From Monkey to Man, or, Society in the Tertiary Age: A Story of the Missing Link, Showing the First Steps in Industry, Commerce, Government, Religion and the Arts; With an Account of the Great Expedition From Cocoanut Hill and the Wars in Alligator Swamp — John Shaqi
From Monkey to Man, or, Society in the Tertiary Age: A Story of the Missing Link, Showing the First Steps in Industry, Commerce, Government, Religion and the Arts; With an Account of the Great Expedition From Cocoanut Hill and the Wars in Alligator SwampBierbower, Austin
Science
From Monkey to Man, or, Society in the Tertiary Age: A Story of the Missing Link, Showing the First Steps in Industry, Commerce, Government, Religion and the Arts; With an Account of the Great Expedition From Cocoanut Hill and the Wars in Alligator Swamp
Bierbower, Austin
Prehistoric peoples -- Fiction
It was customary for the Apes, and also for the Men, when they had taken
prisoners from each other, to reduce them to slavery, a custom which had
arisen, however, only since their separation; for prior to that, they had
neither property nor interest in each other’s work; and so neither man
nor ape was believed to be worth anything. But, in acquiring property
they put value on men as well as on cocoanuts, and kept each other as a
treasure where before they had killed each other as a nuisance. Some even
went to war for the prisoners, and the more valuable they found men to be
the more they fought them, until they soon came to want enemies more than
friends, and to like them better than allies. They fought for something
instead of against something, and numbered their prisoners rather than
their victories. Both sides became kidnappers, instead of warriors, and
the principle and practice of slavery was established, as a result of
learning the worth of men.
The warrior Oboo, who had brought Orlee to the Lali, was seen all day to
hang around the woman in whose charge the child had been placed. Some
thought it was on account of his interest in the child; but shrewder
apes said it was on account of his interest in the woman. As the
newly-arrived child had obtained a mother he thought it ought also to
have a father. The female ape did not repel the advances of the warrior,
but said that if he would also restore her own child he might be father
to both. The mother was, however, much comforted for the loss of her
child by this gain of a father for it. The two wanted both to attend
to the new child, the result of which was that the child received no
attention, which proved serious, as we shall see. For they paid so much
attention to each other that they often wholly forgot the child.
This warrior, Oboo, had not a good reputation among the Lali. Several
scandals had already disgraced him, and his attention to this new woman
was looked upon with suspicion.
“No good will come of it,” said an observant ape, who remembered his
gallantries to others, and who was aware that he seized every pretext to
ingratiate himself with a susceptible female ape. His bravery, however,
had made him a favorite among the women, although his gallantry had much
to do with it. He was a Simian “Masher,” and twice got his head pounded
by male apes who did not like his attentions to their female friends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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