The mind of primitive man : $b A course of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., and the National University of Mexico, 1910-1911Boas, Franz
Science
The mind of primitive man : $b A course of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., and the National University of Mexico, 1910-1911
Boas, Franz
Ethnopsychology; Race
Among these causes, the first and the third have been most strongly
active in the development of the races of man. The condition of the
tribes of man the world over is such, that there are only very few whose
mode of nutrition is analogous to that of wild animals, and a
consideration of the stages of human culture shows that similar
conditions have prevailed for a long period. I think we may safely say
that in all those cases in which man practises agriculture, when he is
the owner of herds of domesticated animals which are used for food, the
food-supply has become regular, and is obtained by an application of the
muscular system in highly specialized directions. Examples of this
condition are, for instance, the central African negroes, who have their
gardens near their villages, the cultivation of the gardens being
essentially the work of the women, while the men are engaged in various
specialized industrial pursuits. Neither is the manner of the use of the
body which is applied by wild animals for protection against enemies
found among these tribes. The manner of combat is one in which muscular
strength alone is not decisive, but where excellence of weapons and
strategy count as much as mere strength and agility. The conditions
among the American agricultural Indians of the Mississippi Valley or of
those of the South American forests are similar in character.
As an example of a pastoral people among whom considerable regularity in
nutrition obtains, we might mention the reindeer-breeders of Siberia or
the cattle-breeders of Africa.
We know, of course, that among all these people, periods of starvation
occur, due to a failure of the crops or to epidemics in the herds; but
the normal condition is one of fairly regular and ample food-supply.
The conditions among fishing tribes are not very different; and we find
that, owing to methods of storing provisions, and to the superabundance
of food-supply obtained in one season and sufficient to last for the
rest of the year, the nutrition of these people is also fairly regular.
In this case, also, the kind of muscular exertion required for obtaining
food is specialized, and differs from that required from the simple
pursuit of game.
The only modern tribes among which the effects of civilization on bodily
activities are slight are those who, like the Bushmen of South Africa,
the Australians, the Eskimo of Arctic America, the Veddahs of Ceylon,
obtain their livelihood by the constant, daily-repeated pursuit of
animals, or by the gathering of plants or small invertebrates which grow
scattered over a wide area.
Connected with these conditions are also the characteristic selections
of food-stuffs by different tribes, such as the exclusive meat diet of
some tribes (perhaps most pronounced among the Eskimo) and the exclusive
vegetable diet of others, well developed, for instance, in southern
Asia. Both of these have, in all probability, a far-reaching effect upon
the bodily form of these races.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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