Anthropozoologica
61 (4) - Pages 49-70Some people believe that hunting trophies are ancestral and unchanging. Anthropology and archaeology prove them partly right, since hunting remains have been part of humanity’s material and symbolic culture for... ever? However, the trophy, as we see it today, is more the result of an evolution—particularly in museums. Between (neo)hunting traditions and museographic borrowings, the hunting trophy raises questions about the relationship between human and deer, beyond the actual killing of the animal. The conservation and display of animal remains sheds light on the close and sometimes intimate interactions between a human predator and its cervid prey. Based on a multi-stage investigation —from the forest to the museum, including the hunter’s home— and transdisciplinary anthropomuseology, this article explores the art of accommodating hunting remains. A trophy is a scandalous object for the non-hunter, but irreplaceable for the hunter. It perpetuates a unique and fleeting moment, that of the (sensitive) encounter between a human and a non-human, and bears witness to the hunter’s ontological wanderings. Despite appearances, the trophy is far from dead.
Hunting trophy, hunting museum, museology, deer, Homo-Cervus relationship.