White hunter is a literary term used for professionalbig game hunters of European descent, from all over the world, who plied their trade in Africa, especially during the first half of the 20th century. The activity continues in the dozen African countries which still permitbig-game hunting. White hunters derived their income from organizing and leadingsafaris for paying clients, or from the sale ofivory.
The term "great white hunter" emphasizes the racial andcolonial aspects of the profession, as well as its colorful aspects. Depending on the author and intention, the term can be used straightforwardly, in parody, or as a criticism.
White men from Western countries had been hunting big game in Africa throughout the 19th century, particularly in the more settled southern portion of the continent. But the region most associated with the term "white hunters" isEast Africa. By the start of the 20th century, as part of the "scramble for Africa",European colonial powers had taken possession of territories on the eastern half of the continent—territories now recognized as the nations ofKenya,Rwanda,Uganda, andTanzania.
There were many factors that led to the spread of big-game hunting in East Africa, but two were foremost among them: first, a romantic European conception ofhunting that combinedaristocratic privilege andsportsmanship, and second, the desire by the colonizing powers to create new agricultural economies, to which unchecked animal populations posed a serious threat.[citation needed]
Although the origins of the phrase cannot be confirmed, the first European to go by the title of "white hunter" is generally considered to have been Alan Black. Black was hired in the 1890s byLord Delamere. Delamere employed both Alan Black and a nativeSomali hunter to leadsafaris inSomaliland. As the story goes, in order to avoid confusion, the Somali was referred to as the "black hunter", and Black was called the "white hunter".[1]
Around the start of the 20th century, East African hunting safaris became a fashionable pursuit among members of the privileged classes, particularly in Britain and the United States. The completion of theUganda Railway in 1901 provided easier access to the interior highlands ofBritish East Africa (also known then as the East African Protectorate, and now asKenya), where large game, especiallyelephants,lions,Cape buffalo, andrhinoceroses, was plentiful.[2] The white hunter served these paying customers as guide, teacher, and protector.[3]
Typically, the hunter was hired or booked by an outfitting company (the first and most famous of these was Newland, Tarlton & Co. inNairobi); the outfitter would make the local arrangements, gathering and packing supplies and hiring the many African workers without whom a safari was impossible. Porters, tent attendants, armed guards (known asaskaris), horse-trainers, and gun-bearers all worked under the supervision of a "headman".[4] Before the mass importation of motor vehicles, most safaris traveled on foot and horseback and could employ anywhere from 50 to several hundred African workers.[5]
The British colonial government also turned big-game hunting into a source of revenue, charging the tourists and hunters licensing fees for permission to kill the game animals. In 1909, a £50 hunting license (equivalent to £6,600 in 2023) in theEast Africa Protectorate entitled its purchaser to kill two buffaloes, twohippos, oneeland, 22zebras, sixoryxes, fourwaterbucks, onegreater kudu, fourlesser kudus, 10topis, 26hartebeests, 229 other antelope, 84colobus monkeys, and unlimitedlions andleopards (lions and leopards killed livestock and were classified as vermin).[6]
White hunters were colorful and romantic figures, often from privileged English backgrounds, who embraced a life of danger and adventure. The first acclaimed white hunters in East Africa were Alan Black, Bill Judd,Frederick Selous (remembered as the namesake of theSelous Scouts and whose real-life adventures inspired SirH. Rider Haggard to create the fictionalAllan Quatermain),[7][8] and R.J. Cunninghame (sometimes spelled Cuningham), all of whom began their exploits at the end of the 19th century.[9] In 1909 Cunninghame was selected to lead what was probably the best-publicized African safari,Theodore Roosevelt'sexcursion into British East Africa. Roosevelt's fame and popularity, and his gift for generating publicity, prompted a craze for safaris among those who could afford the sizeable price tag.[10] After theFirst World War, when most ofGerman East Africa was ceded to Britain, eager customers poured into Africa, creating a market for the skills of several more decades of hunters.[11]
Among the better-known white hunters who succeeded Cunninghame's generation wereW. D. M. Bell, later known as "Karamoja" Bell;[12]Bror von Blixen-Finecke, who was, between 1914 and 1926, married toOut of Africa authorKaren Blixen;Denys Finch-Hatton, later her lover;Frederick Russell Burnham, Chief of Scouts in theSecond Boer War toLord Roberts and known as "England's American Scout";John A. Hunter; andPhilip Percival andFrank M. "Bunny" Allen, whose safaris withErnest Hemingway led the author to writeGreen Hills of Africa,True at First Light, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."
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The exploits of white hunters were subjects first for novels and later for films. They were romanticized inadventure novels of the so-called "Lost World/Lost Race" genre.[13]
Perhaps the first fictionalVictorian adventure hero wasAllan Quatermain, a white hunter who appeared in books byH. Rider Haggard, starting withKing Solomon's Mines (1885). In 1924,Richard Connell published his short story "The Most Dangerous Game", in which an American big-game hunter finds himself being hunted by a Russian aristocrat who has tired of hunting in Africa.Alex Raymond created theJungle Jim comic strip in 1934 that later lead to a comic book, film serial, film series, and television show.Geoffrey Household's novelRogue Male (1939) featured a white hunter going afterAdolf Hitler; it was filmed twice, first asMan Hunt (1941) and, a generation later,under the original title (1976). Captain C. G. Biggar (Cuthbert Gervase 'Bwana' Brabazon-Biggar), a supporting character in theP. G. Wodehouse comic novelRing for Jeeves (1953), is another example of the white hunter.
Not surprisingly, actual white hunters were often involved in the filming of the exploits of their fictional counterparts: Bunny Allen led many film companies on safari to enablelocation filming forKing Solomon's Mines,Mogambo (1953), andNor the Moon by Night (1958). The white hunter on safari in hiskhakis andpith helmet became an instantly recognizablestock character.[citation needed]
Abbott and Costello lampooned the type inAfrica Screams (1949), which was a parody of a 1930 documentary,Africa Speaks! (1930).Bob Hope parodied the safari genre inRoad to Zanzibar (1941) andCall Me Bwana (1963).
Hemingway's safari story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (1936) richly addresses the questions of courage, cowardice, racism, and power on safari. The story was made into a film titledThe Macomber Affair (1947), but it was reissued in the United States under the title,The Great White Hunter. The title character is an American tourist looking to find his own courage by facing danger on safari. In the story, Hemingway accurately refers to the professional hunter leading the safari, a character named Wilson, as a "white hunter". (Wilson is said to have been based on Hemingway's own guides,Philip Percival andBror von Blixen-Finecke).[14]
InCongo (1995),Ernie Hudson introduces himself as the unexpectedly black "white hunter" hired to guide a jungle expedition.[citation needed]
The phrase "great white hunter" probably has its origins in these popular depictions of safari adventures.Peter Capstick, a white hunter and an author of books on the subject, suggested that the word "great" may have been added by American popular culture.[15] It was not a term employed or embraced by the hunters themselves. Its meaning, like many labels from the colonial era, is now shaded with parody or derision: it came to symbolize a perceived arrogance of western colonial powers toward the less developed parts of the world they controlled before the dismemberment of their empires afterWorld War II.[citation needed]
(new link seems to be:[1] orhttp://silentmoviemonsters.tripod.com/TheLostWorld/LWIMPAD.html)
