The Psychic Toll of Severing the Hunter-Prey Relationship

productive hunt is a violent act—success requiring as it does the dismemberment of a living creature. Yet, to focus alone on the concluding moment, the bloody brutality of the killing itself, risks obscuring a more subtle and significant meaning to this harsh affair. For hunter-gatherers, occupying environments where animal protein is essential to subsist, the hunt is an act of necessity. Such events, however destructive and aggressive as they tend to be, are commonly associated not with the hunter’s sense of malice, disdain, or even casual disinterest, but an abiding