I like Moosie's, Meathead's, and 1-pointer's.
Here's mine:
Hunting is seeking food. That's the short version.
I like Jose Ortega's statement, One kills in order to have hunted, not hunt in order to kill.
The spiritual part is like 1-pointer said, hunting gets at the source of life, the cycle of life, we kill in order to live. Its food, its back to nature, hunting is at the tap root of life and connects us with our roots of life, hence, its got spiritual values.
We used to hunt to live, if you will, real hunting, now, we have sportsman's hunting more than subsistence or commercial hunting, but still have some of those too. We, as sportsman hunters, still get food, we still connect to roots, but we have contests, seasons, and most sportsman don't need hunting for their food, we just choose to get it that way, because of the values in real hunting from our past that still have value today. We also still have commercial hunting, at least here.
A meat processor that I use told me about an example. They got and butchered 7 Nilgai from south Texas, where they run wild for restaurants in the area. A guy with a 223 shot them all 7 in about 1/2 hour from a helicopter. He'd shoot one shot right in front of them, to get his bearings, then one right in the back of their head and down they would go. They are big antelope and very tasty I here. They can be hunted more sportsman like too, at
www.kingranch.com for example.
I guess, the eskimos, etc. some people in Alaska are examples of subsistence hunters, i.e. real hunters. Anything goes, with a subsistence hunter, no rules, kill the son of a gun and bring him home to feed everyone.
So, there's a definition and a story.