Many articles written about the big-game hunting or shooting seen all over the countries were found in the books or the magazines published in the late nineteenth century. Badminton Magazine is one of such a kind of magazines. The argument of this paper is what is the meaning of the big-game hunting or shooting in Indian, which was one of the most important colonies in the British Empire, and many of the British stayed, through investigating the articles of that magazine in the context of sports history. The British in India indulged in a variety of hunting called 'houdah shooting', 'pig-sticking', 'stalking', and so on. The Indians was forced to be subordinate role in those huntings. The concept of "fair play" was particuraly brought to the big-game hunting from the late nineteenth cetury to the early twentieth century, and that concept contributed to the reason for the Britsh excluding the Indian from the hunting, their regarding some native methods of hunting as unfair ones. The people absorbed in the big-game hunting were soldiers, civil officers, planters, and travellers, who were thought to be the elite of middle class from public schools. India offered the cheap hunting place to the elite of middle class who seldom experience the big-game hunting in Britain. Although the meaning of hunting was almost ignored by throwing light on athleticism in the study of sports history, considering the actual condition of the big-game hunting in India, the hunting was still lively present in the sporting spirit of the British.
View full abstract