The Delta Inset: Hunting Stands (Location Key)

A deer-hunting 'stand' can be a structure, a platform attached to a tree that allows the hunter to wait a dozen or so feet above the ground for his prey to walk past - or the term 'stand' can simply mean a specific place on the ground, usually against a tree, where the hunter waits. In the Yoknapatawpha fictions it usually is the second kind of 'stand' that is meant. In either case, it's a safety precaution: when a group is hunting together, as is also the usual case in Faulkner's fictions, by staying at their 'stands' the hunters know where the other hunters are. While Mister Ernest and Roth Edmonds hunt on horseback so they can follow the deer and the dogs in "Race at Morning," the other men in the party hunt from the "stands" that they are assigned by Ike McCaslin (297). The story's reference to a "stand-holder" suggests that these stands are platforms fixed to trees a dozen or so feet above the ground (297), spread out in a line to cover a wider part of the woods and to keep a safe distance between the hunters themselves. The hunters at Hog Bayou camp are also described as "standers" (300), i.e. men who hunt from tree stands.