12Dtraining of the hawk 2.
When you teach your hawk to return to your arm, you
have to keep it on a string. The length of a string should be 5m or so at the
start. You tie your hawk to a perch and try to call it at short range as you
show it food. If your hawk learned to return to your arm, change strings for a
longer one and call it from more distant place. You go far gradually. Then at
last, you untie your hawk. The hawk without string is a free bird. It might fly
away and never come back to you. Actually, my hawk once flew away during this
training and I looked for it in the snowy mountain for two days filled with
regret and despair. This stage of the training is very important.
When your hawk has learned to return to you, you teach
it to attack game using a rabbit skin or a live chicken. You have to make it
act on instinct against game. When I
was an apprentice, I had a painful experience at this stage. I started to run
on the snow pulling a rabbit skin tied with a string, and my master let a male
hawk eagle named gFubukih take off from the top of a small hill. Fubuki came
flying along the slope at full speed to the rabbit skin. But when I looked back
at the hawk as I kept running, the hawk seemed to be looking at me instead of the
rabbit skin. I had a feeling of danger. A few minutes later, Fubuki attacked me
fiercely as I had feared. Hawk eaglefs talons are very sharp and the length is
no less than 5cm. Itfs a lethal weapon. I turned my body to protect my face
from Fubukifs attack almost instinctively. But the next moment, Fubuki stuck
its talons into my back.
Fortunately I wore very thick clothes that
day, so I was only slightly wounded. I was lucky but that was a really fearful
experience for me. gThat happens quite often,h my master said to me later. gBut
you mustnft hit your hawk even if it fails. If you do it, your hawk will never
become your partner.h I thought how hard it was to deal with the wild nature, and
then I braced myself up.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Continued
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Matsubara Hidetosh
