Premium
fox hunting as ritual
Author(s) -
HOWE JAMES
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1981.8.2.02a00040
Subject(s) - gentry , aristocracy (class) , sociology , ideal (ethics) , perspective (graphical) , key (lock) , class (philosophy) , rural society , social class , aesthetics , anthropology , history , ethnology , law , archaeology , art , epistemology , political science , rural area , philosophy , politics , visual arts , ecology , biology
The continuing cultural importance of hunting in modern Western societies, especially to some elites, justifies increased attention from anthropologists. English fox hunting can be seen as a ritual of social class, one dramatizing themes and images about the gentry and aristocracy, and about rural society as a whole. The present analysis stresses the importance of examining the symbolic forms of modern society in a historical perspective, and it raises the possibility that some key symbols may be second‐best substitutes or approximations of an ideal. [hunting, ritual, symbolism, social class, England]