Pigeon hunting (Oceania)
The pigeon hunting (probably due to the Tonga Fruchttaube Ducula pacification , Tongan: Lupe ) is in Oceania old one many centuries Sport.
Tonga
For this purpose, mounds of earth ( tia seu lupe ) have been heaped up on Tonga , which can have a diameter of 35 m and a height of 4.5 m. At the top of the hill there were shelters where the hunters could hide. They had tamed pigeons with them, which they let out of their hiding places with thin threads on their feet. When wild pigeons joined the decoys, you pulled your own pigeons to the ground by the strings and the wild pigeons followed so that they could be caught with nets.
This kind of aristocratic amusement, which in particular also served to supply protein, was an old tradition in the 19th century , but it is no longer practiced today. There are 14 pigeon hunting hills on the Ha'apai Islands of Tonga, which, according to oral tradition, date from the middle of the 15th century.
Samoa
On the main island of American Samoa Tutuila to the north of Tonga , these hills are called tia ʻave . So far, more than 150 of them have been discovered that have a star shape and are therefore called star mounds in English .
literature
- David V. Burley: Sport, Status, and Field Monuments in the Polynesian Chiefdom of Tonga: The Pigeon Snaring Mounds of Northern Ha'apai. In: Journal of Field Archeology , Volume 23, 1996, No. 4, pp. 421-435 ( JSTOR 530546 ).
- David J. Herdrich: Towards an understanding of Samoan star mounds. In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society , Volume 100, 1991, No. 4, pp. 381-436.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jeffrey T. Clark, David J. Herdrich: Prehistoric settlement system in eastern Tutuila, American Samoa. In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society , Vol. 102, 1993, No. 2, pp. 147-186, here p. 153.