In the early 70’s, I lived for awhile on a small farm on the island of Kauai, the northern most populated island in the Hawaiian chain.  I was sometimes invited by some of the local men to go hunting for wild boar that lived deep in the mountain valleys.  This invitation was to be considered quite and honor, since hunting boar was a demonstration of a manhood that non-native people were likely to possess. The treks through the steep canyons of Waimea or the deep valley of Hanalei were fast paced and grueling and always began before sunrise.  They didn’t use guns. They trained very aggressive dogs to find and attack the boar.  When the dogs found a hot trail they began to yelp and soon forced the pig to stop its run by attacking and literally locking their teeth into its ears and legs.  We had to run as fast as we could, smashing our way through the jungle to get to the fight before the boar killed some of the dogs. When we arrived we dove into the fray, one going after the rear legs to immobilize the pig and another reaching in and cutting its throat with an extremely sharp knife.  The boar quickly died but the dogs continued to attack and couldn’t be calmed until they were fed some of the innards.  At first I just made pictures, but when my turn came to kill a boar I was shaking, and in the frenzy I cut the boar badly, hitting some bones. The other men got angry and criticized me with clicks of their tongues and glances that challenged my experience.  These were men of few words and their sentiments came silently through their gestures.  In that silence I understood that for them hunting was an exchange of life, and what was losing its life to you should die cleanly and with clear determination, as one of us might have died if that boar hadn’t been so outnumbered.  These men didn’t just kill, nor were they just hunters, they were fluids and air and heat and wild energy and they didn’t see themselves as that much different than the boar they carried heavily out of the jungle.

 

 

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