Culture and Resource Conflict: Why Meanings Matter

Chapter Fourteen. Reported and Perceived Hunting Values

Chapter Fourteen Reported and Perceived Hunting Values “If it’s brown, take it down.” —A majority-culture hunter IN THE PREVIOUS chapter we looked at the ways Menominee and majority -culture hunters rate the importance to themselves and to the forest of certain species. We found general agreement coupled with modest group differences. This is essentially the same result as we reported for the fish experts. As with the fish experts, however, we were not only interested in how individuals value specific practices, but also the values they predict for members of their own group and members of the other group. In this chapter we shall examine the extent to which the two groups’ orientations are reflected in goals, values, and attitudes toward various hunting practices. We expected that different values and meanings attached to specific species and practices, along with general differences in epistemological frameworks (overall approaches to nature and the relation of humans to it), would lead to differences in how each group perceived the other group. MENOMINEE AND MAJORITY-CULTURE VALUES AND GOALS To test this idea, we carried out two sets of interviews with our hunter informants, separated by a minimum of several weeks. In the first interview we asked participants to answer a set of questions about the hunting behaviors listed here. 161 162 Culture and Resource Conflict Hunt for biggest buck Hunting deer by “shining” Hunting deer with bow and arrow Baiting deer for gun hunting Baiting deer for bow hunting Hunting deer for food Hunting bear for food Baiting bear Hunting with dogs for bear Hunting with dogs for deer Shooting wolves Hunting turkey for food Shooting raccoons or squirrels for fun Exceeding deer limit in order to feed family Giving away game Selling deer Borrowing deer tag Leave beaver meat and take only the pelt Leave a downed doe Leave bear meat and take only the pelt Take only the tenderloin from a downed deer The questions targeted topics that were relevant to both Menominee and majority-culture hunters. In the second interview we posed the same questions again but asked hunters how equally expert hunters in their own community would answer them and then how equally expert hunters in the other community would answer them. Finally, we showed each person the average ratings from the initial interview for each of the two groups. When we designed this pair of studies we thought the big news for white hunters would be that Menominees disapproved of shining and Reported and Perceived Hunting Values 163 Table 14.1 Average of Individual Goal Rankings of Menominee (M) and Majority-Culture (MC) Hunters (Lower Numbers Indicate Greater Importance) M MC Close to nature 4.3 3.0 Outsmart game 4.1 4.0 Source of food 3.4 5.6 Trophy 4.9 4.8 Get away from it all 4.8 3.1 Pass on to future 4.1 3.2 Doing as ancestors did 4.4 4.3 Source: Authors’ compilation. had banned the practice. Of course, with the fishing-attitude results in hand, we were prepared to see additional stereotyping. We did. First, however, let’s look at some overall numbers. Goals Importance ratings for seven potential goals associated with hunting were based on responses of fourteen majority-culture and thirteen Menominee hunters. These goals and the mean rankings for both groups of hunters are shown in table 14.1 (lower numbers correspond to greater importance). For both groups the most important goal was hunting as a means of being close to nature. For Menominees, hunting to get a trophy -sized buck was the least important goal (their ratings are close to neutral). For majority-culture hunters the least important goal was hunting as a source of food. Across-group differences were statistically reliable for two of the goals. Hunting as a source of food is more important for Menominee hunters than for majority-culture hunters, as we had anticipated.1 The other main difference is that majority-culture hunters gave higher priority to hunting as a way to “get away from it all.”2 A common response among Menominee hunters was that they don’t need to get away from it all, because they already are away from it all by virtue of living in the Menominee forest. The difference in orientation toward trophy hunting was in the predicted direction but it was not reliable. Values and Attitudes Toward Hunting...