[kd7nqb]

A buddy of mine is from South Dakota and just moved to Oregon. We have been talking quite a bit about hunting since I am convincing him to teach me how to hunt. One of the "Old Native Traditions" he shared with me was that after you kill your first deer your suppose to take a bite out of heart. He claims to have done this and regards it as some sort of right of passage.

1. Is this safe?

2. Is this a real tradition?

3. Who else has done this?

[pokechoke]

Your buddy has been watching "Red Dawn" too much

[GCW5]

A nice picture will do just fine.

[EricTheBarbarian]

watch red dawn. id bet money thats where he got it from.

[rock jock]

Its tradition in a lot of circles to smear a little blood across the face of a newly christened hunter. But eating the heart? No.

[paramedic70002]

Think about the FDA's guidelines for food safety. Look up Chronic Wasting Disease.

[Byron Quick]

To worry about CWD, you have to ingest prions from the CNS, don't you? Googled the information. CWD prions can spread to the peripheral nervous system, therefore being present in the skeletal and heart muscle of cervids. However, the CDC has found no evidence of transmission to humans through eating CWD infected meat.

Most places, it's just blood in the face for the first buck killed.

Buddy of mine, one of the moderators here, ate the heart of one of his first deer. After he cooked it.

If the heart muscle of an animal isn't fit to eat, the odds are the skeletal muscle isn't fit to eat either.

Eating the various organs of animals will supply essential minerals and vitamins not available in skeletal muscle tissue.

If you ever get in a situation where vegetables and vitamin tablets aren't available but animals can be killed and eaten, eating various organ tissue will be the only means of staving off deficiency diseases.

[Smokey Joe]

Kd7nqb--Native traditions, like other traditions, vary considerably from area to area and tribe to tribe. There may well be such a tradition among some South Dakota tribe--Is your buddy a member of such a tribe?

Or is it a "tradition" in the sense that his buds that he hunted with in S Dak did it among themselves?

Or is he just mebbe BS'ing you?

2 other points:

(1)I have been keeping up on the CWD issue. Eating raw heart muscle is as unlikely to give you CWD as anything on the deer except the lymph nodes and CNS. (Those, you stay away from!!) And there is no evidence that CWD is transmissible to humans. I presume the deer was alert and healthy, not staggering and drooling, when bagged. BTW, cooking has no effect on the prions that spread CWD, so raw meat is no less safe from CWD than cooked.

(2) It's a RITE of passage. A rite is a ceremony. A right is an inherent empowerment, without asking anyone's permission, to do a particular thing. Or, the correct thing to do in a given circumstance. Example: You have the right to conduct the rite in the right way. OK, thus endeth the English lesson. :)

[spooney]

All of my hunting mentors did so when they were young but the tradition has pretty much died out in my generation. They all just took one bite of the heart, didn't eat the whole thing though.

[Robert Hairless]

What I heard is that the current ritual includes lifting the hunter over the edge of a cliff, shouting "Damn those who use AR-15s!," and hurling him into the abyss.

If he rises, firearms designed for hunting purposes will not be banned.

[auschip]

If he rises, firearms designed for hunting purposes will not be banned.

But if he sees his shadow we will have 6 more weeks of winter?

[koja48]

Blood smear on the face, traditional right-of-passage . . . cooked liver, onions, & bacon or backstrap in camp that night . . . sheer heaven!

[floridaboy]

I've always understood it was the liver you were supposed to bite.

[ADKWOODSMAN]

Somebody's been watching "Dances with Wolves"!!:neener:

[.cheese.]

holy crap dudes!

***?

At least cook it!

[dakotasin]

it is a real, time-honored tradition in s.d.
don't know about any place else.
don't know if it is safe.

[ID_shooting]

The only thing my elders did to me was make me reach in up past my elbows and scoop the entrails out (I was only 10 so it was easy to get most of way up my arms)

Other than hollywood, I never heard of eating anything other than back strap on a stick over the fire that night :D

[rickomatic]

+1 on the smearing of a little blood on his face. Then everyone takes side bets on whether or not he'll puke on his first field dressing...hehe :barf:

[tank mechanic]

2. Is this a real tradition?

3. Who else has done this?




My buddies and I do that every time we go snipe hunting :D

[Kimber1911_06238]

blood smearing, yes. raw heart...not me

[MCgunner]

When I was a kid, you were supposed to get rolled in the gut pile. It was just my Grandpa and Uncle makin' me paranoid. I still killed that first deer, no gut pile roll. I was quite relieved. :D

Had a friend in the navy. He was on an aircraft carrier, talks when he first went aboard, they told him there was a bowling alley on board. He spent his whole first deployment lookin' for that bowling alley. I hear they still pull that one. LOL!

Personally, I don't eat game organs. My aunt used to like the brain. My grandpa would package the liver. But, that's okay, I just eat the meat. I can buy calf liver at HEB. :D It's cheap!

watch red dawn. id bet money thats where he got it from.

Fantastic movie. I STILL watch it now and then. Taped it off HBO in the 80s and the tape still plays.

[oregonhunter]

:) Never heard of it but I think gutting your first deer yourself is good enough

[Sunray]

"...a little blood on his face..." Also from TV and movies. The most recent I saw was in CSI: NY, I think.
"...make me reach in up past my elbows and scoop the entrails out..." Teaches you that the hunt is not over with the shot.

[MrTuffPaws]

Cook it first.

[paramedic70002]

Yes CWD is primarily a nervous system problem, and no, hunters aren't like ly to contract, but I'd still avoid the possibility of cross contamination and ingestion.

[tsanford405]

My first hunting kill was a hog with a knife, and you better believe I got blood smeared on my face as war paint for the remainder of the evening. Didn't eat anything though...

[mothernatureson]

Shirttail cut off the "lucky" hunter's shirt. I have seen of folks smearing the blood across their face, seems a bit paganistic. But, each to their own. Have fun!

[MCgunner]

Hell, I enjoy my Pagan traditions, you know, like Christmas trees at Christmas? :D

Among the more traditional Harley Riders, it is customary for a hunter to eat the butt out of the first moose he kills - without the use of his hands.

Biker

Is that real moose you're talkin' about or some fat chick you might have picked up hitch hiking? Just wondered. :D

[Biker]

Down enough brew and it don't matter. How do ya think I ended up with my 3rd wife?

Biker

[Smokey Joe]

My aunt used to like the brain. Now THAT will get you a case of CWD, if anything will!!

The reason Mad Cow in Europe spread to people was that cow brains were a part of some European delicacy. Mad Cow is the bovine version of CWD. It is called Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease in humans.

The only bright spot in this that I see is that normally these prion-induced brain diseases are specific to one family of animals (for example cows and the like for Mad Cow, or deer and the like for CWD) and do not infect other species. Mad Cow is the exception.

Sheep scrapie (same kind of disease, but for the sheep family of animals) for example, has been known for hundreds of years, back to medieval times, when the shepherd and his family, and all the sheep, all lived in the same hut, and humans DO NOT get scrapie. (Thank goodness!)

Similarly, there is zero evidence that CWD is transmissible to humans, but we don't have the long history to back that up. And who wants to be the first, history-making, case?

So while the liklihood of getting CWD from eating deer brains would seem to be low, why tempt fate? DO NOT EAT ANY PART OF THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM, NOR THE LYMPH NODES, OF ANY DEER-LIKE ANIMAL!!!
(That'd be deer, moose, elk, red stag, etc.)

[Hokkmike]

I have heard of drinking blood from the first kill, but not me. They did the heart eating thing, as others have said, from the movie "Red Dawn".

It has been a tradition in parts of PA that if you MISS a buck you cut the bottom of your shirt (that tucks in below the pants) OFF!

[Leanwolf]

I was born and raised in the South and grew up in tiny, rural town. Almost all my relatives hunted. I never once had any of that "blood on the face," or, "eat the heart," or cut off your shirttail" nonsense, when I/we killed a deer.

When I/we killed a deer, we dressed it, got it out of the forest, cut it up and cooked it.

FWIW.

L.W.

[Art Eatman]

Ernest Thompson Seton wrote extensively about hunting, some hundred-plus years ago; I don't recall any mention of such "tradition".

The shirttail thing? Yeah. But even that wasn't a "must do" deal.

Art

[koja48]

Down enough brew and it don't matter. How do ya think I ended up with my 3rd wife?

Thanks for the post, Biker . . . I'm cutting back on brew . . . 2 ex-wives are enough . . . no desire to collect the entire set . . .

[Beetle Bailey]

I've always understood it was the liver you were supposed to bite.

D'oh! So that's what he meant! I just got back from my first hunting trip ever. I harvested a wild boar in central California and when my guide field dressed the pig, he asked me if I wanted the liver. I was all :confused: ? I was thinking "Hmmm. . . pig liver must be really good if it's the only organ he asks if I want to keep. But it's a long way back and I don't have a bag to carry it in." I didn't know I was supposed to eat it then and there as a tradition. :o

[LAK]

In Germany it was smearing a little bloody cross on your forehead - and sticking a sprig of fir tree in the deer's mouth - that I could handle. Biting a piece of raw blood pumper is not something I would like to do personally. Sounds a bit primitive.

-----------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

[Art Eatman]

"Food fetish" comes about for good reasons. The reasons are not always remembered as the fetish becomes codified through generations.

For instance, nomadic peoples didn't raise pigs because pigs don't herd well, need a lot of water, and aren't suitable for cross-country travel in arid lands. If you go into the pig business, you cease a nomadic lifestyle--and that's a problem in arid lands. Over time, this becomes codified into the religion and the reasons are lost in the mists of time.

Before bows/arrows, and even with their advent, the larger animals weren't all that easily killed. The liver contains nutrients not available in other meat, and of all meat it's the most easily eaten when raw. Softest. No muscle tissue. Hunters knew all this, and shared the liver upon first gutting a deer, elk, whatever. Over time, this becomes a tradition and the reasons are lost in the mists of time.

Art

[lawson]

I've noticed particular hunting traditions seem to depend on your circle of hunters.

When I took my first buck, I got a smear of blood across the face, and the old Hopi in our group told me I had to "eat of his heart". Of course, he was just messing with me. The smear of blood was "initiation", mostly just hazing the young guys.

One of the most common traditions seems to be the "buck bottle", a fifth of hooch that isn't opened til the first buck is taken, and the lucky hunter pours the first round. I had my first drink of whiskey the night after I took my first deer, something you must never tell Ma about. What happens in deer camp stays in deer camp.

Whether a tradition has roots in history or not, your hunting traditions are important.

[sumpnz]

I thought the no pigs thing was becuase the ancient people didn't understand that cooking thoroughly killed trichinella. So since people would get sick after eating pork that was poorly cooked, if at all, they figured God just didn't want them to eat said animal. Same sort of a deal with shell fish and crustaceans.

[Fn-P9]

If you ever get in a situation where vegetables and vitamin tablets aren't available but animals can be killed and eaten, eating various organ tissue will be the only means of staving off deficiency diseases.

So can you survive on deer meat water and HOTDOGS? :neener:

[Art Eatman]

sumpnz, that's probably contributory. As for fish, etc., there weren't any refrigerators way back. :) Again, though, a food supply from fishing means the end of a nomadic lifestyle.

Remember that cultural traditions--such as nomadism--are very resistant to change. To totally change to a fixed-location lifestyle is a tremendous cultural shock.

Art

[islandphish]

Your first field dress comes with your first deer down around here but we don't eat raw animals organs!

Related, my dad taught me how to field dress a deer and he learned from an "old cowboy" on the ranch. The first thing done when ever we get a buck down is to cut off the testicles. It's the way he was shown, the way I was shown and the way I'll always teach it. Tradition is important.

I would say that if this is an important thing to your buddy and he is going to teach you to hunt then it should be an important thing to you as well. In the end the important is what you and your friend put on the moment.

[krimmie]

tsanford405
Member


Join Date: 01-31-07
Posts: 37

My first hunting kill was a hog with a knife

Hell, even anti-hunters can justify that kill...practically self defense.

[dfaugh]

yes, its a years-old tradition.....I still know people that do it.

[Steel Talon]

Well if you really want to go tribal, then go early man tribal... Break open a "femur" bone and suck out the marrow :what:

;)

peace
Steel Talon:cool:

[Chuck Dye]

My best friend observes a ritual while dressing a deer or elk that includes eating a bite of the heart.

When I was a kid hunting deer on the Fort Eustis and Cheatham Annex reserves in Virginia in the early '60s a hunter lost his or her shirttail, with great and noisy ceremony, for MISSING, not for success.

[sm]

Art and Byron posted some great stuff.

For me, and how Mentored, we had "rites of passages" which I learned varied from where a Mentor was raised and how they were brought up with "rite of passages".

Blood on the face if you got a deer, and shirttail cut if you shot and missed a deer.

Duck hunting- if you kept missing, you retrieved the ducks and gave the dogs a break.

Dove Hunting - We always gave the first time dove hunters a pocket knife.

Stick of Beef Jerky in your pocket makes one a better shooter. -Mentors.

It did not matter if hunting, shooting any kind of firearm platform for any kind of competition, stick a stick of Beef Jerky in the pocket ( on person somewhere).
Hunting, SKeet, Trap, Bulls-Eye, Bench rest ..."we" had a stick of jerky in pocket.

Hey, I was a wee pup, just learned to walk, and I had a stick of beef jerky on my person learning to use my hands to "shoot" and hold a "toy gun" made of wood.

Never missed either...:p

[Geno]

Not the way I heard it...

I way heard the new hunter had to wear the freshly-caped hide from the deer, and tromp through the woods grunting. :evil:

[buck460XVR]

in my family/hunting party the tradition is, before field dressing it, is to thank the lord for the opportunity to take the animal..... and then if it's a buck, when the gonads are removed, they are thrown over your left shoulder for continued good luck. The heart goes home to be pickled for Christmas Eve.

[Rembrandt]

Eating the raw heart is a right of passage after getting your first deer in our camp....(heehee)....always give them a photo, proof of the moment.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/Rembrandt51/Wildlife/Jeremydeer04-2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/Rembrandt51/Wildlife/heart2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/Rembrandt51/Wildlife/heart1.jpg

[mothernatureson]

We come from a tough neighborhood. We eat the gonads, and toss the heart over our right shoulder!

[Jrsmith]

I can tell you my grandma was a little peeved when I didn't bring back the heart of my first kill, with a bite missing... she wanted the rest. But, hey, my softpoint kinda expanded right in that there heart... I didn't want to eat lead (plus I don't like heart cooked, let alone raw). I did crack my first ever beer that night, ahh the memories.

[buck460XVR]

We come from a tough neighborhood. We eat the gonads, and toss the heart over our right shoulder!


:what: must be a Iowa thing............:D



..........even so, I'm glad I wasn't from there.My mom's pickled venison heart was much better than any "Rocky Mountain Oysters" I ever had. :barf:

[GRB]

I prefer my meat cooked. I did hold thge almost still beating heart of my first deer in my hand, then took it home, cooked it and ate some of it. Heart is not one of my favorite dishes, very strong iron and mineral taste, but it was edible - cooked.

If you eat a raw heart you can contract several types of diseases, and or parasites. Good luck to all of you super-macho types if you eat it raw. About the only animal products I eat raw are clams, oysters, and rare times fish in cerviche.

All the best,
GB

[skidooman]

it was an either, or; thing for me, either bite the heart or drink some blood, i myself chose blood. it was gross.

[MDHunter]

Never thought I'd call a bunch of fellow hunters SQUEAMISH... :neener:

I have heard of the tradition, knew a couple of family members long ago who did it. The cutting of a shirttail for missing a deer is an time-honored tradition, at least in the Northeast.

And if you cut the heart up and cook it like steak, rare to medium rare, you might be surprised if you've never tried it....

(as some moose backstraps are thawing for dinner before the NCAA Final Four games tomorrow night...)

Michael

[mothernatureson]

Did you mean , "An Iowa thing"? A Iowa thing is incorrect. Yea, Im glad you're not from here too. How do you like living in your mom's basement?

[bowfin]

I bring home every deer heart and liver that can be salvaged , but they are not eaten until they are cooked.

Everybody guts their first deer, to show that they are a "for real" hunter, not just someone who pulls the trigger. Not a tough guy thing, as much as part of the learning curve.

[Stickjockey]

Rembrandt, the dude in that first pic looks positively vampiric; that's not you, is it?:uhoh:

[Rembrandt]

Rembrandt, the dude in that first pic looks positively vampiric; that's not you, is it?
..Nope, not me and no vampire....a very good friend, THR member, and one of our country's warriors.....Oh yeah, and he's from Iowa.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/Rembrandt51/Wildlife/Jeremydeer04-2.jpg