Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/98

 mason] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ZOOTECHNY 79

Bandelier speaks of communal hunts both in New Mexico and Peru, which he characterizes as wholesale slaughter, in the most cruel manner, of all the game within the area encompassed. The meat was distributed among households and a portion was put away for a rainy day. The pueblo peoples also laid in communal stores; small tracts were cultivated for that purpose and the crops were housed in advance of the individual ones. General Dodge in Our Wild Indians grows excited over the annual fall hunt of the Siouan people.

In the last chapter will be shown how sociology joins with religion in fixing zoological conceptions on tribal life.

VI. KNOWLEDGE

In all the processes of zootechny human intelligence has been enlarged and strengthened. The ever-increasing wariness of the animal calls for an increasing ingenuity and intelligence on the part of the hunter.

It is a fact that in every one of the eighteen environments mentioned in this paper the savage people knew the best thing for every purpose : the best substance for clothing, the best wood for the bow, for the spear, the arrow, etc. ; and it is astonish- ing to find what a large vocabulary exists in each one of them for different forms of animal life and different parts of the animal's body. For every thought in this direction there must of course be a word or a form of speech. Therefore, language has been assisted materially in its development by the imitation of the animal, by the processes and the life of the hunter, and by all the industries associated therewith. The acquisition of knowl- edge through experience and the expression of this knowledge in words have been fostered largely by associations with ani- mal life. Half the words of any primitive language are derived from man's association with beastkind.

Finally, the inventive faculty, which after all is the differenti- ating element between man and the brute, has been stimulated

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