Human hunting

Human hunting refers to humans being hunted and killed for other persons' revenge, pleasure, entertainment, sports, or sustenance. There have been historical incidents of the practice being carried out during times of social upheaval.[1] A 2016 report by Daniel Wright, senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Central Lancashire, predicts the hunting of the poor will become a hobby of the super-rich in a future plagued by economic and ecological disasters and overpopulation.[2]

Historical examples

  • In Ancient Greece, the upper class of Sparta regularly practiced the stalking and murder of members of their servile helot population; such murders were carried out both by the secret police (Crypteia) as a means of keeping the helots cowed and unlikely to revolt, and as part of the military training (agoge) for Spartan youths.
  • During the California genocide indigenous people were hunted down and killed for bounties by white settlers. In revenge for the killing of white settlers, death squads would hunt down and massacre entire villages of indigenous Californians.
  • During the Spanish Civil War, a real-world version of this practice became popular among the sons of wealthy landowners. The hunts took place on horseback and targeted landless peasants as an extension of the White Terror. They were jokingly referred to as "reforma agraria" referencing the grave their quarry would be dumped into and the land reforms the lower classes had been attempting to attain.[3][1]
  • On July 18, 1984, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty walked into a San Ysidro McDonalds & committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history (being surpassed 7 years later by the 1991 Luby’s massacre). Beforehand, Huberty kissed his wife Etna goodbye before telling her he was "going hunting... hunting for humans."

In fiction

The topic of hunting humans has been the subject of many works of fiction. Probably the most famous in English is "The Most Dangerous Game", a short story by Richard Connell, which was adapted dozens of times for film, radio and television.[4]

In A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, Ramsay Bolton loved hunting people as part of his sadistic nature.

See also

References

  1. Hochschild, Adam (2016). Spain in Our Hearts. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 37. ISBN 9780547973180.
  2. Wright, Daniel (April–May 2016). "Hunting humans: A future for tourism in 2200". Futures. 78–79: 34–46. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2016.03.021.
  3. Beevor, Antony (2006). The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Penguin. p. 77. ISBN 9780143037651. This sort of activity was jokingly referred to as the 'reforma agraria' whereby the landless bracero was finally to get a piece of ground for himself.
  4. Dixon, Wheeler Winston (August 24, 2010). A History of Horror. Rutgers University Press. p. 42. ISBN 9780813550398.

Notes

    This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.