of the Wild." American Quarterly, 20 (1968), zkb-zkti*

Giles, James R. "Beneficial Atavism in Frank Norris and Jack London." Western American Literature, k (1969)» 15-28.

Gurian, Jay. "The Romantic Necessity in Literary Natur­ alism: Jack London." American Literature, 38 (1966), 112-120. _ *v Labor, Earle. Jack London. New York: Twayne, 197^.

. "Jack London's Symbolic Wilderness." Nineteenth- Century Fiction, 17 (1962), 1^9-161.

Mills, Gordon. See Cooper, Secondary Sources.

Walcutt, Charles Child. American Literary Naturalism: A Divided Stream. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, I9j>e>.

Chapter X

Primary Sources

Roosevelt, Theodore. The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. 8 vols, Ed. Elting E. Morison. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951.

. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt. National Edition. 20 vols. Ed. Herman Hagedorn, New York: Scribners, 1926. 3k7 Secondary Sources i ' / Burnham, John B. "Conservation's Debt to Sportsmen." North American Review, 226 (1928), 296-302,

Burroughs, John. Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 19067

Cutright, Paul Russell, Theodore Roosevelt, The Natur­ alist. New York: Harper & Bros., i95&

Grinnell, George Bird, ed, American Big Game in Its Haunts. New York: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., i£o4.

. A Brief History of the Boone and Prockett Olub With Officers, constitution and list of Members for the Year 1910. New York: Porest and Stream Publishing Co., T ^ n r.-----

, and Sheldon, Charles, eds. Hunting and Conservation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1$2^.

, "President Roosevelt as a Sportsman." Forest and Stream, 6l (1903)# 437.

"Sportsmen in the White House." Forest and Stream, 58 (1902), 361.

Hornaday, William Temple. "Ethics in Hunting Game." Forum, 17 (1917), 103-112.

"The Passing of the Buffalo." The Cosmopolitan, 4 (1887), 85-98.

Morgan, James, Theodore Roosevelt, The Boy and the Man. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1^19.

Osborn, Henry Fairfield, "Theckdore Roosevelt, Naturalist," Impressions of Great Naturalists: Reminiscences of ParwinT Huxley, Balfour, Cope and Others. NewYork: Scribners, 1924-.

Reiger, John F. American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation" New York: "Winchester Press, 1975.

Shields, George Oliver. The Big Game of North America. Chicago: Rand McNally, ib90.

. Rustlings in the Rockies: Hunting and Fishing. Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1883.

348 Umansky, Howard. “The Roosevelt Family* A Case of Sibling Rivalry.*1 Unpublished Paper Read before the American Historical Association Convention, San Francisco, 29 Dec. 1973.

White, G. Edward. The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience: The West of Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister". hew Haven: Yale University Press, 19bb.

Wilson, R.L. Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoorsman. New York: Winchester Press, 1971.

Wister, Owen. "Theodore Roosevelt, The Sportsman and the Man." Outing, 38 (1901), 242-248,

Chapter XI

Primary Sources

Hemingway, Ernest. Death in the Afternoon. New York: Scribners, 1932.

. Green Hills of Africa. New York* Scribners, 1935.

. The Nick Adams Stories. Ed. Philip Young, New York* Bantam Books, l£72.

Secondary Sources

Baker, Carlos. Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story. New York* Bantam Books, l9?0.

. Hemingway: The Writer as Artist. Princeton* Prince­ ton University Press, 1963.

Bryan, James E. "Hemingway as Vivisector." University Review (Kansas City), 30 (1963)* 3-12.

Burnam, Tom. "Primitivism and Masculinity in the Works of Ernest Hemingway." Modern Fiction Studies, 1 (1955), 20-24.

Drinnon, Richard. "In the American Heartland* Hemingway and Death." Psychoanalytic Review, 52 (1965), 5-31.

Hemingway, Patrick. "My Papa, Papa." Playboy, Dec., 1968, pp. 197-200, 263-268.

Hovey, Richard B. Hemingway* The Inward Terrain. Seattle* University of Washington I’ress, 1988.

3^9 Kazin, Alfred. On Native Grounds; An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literature. Garden City: I5ouHTec[ay7T!ncHor7~TP5^ Mizener, Arthur. The Sense of Life in the Modern Novel. Bostons Houghton Mifflin, 190^.

Reardon, John, "Hemingway*s Esthetic and Ethical Sports­ men." University Review (Kansas City), 34- (19o7)» 13-23. Ruark, Robert. "Papa Had No Use for Sham." Field and Stream, 66 (1961), 109-111.

Webster, Harvey Curtis. "Ernest Hemingway, The Pursuit of Death." Texas Quarterly, 7 (1964), 14-9-159.

Weeks, Robert P., ed. Hemingway, A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Kall, 1962,

Young. Philip. "Big World Out There's The Nick Adams Stories." Novel, 6 (1972), 5-19.

. Ernest Hemingway: A Reconsideration. University Park, Pa.: Fennsyivania State University Press, 1966.

. Three Bags Full. New York* Harcourt, Brace and J ovanovich, 1972.

Chapter XII

Primary Source

Faulkner, William. Go Down, Moses. New York* Random House, 194-2.

Secondary Sources

Altenbernd, Lynn. "A Suspended Moment* The Irony of History in William Faulkner's 'The Bear'." Modern Language Notes, 75 (I960), 572-582.

Beauchamp, Gorman. "The Rite of Initiation in Faulkner's The Bear." Arizona Quarterly. 28 (1972), 319-325.

Bell, H.H,, Jr. "A Footnote to Faulkner's 'The Bear'." College English, 24- (1962), 179-183.

350 Cambon, Glauco. "Faulkner's 'The Old People': The Numen- Engendering Style." Southern Review, n.s. 1 (1965). 94— 107.

Collins, Carvel. "Faulkner and Certain Earlier Southern Fiction." College English, 16 (1954-), 92-97.

Dussinger, Gloria R. "Faulkner's Isaac McCaslin as Romantic Hero Manqufi." South Atlantic Quarterly, 68 (1969). 377-385.

Gilley, Leonard. "The Wilderness Theme in Faulkner's 'The Bear'." Midwest Quarterly, 6 (1965). 379-385*

Hutchison, E.R. "A Footnote to the Gum Tree Scene." College English, 24* (1963). 564— 565.

Lydenberg, John. "Nature Myth in Faulkner's The Bear." American Literature, 24- (1952), 62-72,

Moses, W.R. "Where History Crosses Myth: Another Reading of 'The Bear*." Accent, 13 (1953). 21-33.

O'Connor, William Van. "The Wilderness Theme in Faulkner's 'The Bear'." Accent. 13 (1953), 12-20.

Perluck, Herbert A. "'The Heart's Driving Complexity': An Unromantic Reading of Faulkner's 'The Bear'." Accent, 20 (I960), 23-4-6.

Utley, Francis Lee, Bloom, Lynn Z., and Kinney, Arthur F., eds. Bear, Man, and God: Eight Approaches to William Faulkner's "The Bear"1! New York: Random House, 1971.

Warren, Joyce W. "The Role of Lion in Faulkner's 'The Bear'," Arizona Quarterly, 24- (1968), 252-260.

Wertenbaker, Thomas J., Jr. "Faulkner's Point of View and the Chronicle of Isaac McCaslin." College English, 24- (1962), 169-178.

Wheeler, Otis B. "Faulkner's Wilderness." American Literature, 31 (1959), 127-136.

Chapter XIII

Primary Sources

351 Clark, Walter Van' Tilburg. The Track of the Cat. New York: Signet Books, 1949.

Fisher, Vardis. Mountain Man, A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American West. New York: Pocket Books, t w r . ------

Guthrie, A.B., Jr. The Big Sky. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 19*7 . Manfred, Frederick. Lord Grizzly. New York: Signet Books, 1964.

Waters, Frank. The Man Who Killed the Deer. New York: Pocket Books, 1971.

Secondary Sources

Astro, Richard, •'The Big Sky and the Limits of Wilderness Fiction." Western American Literature, 9 (1974), 105- 114,

Austin, James C. "Legend, Myth and Symbol in Frederick Manfred's Lord Grizzly." Critique, 6 (1963-1964), 122- 130. Brenner, Jack. "Butcher's Crossing: The Husks and Shells of Exploitation." Western American Literature, 7 (1973). 243-259. Carpenter, Frederic I. "The West of Walter Van Tilburg Clark." College English, 13 (1952), 243-248.

Chatterton, Wayne. Vardis Fisher: The Frontier and Regional Works. Western Writers Series §1. EToise: Boise State University Press, 1972.

Cracroft, Richard H. "The Big Sky: A.B. Guthrie's Use of Historical SourcesT" Wesiern American Literature, 6 (1971), 163-176. Eisinger, Chester E. Fiction of the Forties. Chicago: University of Chicago fress,—1^65.

Flora, Joseph M. Frederick Manfred. Western Writers Series #13. Boise: Boise State College Press, 1974.

Folsom, James K. The American Western Novel. New Haven* College and University Press, 1966.

352 Goetzmann, William. "The Mountain Man as Jacksonian Man," American Quarterly, 15 (1963)* 4-02-4-15.

Guthrie, A.B., Jr. "Why Write Ahout the West?" Western American Literature, 7 (1973). 163-169.

Lee, L.L. Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Western Writers Series #8. Boise: Boise State College Press, 1973.

Milton, John R. "The American Novel: The Search for Home, Tradition, and Identity." Western Humanities Review, 16 (1962), 169-180.

. "The American West: A Challenge to the Literary Imagination." Western American Literature, 1 (19o7)» 267-284- „

, "Lord Grizzly: Rhythm, Form, and Meaning in the Western Novel." Western American Literature, 1 (1966), 6-14-.

Portz, John. "Idea and Symbol in Walter Van Tilburg Clark." Accent, 17 (1957). 112-128.

Ruxton, George Frederick. Life in the Far West. Ed. Leroy R. Hafen, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951. Stegner, Wallace. "Born a Square: The Westerner's Dilemma." Atlantic Monthly, Jan., 1964-, pp. 4-6-50. Rpt. in S^egrier, Wallace. The Sound of Mountain Water. New York: Doubleday, 196$.

Thorp, Raymond W. and Bunker Robert. Crow-Killer, The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson. New York: Signet BoolesT n.d7

Walker, Don D, "The Mountain Man as Literary Hero." Western American Literature, 1 (1966), 15-25.

Westbrook, Max. Walter Van Tilburg Clark. New York: Twayne, 1969.

Young, Vernon. "Gods Without Heroes: The Tentative Myth of Walter Van Tilburg Clark." Arizona Quarterly, 7 (1951). 110-119*

353 Chapter ’XIV

Primary 1Sources

Field and' Stream, vols* 4-7-49 (1942-1945). New Yorka Field and Stream Publishing Co.

"The Literature and Philosophy of Hunting and Field-Sports." Eclectic Review, 99 (1854), 740.

Outddor Life, vols. 90-95. (1942-1945). New York* Outdoor Life Publishing Co.

"Sportsmen in the War." Hunting and Fishing, Feb., 1942, p. 19. "Veterans as Gunners." Nature, 39 (1946), 89.

Chapter XV

Primary Sources

Mailer, Norman. The Naked and the Dead. New Yorks Signet Books, 1948.

. Why Are We in Vietnam? New York: Berkley Medallion Books, 1968.

Secondary Sources

Aldridge, John W. "From Vietnam to Obscenity." Harper*s, Feb., 1968, pp. 91-92t

Gilman, Richard. The Confusion of Realms. New York: Vin­ tage Books, l9?0.

Kaufmann, Donald L. "The Long, Happy Life of Norman Mailer," Modern Fiction Studies, 17 (1971)» 347-360.

Jameson, Fredric. "The Great American Hunter,or, Ideological Content in the Novel." College English, 34 (1972), 180-197. Leeds, Barry H. The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer. New York: New York University Press, 1969.

Pearce, Richard. "Norman Mailer*s Why Are We In Vietnam? A Radical Critique of Frontier Values." Modern Fiction Studies. 17 (1971)» 409-414.

354 Poirier, Richard, Norman Mailer. New York* Viking, 1972.

Radford, Jean. Norman Mailer: A Critical Study. London: Macmillan, 1975.

Ramsey, Roger. "Current and Recurrent: The Vietnam Novel." Modem Fiction Studies, 17 (1971). ^15-^31.

Solotaroff, Robert. Down Mailer's Way. Urbana: University of Illinois Press-,- 197^.

Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction, 1950-1970. New York: Harper & flow, 1971. '

Witt, Grace. "The Bad Man as Hipster: Norman Mailer's Use of Frontier Metaphor." Western American Literature, 4- (1969). 203-217.

355