US EPA

7495509 

Journal Article 

On shikar in British India and Nepal: C. G. E. Mannerheim's tiger-hunting trips and colonialism 

Merivirta, R 

2020 

118 

4 

451-464 

Finnish 

Hunting, especially big-game hunting was an integral part of British colonial administration in the Indian subcontinent. Hunting served political, administrative, martial, recreational and symbolic needs of the British Empire in India. Finnish Marshall C.G.E. Mannerheim visited British India and the kingdom of Nepal twice, in 1928 and in 1937, with the purpose of hunting for tigers. While there, he was a guest of British administrators and military personnel, which gave him a chance to hunt in a style - with elephants and grandeur - not available for ordinary Indians or middle- or lower-ranking Britons. This article examines Mannerheim's hunting trips within the framework of British colonialism and asks if they can be seen to constitute "colonial complicity". The primary material of the study includes Mannerheim's memoirs (1951-1952), Mannerheim's presentation of his 1937 trip at a hunting society meeting in Helsinki, Mannerheim's letters and statements given to newspapers. The article concludes that Mannerheim's actions on his hunting trips and his use of and indirect participation in the British colonial system to facilitate his desire to hunt tigers can be interpreted as "colonial complicity". Mannerheim seems to have easily taken his place at the top of the British colonial racial and class hierarchy, which in turn endowed him with privileges reserved for the colonial elite. © 2020 Historian Ystavain Liitto. All rights reserved. 

British India; C. G. E. Mannerheim; Colonialism; Hunting