Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898Various
History
Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals
Above that would come the food supply which is obtained from other
sources. There is one which is not universal but still widely
extended, and that is the pastoral life. There are many tribes (as,
for instance, in southern Africa and in India and throughout the
steppes of Tartary and elsewhere) who live on their herds and drive
their herds from one pasture to another in order to obtain the best
forage. This nomadic and pastoral life extended very widely over the
old world in ancient times, but existed nowhere in the new world, for
the simple reason that they had no domesticated animals. Our own
remote ancestors—both the Aryans and the Semites—all the early
ancestors of the white race so far as known, were pastoral or nomadic;
and the Aryans of central Europe remained so until after the fall of
Rome, when, for the first time, they became practically sedentary.
This nomadic and pastoral life is a very great advance over the mere
hunting and fishing stage. It requires considerable care and attention
to domesticate the wild animals in any sufficient quantity to form a
reliable source of food. Moreover, the attention which it was
necessary to give to the rearing and training and the looking after
domestic animals was to a certain extent, humanizing. When a man found
that it was necessary to be careful about his animals, he would also
be careful about his neighbors. We would say that the same sense which
enabled him, or directed him, to look after the welfare of the herd
would justify and, in fact, impel him to look after that of man also;
so that the nomadic and pastoral life, although not stable nor
favorable to the development of cities, nor the great extension of
commerce, was nevertheless a decided advance over the ruder hunting
and fishing stage. So far as we know, neither Aryan nor Semite ever
depended upon a hunting and fishing stage. They doubtless did, but not
in the time of any history that we know. The Bedouins, etc., wandering
tribes to-day, and, among the Semitic, the Tuaregs of the Sahara, are
a purely nomadic or pastoral race; yet are very much above the negroes
of the south, who depend upon hunting and fishing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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