Persistence Hunting

This morning while over at Tim Ferris's blog on Vibram Five Fingers shoes I found in his entry a link to the video below (also at the top of this page's sidebar), showing how !Kung men hunt wild game, running it to exhaustion such that it practically speaking surrenders. I felt very deeply moved by the film, seeing the deep relationship between hunter and hunted, and the courage of the hunter, and particularly watching how the hunter honors the hunted at the end.

Vegetarians often claim humans are not suited to hunting because we don't have teeth and claws like big cats. The film very clearly shows how man's natural weapons consist of his bipedalism, unique sweat glands, language ability, intelligence, imagination, tool-making, lopsided brain, handedness, persistence, endurance, and ability to throw an object (spear) with accuracy. These all enable a man to track, outwit, and run down a larger, faster animal at a time of day when the lack of similar sweat glands makes the prey extremely vulnerable.

Notice also that the chase takes 8 hours, on an empty stomach.