Hunting: tools, techniques and practice

Hi all, the bluetooth keyboard works great and my motivation is at best since France won the first match. Just kidding the actual reason being for once we have 3 relaxing days after about a month of non-stop work, so it feels great to write a bit here. Today let's speak about Hunting.

This activity is equally practice in the coastal and inland environment and people usually specialize in one type of it. The tools used here are firstly the traditional wooden Busog, bow, in conjonction with the panas,arrows. 

In fact, the latter have a special trait: the arrows head is not fixed to the body but instead clipeed on it and a rope of a few meters linked both parts. It help understand this by saying that the bow is used for hunting wild pigs which lives in a dense jungle environment. The idea is that the head of the arrows stick to the animal and the shaft gets stuck when the pig attempts escape through the vegetation. Then, the hunter would run and finish the job with it's Atak, knife. I say knife as the tool is also used to cut food and repair things but we are here speaking more of the dagger type with it's blade spanning a good 40cms.

After the traditional hunting, which we witnessed many attempts which produce no yield, comes guns. There are actually three disctinct types.

From the top of the image, the first one called bomba is actually the least powerful. Being an airgun, it shoots small metal pellet, the same you would in a funfaire. The main difference being that it is much more powerful. The mechanism allows to load  enough air for five shots before reloading making it a very efficient tool. It is used to hunt Ibungs, birds.

The second gun is soberly called 22 because of its caliber and the same sort of gun you would expect a farmer to own in england. Each cartrige costs the equivalent of a pound or about ten times more than for the bomba. The use of it is unclear as it did not seems to be selected during the differnet trips I witnessed.

The last type of guns are called Posphoro and actually modified shotguns. The cartridges are not available in the region so the people change the mecanism to add a side trigger. The gun is filled with three matchboxes worth of phosphorous matches heads, hence its name. Then 3 small rocks are added and the whole load is squeezed as far as possible into the cannon. The trigger is then a bent nail that, with the force of a taunt spring, which has such intensity as to make the phosphorous explode projecting the rock and matches at a great velocity. As curious as it seems it is the tool of choice for pig hunting. We witnessed many agtas walking in the forest with their guns but havent seen the formers in use.

In another category Agtas are the only people allowed to use traps it the national park; 30 maximum at one time per person. They are  clever bits of engineering where a bent wooden stick is released and tightly encompasses the animals leg to prevent it from escaping. Sadly I only got them explained to me but not seen or photographed. I have however an image of a funny little tool.

Being similarily made with a wood stick   and   a rubber band, it is   similar to a slingshot expect there is no Y-shape and the projectile clips on the rubber itself. The latter is made of a nail, sharpened at one end and fitted with lots of plastic bag pieces at the other. The former permits to pierce the occasional bird where the latter is for finding the projectile amonst the trees. It is ironically called an icepick, the shape suits the name but, but strange as the Agta don't know what ice or snow look like.

So what about the practice? We have been invited a few to partake a hunting trip and I have been to one with Nonoy, a cool guy from Cemento.

We headed early in the morning to the close-by jungle and followed some sort of trail, otherwise called a muddy torrent. After an hour of hard climb Nonoy started making noises, bird noises. He explained that the way was to speak and convince the birds to come and meet their end. With his voice and a bamboo tool he was indeed able to answer calls and soon enough we were crouching on the ground as a inquisite flyer was in the area. I am saying in the area because at this point it was impossible for me to spot any moving animal. Only the usual jungles noises and cracks. Nonoy aims, shoot, the bird fell like a stone.

He is not dead but still he goes directly into the bag, to stay fresh I presume. And the day goes on. Hours of hard walking through the jungle and a few birds later I start to be more aware of the surroundings and see the birds despite their grey and green camouflage. In fact, the shooting seemed to be the easiest part with target being between 7 to 10 meters away. In fact, the birds were so unaware that even after Nonoy shot a bird on a branch it's two companions didn't budge and met the same fate a minute later. One shot, one bird is Nonoy's mantra and that day he did not fail.

We came back late afternoon, and boy I was tired. Nonoy may not be fast in the action, but his stamina seems to be without limits. This was a great day out.

We will head to another camp with bird hunters in a couple of days and I am bringing cartridges this time with the hope to have a go at shooting. I tried in the camp and manage to hit the target OK. Maybe I can get a bird too.

With love,

Wasabi.