Is this a real tradition?

[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]

Traditions

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"!!

 

[.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

 

[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

 

[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

 

[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.

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. 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.