Folkways. William Graham Sumner

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Amer. Anthrop., VI, 353, citing Jo. Afr. Soc., 1903, 208.

160 Globus, LXXXVII, 129.

161 Ashton, Social Life in the Time of Queen Anne, Chap. XLI.

162 N.Y. Times, September 19, 1904.

163 Symonds, Catholic Reaction, I, 144.

164 Stoll, Suggestion und Hypnotismus, 248.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

      Tools, Arts, Language, Money

      Processes and artifacts of the food supply.—Fishing.—Methods of fishing.—The mystic element.—Religion and industry.—Artifacts and freaks of nature.—Forms of stone axes.—How stone implements are made.—How arrowheads are made.—How stone axes are used.—Acculturation or parallelism.—Fire-making tools.—Psychophysical traits of primitive man.—Language.—Language and magic.—Language is a case of folkways.—Primitive dialects.—Taking up and dropping language.—Pigeon dialects.—How languages grow.—Money.—Intergroup and intragroup money.—Predominant wares.—Intragroup money from property; intergroup money from trade.—Shell and bead money.—Token money.—Selection of a predominant ware.—Stone money in Melanesia.—Plutocratic effects of money.—Money on the northwest coast of North America.—Wampumpeag and roanoke.—Ring money. Use of metal.—The evolution of money.—The ethical functions of money.

122. Processes and artifacts of the food supply. The processes and the artifacts which are connected with food supply offer us the purest and simplest illustrations of the development of folkways. They are not free from the admixture of superstition and vanity, but the element of expediency predominates in them. It is reported of the natives of New South Wales that a man will lie on a rock with a piece of fish in his hand, feigning sleep. A hawk or crow darts at the fish, but is caught by the man. It is also reported of Australians that a man swims under water, breathing through a reed, approaches ducks, pulls one under water by the legs, wrings its neck, and so secures a number of them.165 If these stories can be accepted with confidence, they may well furnish us a starting point for a study of the art of catching animals. The man really has no tool, but must rely entirely on his own quickness and dexterity. Birdlime is a device for which many plants furnish material,166 and which is available even against large game, which is fretted and worn out by it until it becomes the prey of man. A Botocudo hunter grates the eggs of an alligator together, when he finds them on the bank, and so entices the mother.167 The Yuroks of California sprinkled berries on the shallow bottom of a river and stretched a net a few inches below the surface of the water. Ducks diving for the berries were caught by the neck in the meshes and drowned. As they hung quiet they did not frighten away others.168 The Tarahumari catch birds by stringing corn kernels on a fiber which is buried underground. The bird swallows the corn and cannot eject it.169 Various animals were trained to help man in the food quest and were thus drawn into the industrial organization. The animals furnished materials (skin, bone, teeth, hair, horns) and also tools, so that the food quest broadened beyond the immediate supply of food into mechanical industrial forms. The Shingu Indians, although they lived on the product of the ground, were obliged to continue the chase because of the materials and implements which they got from the animals. They used the jaw of a fish, with the teeth in it, as a knife; the arm and leg bones of apes as arrow points; the tail spike of a skate for the same; the two front claws of the armadillo to dig the ground (a process which the animal taught them by the same use of his claws); the shell of a river mussel as a scraper to finish wooden tools. "These people were hunters without dogs, fishers without hooks, and tillers without plow or spade. They show how much development life was capable of in the time before metals."170 The palometa is a fish which weighs two or three pounds. It has fourteen teeth in each jaw so sharp that the Abipones shear sheep with the jaw.171 Such cases might be pursued into great detail. They show acute observation, great ingenuity, clever adaptation, and teachableness. The lasso, bola, boomerang, and throw knife, as well as the throw stick, are products of persistent and open-minded experience. The selection and adaptation of things in nature to a special operation in the arts often show ingenuity as great as that manifested in any of our devices.172 This ingenuity is of the same kind as that shown by many animals. Intelligent experiment, however, is not wanting. It is reported of Eskimo that they invent imaginary hard cases, such as might occur to them, and, by way of sport, discuss the proper way to deal with the case.173 Operations similar to this in play show a mode in which ingenuity must have been developed and inventions produced. In the higher grades of the hunting stage, such as are presented by the North American Indians, buffalo hunting, for instance, calls for the highest organization and skill, and establishes inflexible discipline.174

123. Fishing. Fishing furnishes a parallel case. A Thlinkit fisherman puts on a cap which resembles the head of a seal, and hiding his body between the rocks makes a noise like a seal. This entices seals towards him and gives him opportunity to kill them.175 The Australians had a fish spear and a net made of fibers, which were chewed by the women to make them soft. They had no hooks until they got them from the whites.176 Weirs for fishing were built of stone. One is described which was a labyrinth of stone circles, of which some were connected with each other. The walls are three or four feet high. The fish get confused and are caught by hand.177 Remains of weirs, consisting of wattled work of reeds or saplings, are found in the rivers of northern Europe. The device of putting into the water some poisonous or narcotic substance in order to stupefy the fish is met with all over the globe. It was employed by the aborigines on Lanzarote (Canary Islands). There the fish were freshened in unpoisoned waters.178 It is quite impossible that this device should have spread only by contact. It must have been independently invented. It secured a large amount of fish with very little trouble. The Ainos dam the stream, leaving only a few openings, opposite each of which, below, they build a platform. The fish jump at the opening, but some miss it and fall on the platform where they are caught.179 The Polynesians depend largely on fish for their food supply. They had nets a thousand ells long, which could be handled only by a hundred men. They made hooks of shell, bone, and hard wood.180 The first fishhooks of prehistoric men in Europe and North America were made of pieces of bone pointed at both ends, the cord being attached in the middle.181 СКАЧАТЬ