For as long as I can remember whenever a member of my family, including myself, killed our first deer the other person we were with at the time would dip three fingers in the blood and smear them across our cheeks.
Is our family the only ones who do this? We'll be taking my little cousin on his first hunt soon and if he does get anything I'd like to be able to explain fully to him why we do this as I put it on him.
I've always just thought it was a way to say thank you to the animal for the food, because to myself I'd always say a prayer of thanks as I did it in my head. Is this not actually what it is? I don't want to give him false information.
And on a side note, nothing has ever happened to any of us, but is this unsafe now? Because if it is maybe we should stop.