Bányai József: A vadászat tárgyi eszközei - A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum tárgykatalógusai 2. (Budapest, 2010)
Handloading tools in the permanent hunting exhibition The gathering of hunting-related items was made highly difficult because of their status as current objects, even in the 1960s, as opposed to the acquisition of objects from other branches of agriculture. Therefore, the keeper of the hunting department wrote in late 1965 when the annual work schedule was drawn up: ‘...The situation is quite different when old hunting weapons and instruments are to be collected, as the existing material can only be acquired by purchases, therefore / see it necessary to allocate the department 10,000 Forints for such purposes.’ The required sum was double the size of the funds claimed by the other departments for object purchases.14 In 1972 László Orbán was replaced by forestry engineer Károly Kotlár as keeper of the hunting department. His tenure had a particular impact on the scope and characteristics of the collection, which mainly materialized in the swiftly growing number of sporting guns of different types and structure. He bought 22 shotguns within a few years, most of them in the national chain of commissioned antiquary shops. The museum purchased various hunting tools from the collector Ákos Vörösváry in 1973. The most outstanding event of that year was the purchase of the 500 item strong private collection of Géza Goszthony in Kaposvár. The history of the acquisition of this huge collection dates to the years 1971-74, and could well be the subject of a separate study. In a letter of 21 August 1971 Goszthony offered his collection to the director-general of the museum. In an other letter dated 17 January 1972, this time to keeper Károly Kotlár, he inquired about how ‘the affair’ was progressing. After some further courteous exchange of letters Goszthony invited the keeper to Kaposvár on 28 January. How the correspondence continued is unclear as there are no surviving documents, but a fact is that the collection was transferred to a short period to the Lábod State Farm. However, as the collection was regarded as highly valuable and unique, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry, upon being informed about the situation, immediately declared the whole material protected. The ministry later paid for the collection the sum of 300,000 Forints, an astronomical figure compared to contemporary prices. The state however designated the museum as the new owner of the collection. Unfortunately by the time the material was transferred from Lábod to the museum the collection had become highly incomplete, and several valuable items had to be put on a wanted list. Contrary to expectations, only the minority of the collection was hunting-related, most of it concerned military, archaeological, etnographical and equine themes. There were no acquisitions in 1974 and 1975, but the collection was enriched in 1976 by a few hunting objects, in 1977 by a gun case, in 1978 by a 18th-century case of a deer dagger, and in 1982 by a knife of historical value, used by writer and hunter Sándor Lestyán. Between 1983 and 1985 the museum acquired 22 hunting objects by purchase or exchange. In the next decade the gathering of huntig tools virtually stopped, while the acquisition of hunting-related objects of fine art was given a priority, thereby forming the basis of a later exhibition on hunting art. The show entitled Hunting in Art was opened in 1997 as a part of the permanent hunting exhibition. HUNTING TOOLS Prehistoric humans were compelled to hunt in order to satisfy their basic needs. Their early weapons were rocks, clubs, later cudgels, stone axes and spears in their quest for everyday subsistence. As the human mind developed and human needs increased, so the hunting weapons and methods developed in proportion. First, animals were caught in pits or traps, and, at later stages of development, shot from a distance with arrows and later guns. Bow, spear, crossbow The conquering Magyars retained the custom of free hunting in the Carpathian Basin. The bow used on their hunts was a long-range weapon, the most ancient hunting tool for most of mankind after the cudgel. Its primitive form was a flexible branch, its two ends tied together with intertwined bark, but later horn-sheets, pasted together in layers, were also used. The bow remained a popular hunting weapon of Hungarians for centuries, though its ancient type had all but disappeared by the 1500s. Hunting in Europe had been the sport of princes and the aristocracy since the early Middle Ages. The sole weapons used by aristocratic hunters were the throwing and hunting spear and the sword. Mediaeval hunters either stabbed bears and wild boars with the spear or let the game run into it. The shaft of the spear was made of tougher wood with several off-shoots. The bases of these off-shoots were not cut away, thereby the hand could not slip on the shaft. The typically 2 metre long shafts were covered with leather or were screwed into intertwined straps and hammered thickly with largeheaded nails so that they could be grabbed tightly and could stop the game in its run. Hunting spears were 14 Papers of László Orbán, 1252/1965. 14
