Primitive Human Institutions

69:4.1Just as mar­riage by con­tract fol­lowed mar­riage by cap­ture, so trade by barter fol­lowed seizure by raids. But a long pe­riod of piracy in­ter­vened be­tween the early prac­tices of silent barter and the later trade by mod­ern ex­change meth­ods.

69:4.2The first barter was con­ducted by armed traders who would leave their goods on a neu­tral spot. Women held the first mar­kets; they were the ear­li­est traders, and this was be­cause they were the bur­den bear­ers; the men were war­riors. Very early the trad­ing counter was de­vel­oped, a wall wide enough to pre­vent the traders reach­ing each other with weapons.

69:4.3A fe­tish was used to stand guard over the de­posits of goods for silent barter. Such mar­ket places were se­cure against theft; noth­ing would be re­moved ex­cept by barter or pur­chase; with a fe­tish on guard the goods were al­ways safe. The early traders were scrupu­lously hon­est within their own tribes but re­garded it as all right to cheat dis­tant strangers. Even the early He­brews rec­og­nized a sep­a­rate code of ethics in their deal­ings with the gen­tiles.

69:4.4For ages silent barter con­tin­ued be­fore men would meet, un­armed, on the sa­cred mar­ket place. These same mar­ket squares be­came the first places of sanc­tu­ary and in some coun­tries were later known as “cities of refuge.” Any fugi­tive reach­ing the mar­ket place was safe and se­cure against at­tack.

69:4.5The first weights were grains of wheat and other ce­re­als. The first medium of ex­change was a fish or a goat. Later the cow be­came a unit of barter.

69:4.6Mod­ern writ­ing orig­i­nated in the early trade rec­ords; the first lit­er­a­ture of man was a trade-pro­mo­tion doc­u­ment, a salt ad­ver­tise­ment. Many of the ear­lier wars were fought over nat­u­ral de­posits, such as flint, salt, and met­als. The first for­mal tribal treaty con­cerned the in­ter­trib­al­iz­ing of a salt de­posit. These treaty spots af­forded op­por­tu­nity for friendly and peace­ful in­ter­change of ideas and the in­ter­min­gling of var­i­ous tribes.

69:4.7Writ­ing pro­gressed up through the stages of the “mes­sage stick,” knot­ted cords, pic­ture writ­ing, hi­ero­glyph­ics, and wampum belts, to the early sym­bolic al­pha­bets. Mes­sage send­ing evolved from the prim­i­tive smoke sig­nal up through run­ners, an­i­mal rid­ers, rail­roads, and air­planes, as well as tele­graph, tele­phone, and wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

69:4.8New ideas and bet­ter meth­ods were car­ried around the in­hab­ited world by the an­cient traders. Com­merce, linked with ad­ven­ture, led to ex­plo­ration and dis­cov­ery. And all of these gave birth to trans­porta­tion. Com­merce has been the great civ­i­lizer through pro­mot­ing the cross-fer­til­iza­tion of cul­ture.