Pig Sticking

Pig sticking is a specialized form of boar hunting done by individuals, or groups of spearmen on horseback using long specialized boar spears. Pig sticking has been practiced in Spain and Europe since the times of the Roman Empire. Many generals have stated that pig sticking is the finest war training for both horse and man. It has been the favorite sport of kings in Spain since medieval ages. It was in India during the British imperial occupation that pig sticking became a well organized and widespread sport, especially among the military officers that had to patrol the country by horse. The recent decline of the sport has been attributed to the introduction of the motor vehicle as well as the firearm which have replaced horses and traditional spears.

Basically the sport of pig sticking consists of men on horseback, equipped with specialized boar spears will hunt wild boar. The men will either group up together or go solo, although it has been noted that solo pig sticking can be extremely dangerous and hunt for these ferocious beasts. The Boar usually does not stand much of a chance and many have deemed the sport as a rather brutal form of hunting, but none the less it is still practiced today. The difficulty lies when the hog chooses to hole up in some thick cover, thus two different spears were manufactured to combat this purpose.

There are two types of spears used in the sport of pig sticking, the short Bengal spear used for overhand for “jobbing” and the long Bombay and Northern Indian one used underhand. For open country and when the pig is galloping away the long Bombay spear has obvious advantages, but for thick cover and charging the spear the shorter one is at an advantage. Pig sticking spears are usually around 6 feet and 6 inches long.

Pig sticking can be an extremely dangerous sport for both man and the horse, stories of pigs bleeding major arteries in the horses have led to them eventually bleeding to death. There are two types of pig sticking, village hunting and chur hunting. Chur hunting is where the boar is more or less in the open fields many seasoned pig stickers prefer the chur method of hunting. Village hunting is when the pig is in cover or in farming areas; this is usually a lot more difficult and less exciting.

When the boars hole up in some thick cover, usually you get the elephants to charge them out of there. This usually leads to a frantic and desperate charge by the boar, accounts of Elephants tossing the boars over 12 feet with their tusks after a charge have been noted. While Pig sticking was once a popular sport in India it has steadily declined and it is almost impossible to do it in the United States. I have heard that you can still practice pig sticking, albeit with domestic pigs in the farms of Hungary. Today there actually still exists a “Pigsticking Club” in Spain, it is the largest institution devoted to preserve the sport.

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