Happy hunting ground
American Indian concept of the afterlife
Look up happy hunting ground in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The happy hunting ground is a concept of the afterlife associated with the Native Americans in the United States.[1] The phrase most likely originated with the British settlers' interpretation of the Indian description.[2]
History
The phrase first appears in 1823 in The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper:
"Hawk-eye! My fathers call me to the happy hunting-grounds."[3]
Historian Charles L. Cutler suggests that Cooper "either coined or gave currency to" the use of the phrase "happy hunting ground" as a term for the afterlife.[4] The phrase also began to appear soon after in the writing of Washington Irving.[5]
In 1911, Sioux physician Charles Eastman wrote that the phrase "is modern and probably borrowed, or invented by the white man."[6]
References
- ^ "happy hunting ground". merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
- ^ Meek, Barbara A. (January 2006). "And the Injun goes "How!": Representations of American Indian English in white public space". Language in Society. 35 (1): 93–128. doi:10.1017/S0047404506060040. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
- ^ Cooper, James Fenimore (1872). The Pioneers, or, The sources of the Susquehanna: a descriptive tale. New York, NY: D. Appleton & Company. p. 183.
- ^ Cutler, Charles L. (February 2000). O Brave New Words!: Native American Loanwords in Current English. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-8061-3246-4.
- ^ Irving, Washington (1886). Astoria, or, Anecdotes of an enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains. New York: J.B. Alden. p. 191.
- ^ Eastman, Charles Alexander (1911). The soul of the Indian; an interpretation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 156.
- v
- t
- e
Afterlife locations
religions
| Judaism |
|
|---|---|
| Christianity |
|
| Islam | |
| Mormonism |
|
| Mandaeism |
|
mythologies
| Celtic | |
|---|---|
| Finnic | |
| Germanic | |
| Greek | |
| Slavic |
religions
| Buddhism |
|
|---|---|
| Hinduism | |
| Jainism |
|
| Sikhism | |
| Taoism | |
| Chinese | |
| Japanese | |
| Zoroastrianism | |
| Tengrism |
| Mesoamerican | |
|---|---|
| Plains Indians |
|
| Tupi |
|
| Wicca | |
| Theosophy | |
| Ancient Egyptian |
- Avalon
- Existential planes
- Guf
- Heaven
- Millennialism
- Mythological places
- Otherworld
- Spirits in prison
- Underworld
- Utopianism
- Well of Souls
 | This religion-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e
 | This article relating to a myth or legend from North America is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e
