The Big-Game Hunting in India in the Late Nineteenth
　　　　　　　　　　and Early Twentieth Century

　　　　　　Masayuki ISHII (Tezukayama University)

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Abstract

　　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.