Human-hunting

"Hunting humans" redirects here. For the 2002 film, see Hunting Humans.

Human-hunting is the hunting and killing of human beings for other people's revenge, pleasure, entertainment, sports, or sustenance.^{[ citation needed ]} Incidents of the practice have occurred throughout many periods of history.

Historical examples

• In Ancient Greece, the upper class of Sparta regularly practiced the stalking and killing of members of their servile helot population; such murders were carried out both by the secret police ( Crypteia ) as a means of keeping the helots cowed and unlikely to revolt, and as part of the military training ( agoge ) for Spartan youths.^{[ citation needed ]}
• In Netherlands ^[1] and Germany ^[2] in the 18th century, Gypsy hunts or heathen hunts, also known as "Heidenjachten," were a practice that involved hunting and persecuting the Roma people. ^[3]
• The Mexican government, particularly the states of Sonora and Chihuahua, introduced a bounty system in 1836, offering rewards for Apache scalp. The bounty for an Apache male scalp was 100 pesos, while for an adult female Apache, it was 50 pesos, and for a child under 14, it was 25 pesos. ^{[4] [5]}
• During the Selkʼnam genocide, livestock companies used employees and third party hunters to hunt down the Selkʼnam to make way for estancias (large ranches).
• During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, the killing practice became popular ^[6] among the sons of wealthy landowners. The hunts took place on horseback and targeted landless peasants as an extension of the White Terror. They were jokingly referred to as "reforma agraria" referencing the mass grave the victims would be dumped into and the land reforms the lower classes had been attempting to attain. ^{[7] [6]}
• Between 1971 and 1983, serial killer Robert Hansen flew many of his victims into the Alaskan wilderness, then released them so that he could "hunt" the women with a rifle and a knife.^{[ citation needed ]}
• There are allegations that during the siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1996, some "rich" foreign tourists paid the Army of Republika Srpska to take part in organized "human safaris" (Sarajevo Safari) where Serb soldiers would take the "tourists" to various sniper positions so that they could "hunt" the local populace. ^{[8] [9]}

Other examples

• Some accounts of early human violence associate the development of warfare – aggression against humans – with the practice of hunting game. ^{[10] [11]}
• In 2016, Daniel Wright, senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Central Lancashire, wrote a paper on the possible future of tourism where he discussed how the hunting of the poor ("hunting humans") could become a hobby of the super-rich in a future plagued by economic turmoils, ecological disasters, and global overpopulation. ^{[12] [ speculation? ]}

See also

• Blood sport
• Bounty hunter
• Headhunting
• Witch-hunt

References

1. Donald, Kenrick (2007). ""The Occult"". Archive.org. Retrieved September 11, 2025.{{cite web}}: Check |archive-url= value (help)
2. Hancock, Ian (1988). "Porrajmos: Essays on the Romani Genocide". StudyLib. Retrieved September 11, 2025.
3. MacLaughlin, Jim (2008). ""The Gypsy as 'other' in European society: Towards a political geography of hate". The European Legacy. 4 (3): 35–49. doi:10.1080/10848779908579970.
4. Melanie, Ho (2025-03-11). "The Long Shadow of Indian Scalp Bounties". Yale University Press. Retrieved 2025-06-12.
5. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2116&context=nmhr (PDF)
6. Hochschild, Adam (2016). Spain in Our Hearts. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp.  37. ISBN   978-0547973180.
7. Beevor, Antony (2006). The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 . Penguin. p.  77. ISBN   978-0143037651. This sort of activity was jokingly referred to as the 'reforma agraria' whereby the landless bracero was finally to get a piece of ground for himself.
8. Akyol, Riada Asimovic (2022-11-14). "Documentary Film Alleges That Foreigners Took Part in 'Civilian Hunting' in Bosnian Capital". New Lines Magazine. Retrieved 2025-06-12.
9. "Film Sarajevo Safari sheds light on shocking truth about Bosnian War". www.aa.com.tr. Retrieved 2025-06-12.
10. Mendoza, Abraham O. (2011). "War and Diplomacy: Introduction: Conflict and Aggression in Early Human Societies". In Andrea, Alfred J.; Neel, Carolyn (eds.). World History Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 256–257. ISBN   9781-851099290 . Retrieved 21 November 2022. Scholars who subscribe to sociobiological explanations for violence and conflict in early human societies [...] argue that biological drives predetermine human behavior. Though initially displaying such behaviors when hunting game and developing tools for such activities, hunter-gatherers eventually used their developing aggressive techniques against each other [...].
11. Otterbein, Keith F. (24 March 2009). "The Evolution of War". The Anthropology of War. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press. p. 65. ISBN   978-1478609889 . Retrieved 21 November 2022. Warfare developed along two separate paths. The hunting of large game animals was critical to the development of the first path. Early hunters, working as a group in pursuit of game, sometimes engaged in attacks on members of competing groups of hunters [...].
12. Wright, Daniel (April–May 2016). "Hunting humans: A future for tourism in 2200". Futures . 78–79: 34–46. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2016.03.021.