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happy hunting ground

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Etymology

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Noun

happy hunting ground (plural happy hunting grounds)

  1. (often in the plural) A Native American idea of the afterlife, conceived of as a paradise in which hunting is plentiful and game unlimited.
    • 1823, [James Fenimore Cooper], The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: Charles Wiley;  […], →OCLC, page 282:
      “Hawk-eye! my fathers call me to the happy hunting-grounds. The path is clear, and the eyes of Mohegan grow young. […] ”
    • 1902, Merrill Tileston, chapter XVII, in Chiquita‎:
      Nevava, the great Ute chief of the White River tribes, had passed into the Happy Hunting Grounds and his sons each claimed the inheritance of ruler.
    • 1916, Marie L. McLaughlin, Myths and Legends of the Sioux‎:
      Had he killed me on the battlefield my spirit would have at once joined my brothers in the happy hunting grounds, but being killed by a coward, my spirit is doomed to roam until I can find some brave man who will kill this coward and bring me his scalp.
    • 2011 October 6, Boris Johnson, quotee, “Bus conduct”, in The Economist‎, →ISSN:
      Mr Johnson is proud that London will soon be free of these buses. Conservative Home, a website, quotes him as saying at a fringe meeting at the Conservative conference on Monday night, that: “The last breeding pair of bendy buses will be despatched this year to the happy hunting ground of some Scandinavian airport.”
  2. (by extension) A land of plenty.
    • 1898, Eliot Gregory, “A Conquest of Europe”, in Worldly Ways & Byways‎, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons:
      Most of the Americans who had used up their credit at home and those whose incomes were insufficient for their wants, immediately migrated to these happy hunting grounds, where life was inexpensive and credit unlimited.
    • 1944 July and August [1893], “London Railway Stations in 1893”, in Railway Magazine, page 201, taken from The English Illustrated Magazine of June 1893:
      Victoria is not a happy hunting ground for the seeker after the picturesque.
    • 2007 May 3, “Conquistadors on the beach”, in The Economist‎, →ISSN:
      Spanish businesses have spent nearly $60 billion snapping up British firms, culminating in the recent purchase of Scottish Power by Iberdrola, a Spanish utility. Britain's open economy has made it a happy hunting ground, because the Spanish encounter less opposition than in France and Italy.

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