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Inquiries into Human Faculty
it with him in his boat, and dropped it in a stormy sea, far from home; the
stratagem was unsuccessful; in a day or two the well-known scuffling
sound of the seal, as it floundered up to the hut, was again heard; the
animal had found its way home. Some days after the poor creature was
shot by a sporting stranger, who saw it basking and did not know it was
tame. Now had the seal been a useful animal and not troublesome, the
fisherman would doubtless have caught others, and set a watch over them
to protect them; and then, if they bred freely and were easy to tend, it is
likely enough he would have produced a domestic breed.
The utility of the animals as a store of future food is undoubtedly the
most durable reason for maintaining them; but I think it was probably not
so early a motive as the chief’s pleasure in possessing them. That was the
feeling under which the menageries, described above, were established.
Whatever the despot of savage tribes is pleased with becomes invested
with a sort of sacredness. His tame animals would be the care of all his
people, who would become skilful herdsmen under the pressure of fear. It
would be as much as their lives were worth if one of the creatures were
injured through their neglect. I believe that the keeping of a herd of beasts,
with the sole motive of using them as a reserve for food, or as a means of
barter, is a late idea in the history of civilisation. It has now become
established among the pastoral races of South Africa, owing to the
traffickings of the cattle-traders, but it was by no means prevalent in
Damara-Land when I travelled there in 1852. I then was surprised to
observe the considerations that induced the chiefs to take pleasure in their
vast herds of cattle. They were valued for their stateliness and colour, far
more than for their beef. They were as the deer of an English squire, or as
the stud of a man who has many more horses than he can ride. An ox was
almost a sacred beast in Damara-Land, not to be killed except on
momentous occasions, and then as a sort of sacrificial feast, in which all
bystanders shared. The payment of two oxen was hush-money for the life
of a man. I was considerably embarrassed by finding that I had the
greatest trouble in buying oxen for my own use, with the ordinary articles
of barter. The possessor would
