The happy hunting ground is a concept of the

afterlife The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's Stream of consciousness (psychology), stream of consciousness or Personal identity, identity continues to exist after the death of their ...

associated with the

Native Americans in the United States Native Americans (also called American Indians, First Americans, or Indigenous Americans) are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of the United States, particularly of the Contiguous United States, lower 48 states and A ...

. The phrase most likely originated with the British settlers' interpretation of the Indian description.

History

The phrase first appears in 1823 in '' The Pioneers'' by

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

: Historian Charles L. Cutler suggests that Cooper "either coined or gave currency to" the use of the phrase "happy hunting ground" as a term for the afterlife. The phrase also began to appear soon after in the writing of

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy ...

. In 1911, Sioux physician

Charles Eastman Charles Alexander Eastman (February 19, 1858 – January 8, 1939, born Hakadah and later named Ohíye S'a, sometimes written Ohiyesa) was an American physician, writer, and social reformer. He was among the first Native Americans to be certifie ...

wrote that the phrase "is modern and probably borrowed, or invented by the white man."

References

Lakota mythology Afterlife places {{NorthAm-myth-stub