Bow Hunting: The Ultimate Primal Definition

The definition of primal is the original lifestyle. What did the human lifestyle look like before the modern world took over? We definitely didn’t spend all day sitting in chairs behind computer screens. Food wasn’t easily available on every corner we had to go out and find it in the wilderness ourselves. I’ve been a lover of the outdoors ever since I can remember. We camped a lot when I was a kid and growing up in the ’80s our days were spent outside. If you’re as old as I am you likely remember riding bikes, climbing trees, roaming the neighborhood, and coming home when the street lights came on. Fast forward to my college years and I earned a degree in Environmental Science. In my senior year of college, you would have caught me electrofishing or hanging off the side of a railing to collect water samples. In 2012 I started playing with my diet and by 2016 I became a primal health coach. The approach to health, fitness, and lifestyle that I follow and teach is based on the Primal Blueprint and hunter-gatherer principles. Asking the question of what was their life like comes up a lot in primal health books, podcasts, and primal conversation. Becoming a bow hunter I often draw connections between bowhunting and the primal lifestyle while I’m sitting alone in the wilderness. In my opinion, bowhunting is the ultimate primal definition of the primal lifestyle.

What I Love About Bow Hunting

Bow hunting puts you in touch with nature in a way that gets left out of the modern world. When you have hunted more than one species you begin to notice these little nuances. The way you move across the land when you’re hunting deer, elk, or antelope is different. For antelope, the distance is about 150-200 yards where they’ll just sit and look at you. If you get any closer they’ll show you why they’re called speed goats. Conversely, I had the wind in my favor and I went marching up a hill and I didn’t see the deer that were there. I stood about 10-20 yards from them before we noticed each other. Of course, it wasn’t deer season so nothing could have been done anyway.

Animals live in different terrain. Antelope live in the high plains desert where there is nothing but grass and sage. They can see long distances so sneaking up on them is not easy. Elk like to be hidden in trees or dense brush, it’s one of the reasons they seem to be magical. They can appear and disappear in an instant. Hunting animals makes you tap into your primitive wisdom and instinct on what to do. It may be easier for those who grew up hunting but I didn’t get started until the age of 41 and honestly I’m fascinated by it. There’s a dance that you have to get just right because as a bowhunter it’s not easy to get an animal within 50 yards of where you are. When I say it’s the ultimate primal definition I’m referring to the ability to spend time in nature and pick up on these nuances. Hunters are also huge supporters of conservation. If they weren’t they likely would find fewer hunting opportunities or none at all.

It’s sad to think how much knowledge humans have lost in order to ensure their basic survival if they had to live off the land once again. There have been days when I’ve thought on several occasions how much easier hunting would be if I could bring a group of people along. When you’re out there on your own and the animal runs away that means, in my case, more hills and mountains I have to climb. I get why being shunned from the tribe was a likely death sentence. That also explains why the tribal mentality is so strong that it still persists today even though we’re no longer living like hunter-gatherers. If you don’t fall in line and do what your social group expects of you you’re out on your own.

The Ultimate Nature Experience

When you’re a bowhunter you have a lot of time to spend just sitting in nature. I’ve sat among sage bushes waiting on an antelope to arrive. While sitting there I’m surrounded by bugs of all kinds and I get to watch them buzz from flower to flower, hop from bush to bush, and rub their arms and legs over their body in various ways. One day I had the pleasure of seeing the sky change, the winds pick up, and what I thought were ordinary bug habits completely changed. Many of them essentially disappeared even though they’d been going about their business all day long. It’s interesting to notice something so small have such innate wisdom.

I can honestly say that if a tree falls in the woods that it does make a sound. I’ve had chipmunks 2 feet away from me while decked out in camo and completely still. A red-headed woodpecker taps on 3 or 4 different sides of a tree before moving on to the next tree. There really are so many cool things to see.

Sitting at the top of the mountain last week I had elk and deer tracks all around me. This was also a mountain where a friend of a friend had been charged by a bear, there were mountain lions, bobcats, wolves, and moose roaming the mountain too. I was part of the food chain which is a place that the modern world doesn’t expose you to. As I sat among the rocks and burned out trees I periodically had to do a 360 check around me to make sure I wasn’t being stalked by a mountain cat or another predator. Earlier in the week, I spent each day with a guy or guys carrying rifles so I didn’t bring my pistol that day. While I’m not a fearful person out in the wilderness I did keep an arrow nocked in case what I was hunting walked by, or in case I needed to defend myself from a predator.

Out in nature, you have to be prepared for anything. The weather might change, you might fall and get hurt, or you may have to spend the night exactly where you are. Everything you need to be prepared for any scenario gets carried on your back and that includes food and water.

The Primal Definition of Hunting

I often try to imagine what life was like for Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. In some ways, I am certain they had a competitive edge when it came to hunting. If I could spend every day out in the woods I know I’d start to pick up on animal patterns. That’s what modern hunters do, and the good ones seem to do it a lot. They go out to the area where they plan to hunt and they study the animals. Knowing where animals typically hang out and how they move across the land greatly increases your odds of finding them when bowhunting season arrives. That usually works a bit but when the rut has yet to start, is currently happening, or the rut is over will also affect animal behavior. If you’re hunting a male versus a female it will also make a difference in your bowhunting approach. As I said before, bowhunting is the ultimate primal definition not only because you get to see the nuances of nature, but also because you have to study the habits and behaviors of the animal you’re hunting.

The amount of food, looking at both flora and fauna, directly impacted the amount of people an environment could feasibly support. If food was abundant, resident groups of hunter-gatherers were more likely to stay in the same place, find ways to effectively store their food, and protect their territory against competing groups. Alternatively, if there was not enough food in a group’s direct vicinity, it meant they had to move around and lead more nomadic lifestyles in order to sustain themselves. If this sounds like too much of a piece of cake, imagine that the environment with both its terrain and its weather (think of droughts or huge storms) regularly tried to kill these early humans, with the assistance of animals that had bigger teeth and claws than they did. Luckily, prehistoric societies were made up of groups or bands of a few dozens of people, usually representing several families, that helped each other survive mother nature. [ancient.eu]

The two main causes of death during the paleolithic era were infection and injury, both of which are relatively easy to manage today. Hunting elk last week I was fortunate to go to the wilderness with a flight paramedic and a flight nurse. One of the guys was also a former respiratory therapist. Although the mountain was slippery and there were many instances where I could have fallen to my death or at least sustained a pretty good injury, I had knowledgeable help with me. I also had a SPOT in my backpack in case of an emergency although the guys kept talking about where the closest “LZ” (landing zone for a medical helicopter) might be and it wasn’t too close to where we were.

Trust me, when I’m out in the backcountry comparing modern versus Paleolithic hunting experiences I’m grateful for the technology I carry with me. I’m also insanely curious about the advantages they had over me. Even if you’re not a bowhunter go out into nature and try to imagine yourself as a Paleolithic person. What would you eat and where would you sleep? Mostly though, when you really slow down and look at the fine details around you what do you notice that you’ve been missing all along? If you want to get a sense of the ultimate primal definition find a way to put yourself in nature and as close to nature as you can. Even if you don’t want to go bowhunting try to capture your prey with a camera or simply enjoy the memory of what you see.

 

Originally posted on October 13, 2020 @ 10:17

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