Whitetail deer have resided in the woods and plains of North America long before Europeans and Africans arrived on the continent.
Native Americans relied on venison to feed their families, and their hunting techniques varied substantially from our modern-day strategies.
French explorer Dumont de Montigny documented hunting techniques of Natchez Indians in the delta area of the Mississippi River (modern-day Madison, Tensas and Concordia parishes and Adams, Jefferson, Claiborne and Warren counties). He observed the Natchez while in Louisiana from 1719 until 1737.
This is his account, as reported in John R. Swanton’s Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico:
When a savage has succeeded in killing a deer he first cuts off its head as far down as the shoulders. Then he skins the neck without cutting the skin, and, having removed the bones and the flesh from it, he draws out all the brains from the head. After this operation he replaces the bones of the neck very neatly and fixes them in place with the aid of a circle of wood and some little sticks. Then he re-covers them with their skin, and, having dried this head partly in the shade and partly in the smoke, he thus has an entire deer’s head, which is very light, and which with its skin preserves also its hair, its horns, and its ears. He carries it with him hung to his belt when he goes hunting, and as soon as he perceives a bison or a deer he passes his right hand into the neck of this deer, with which he conceals his face, and begins to make the same kind of movements as the living animal would make. He looks ahead, then turns the head rapidly from one side to the other. He lowers it to browse on the grass and raises it immediately afterward. In fact, always concealing his face with this head, he deceives the animal which he wishes to approach by means of his gestures, and if during this time it happens that the animal stops to observe him the savage, though he has his leg in the air to move forward, stays it there, and has enough patience to remain in this posture until the living animal, taking him for another animal of his species, begins to approach him. Then the savage, seeing him within gunshot, lets the deer head fall to the earth, passes his ready gun from his left hand to his right with admirable skill and rapidity, shoots the animal, and kills it, for he very rarely misses it.
Editor’s note: This story is part of the article titled Cold-hearted hunters in the December issue of Louisiana Sportsman magazine, now available on newsstands or in a new digital edition.
