This training had the goal to teach young "warriors” to respect nature, i.e. to understand that they are also part of nature and that they need to know how to adapt to it. Young men had to learn how to respect its laws, its conditions and caprice. It was important that they understood the rule which says that, in nature, there are no punishments and no rewards, only consequences. Only once the young men learnt how to respect nature could they start to learn how to survive in it. If nature is being respected, it will accept us and we will only benefit from her. On the contrary, it will not pity us. The reason is that nature is cruel as much as it should be.
For this reason, young men needed to implement certain knowledge which are, however, thought to be primitive skills because man possesses this knowledge from the earliest periods of his evolution (Paleolithic) and it secures him the gratification of basic biological needs in natural habitats. Those are the construction of a shelter, finding food and water, igniting, controlling and using fire.
People who spend time in nature or use some of the knowledge and skills that are needed in order to survive in nature are called many different names today. Depending from their country and origin, we can mention some of those names: voyager (a traveller-researcher from North America), trapper (fur hunter), highlander (hillman), mountaneer (alpinist, climber), explorer, logger, lumberjack, wilderness survivor, wildwood, tracking (tracing), survival in nature as well as, one of the most frequently used terms today, bushcraft. The name derives from the term "bush ranger” and is mostly used in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Other terms are used more rarely.