Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other EssaysCarpenter, Edward
Philosophy
Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other Essays
Carpenter, Edward
Civilization; Crime; Evolution; Science
"The hills are terraced, thus increasing the area of cultivation, and
obviating the denudation of fertile slopes by torrential rains. In many
cases irrigation is carried out on a sufficiently extensive scale, and
the swamps are drained by ditches. Artificial reservoirs are built with
side troughs for watering cattle. The fields are in many cases fenced in
by planted hedges of euphorbia and thorn, and similar fences are planted
along the narrow parts of the main cattle tracks, to prevent the beasts
from straying or trampling down the cultivation.
"There is also an exceptional diversity of plants cultivated, such as
hungry rice, maize, red and white millet, several kinds of beans, peas,
bananas, and the edible arum. Some of the higher growing beans are even
trained on sticks planted for the purpose. Pumpkins and sweet potatoes
are also common; and the Watusi own and tend enormous herds of cattle,
goats and sheep. Owing to the magnificent pasturage the milk is of
excellent quality, and they make large quantities of butter. They are
exceedingly clever with their beasts, and have many calls which the
cattle understand. At milking time they light smoke-fires to keep the
flies from irritating the beasts.... They are tall slightly built men of
graceful nonchalant carriage, and their features are delicate and
refined. I noticed many faces that, bleached and set in a white collar,
would have been conspicuous for character in a London drawing-room. The
legal type was especially pronounced." ...
"The Wahutu are their absolute antithesis. They are the aborigines of
the country, and any pristine originality or character has been
effectually stamped out of them. Hewers of wood and drawers of water,
they do all the hard work, and unquestioning in abject servility give up
the proceeds on demand. Their numerical proportion to the Watusi must be
at least a hundred to one, yet they defer to them without protest; and
in spite of the obvious hatred in which they hold their over lords,
there seems to be no friction."
+Natives of the Andaman Islands+
The following extracts, about the Andaman-islanders of the Bay of
Bengal, the Bushmen of South Africa, and the Eskimo tribes of Northern
latitudes, are specially interesting because they deal with peoples
whose present-day culture is undoubtedly on a par with, and in all
probability directly inherited from, the peoples of a long-past Stone
Age. Thus we get indirectly a glimpse of what the culture of the Stone
Ages was--both in its material acquisitions and its grade of social and
psychological evolution.
From _In the Andamans and Nicobars_, p. 184, by C. Boden Kloss.
(Murray, 1903.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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