herders

76:2.2Now, in those days it was cus­tom­ary to make of­fer­ings to the priest­hood of the things at hand. Herders would bring of their flocks, farm­ers of the fruits of the fields; and in ac­cor­dance with this cus­tom, Cain and Abel like­wise made pe­ri­odic of­fer­ings to the priests. The two boys had many times ar­gued about the rel­a­tive mer­its of their vo­ca­tions, and Abel was not slow to note that pref­er­ence was shown for his an­i­mal sac­ri­fices. In vain did Cain ap­peal to the tra­di­tions of the first Eden, to the for­mer pref­er­ence for the fruits of the fields. But this Abel would not al­low, and he taunted his older brother in his dis­com­fi­ture.

78:5.8The mi­gra­tory con­quests of the And­ites con­tin­ued on down to their fi­nal dis­per­sions, from 8000 to 6000 B.C. As they poured out of Mes­o­po­ta­mia, they con­tin­u­ously de­pleted the bi­o­logic re­serves of their home­lands while markedly strength­en­ing the sur­round­ing peo­ples. And to ev­ery na­tion to which they jour­neyed, they con­tributed hu­mor, art, ad­ven­ture, mu­sic, and man­u­fac­ture. They were skill­ful do­mes­ti­ca­tors of an­i­mals and ex­pert agri­cul­tur­ists. For the time be­ing, at least, their pres­ence usu­ally im­proved the re­li­gious be­liefs and moral prac­tices of the older races. And so the cul­ture of Mes­o­po­ta­mia qui­etly spread out over Eu­rope, In­dia, China, north­ern Africa, and the Pa­cific Is­lands.

68:5.11There has al­ways been fric­tion be­tween the herders and the tillers of the soil. The hunter and herder were mil­i­tant, war­like; the agri­cul­tur­ist is a more peace-lov­ing type. As­so­ci­a­tion with an­i­mals sug­gests strug­gle and force; as­so­ci­a­tion with plants in­stills pa­tience, quiet, and peace. Agri­cul­ture and in­dus­tri­al­ism are the ac­tiv­i­ties of peace. But the weak­ness of both, as world so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, is that they lack ex­cite­ment and ad­ven­ture.

70:8.75. Ge­o­graphic—classes arose con­se­quent upon ur­ban or ru­ral set­tle­ment. City and coun­try have re­spec­tively con­tributed to the dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of the herder-agri­cul­tur­ist and the trader-in­dus­tri­al­ist, with their di­ver­gent view­points and re­ac­tions.

81:1.4Since slaves were so gen­er­ally em­ployed by the ear­lier agri­cul­tur­ists, the farmer was for­merly looked down on by both the hunter and the herder. For ages it was con­sid­ered me­nial to till the soil; where­fore the idea that soil toil is a curse, whereas it is the great­est of all bless­ings. Even in the days of Cain and Abel the sac­ri­fices of the pas­toral life were held in greater es­teem than the of­fer­ings of agri­cul­ture.

69:7.2The do­mes­ti­ca­tion of an­i­mals came about ac­ci­den­tally. The sav­age would hunt herds much as the Amer­i­can In­di­ans hunted the bi­son. By sur­round­ing the herd they could keep con­trol of the an­i­mals, thus be­ing able to kill them as they were re­quired for food. Later, cor­rals were con­structed, and en­tire herds would be cap­tured.

69:8.5The herders were the first cap­i­tal­ists; their herds rep­re­sented cap­i­tal, and they lived on the in­ter­est—the nat­u­ral in­crease. And they were dis­in­clined to trust this wealth to the keep­ing of ei­ther slaves or women. But later on they took male pris­on­ers and forced them to cul­ti­vate the soil. This is the early ori­gin of serf­dom—man at­tached to the land. The Africans could eas­ily be taught to till the soil; hence they be­came the great slave race.

69:6.7Fire led to cook­ing, and “raw eaters” be­came a term of de­ri­sion. And cook­ing less­ened the ex­pen­di­ture of vi­tal en­ergy nec­es­sary for the di­ges­tion of food and so left early man some strength for so­cial cul­ture, while an­i­mal hus­bandry, by re­duc­ing the ef­fort nec­es­sary to se­cure food, pro­vided time for so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties.

68:5.7Pas­toral liv­ing af­forded fur­ther re­lief from food slav­ery; man learned to live on the in­ter­est of his cap­i­tal, the in­crease in his flocks; and this pro­vided more leisure for cul­ture and prog­ress.

84:2.6With the pass­ing of the hunter mores, when herd­ing gave man con­trol of the chief food sup­ply, the mother-fam­ily came to a speedy end. It failed sim­ply be­cause it could not suc­cess­fully com­pete with the newer fa­ther-fam­ily. Power lodged with the male rel­a­tives of the mother could not com­pete with power con­cen­trated in the hus­band-fa­ther. Woman was not equal to the com­bined tasks of child­bear­ing and of ex­er­cis­ing con­tin­u­ous au­thor­ity and in­creas­ing do­mes­tic power. The on­com­ing of wife steal­ing and later wife pur­chase has­tened the pass­ing of the mother-fam­ily.

73:4.1When Ma­te­rial Sons, the bi­o­logic up­lifters, be­gin their so­journ on an evo­lu­tion­ary world, their place of abode is of­ten called the Gar­den of Eden be­cause it is char­ac­ter­ized by the flo­ral beauty and the botanic grandeur of Eden­tia, the con­stel­la­tion cap­i­tal. Van well knew of these cus­toms and ac­cord­ingly pro­vided that the en­tire penin­sula be given over to the Gar­den. Pas­turage and an­i­mal hus­bandry were pro­jected for the ad­join­ing main­land. Of an­i­mal life, only the birds and the var­i­ous do­mes­ti­cated species were to be found in the park. Van’s in­struc­tions were that Eden was to be a gar­den, and only a gar­den. No an­i­mals were ever slaugh­tered within its precincts. All flesh eaten by the Gar­den work­ers through­out all the years of con­struc­tion was brought in from the herds main­tained un­der guard on the main­land.

73:4.3A zo­o­log­i­cal gar­den was cre­ated by build­ing a smaller wall just out­side the main wall; the in­ter­ven­ing space, oc­cu­pied by all man­ner of wild beasts, served as an ad­di­tional de­fense against hos­tile at­tacks. This menagerie was or­ga­nized in twelve grand di­vi­sions, and walled paths led be­tween these groups to the twelve gates of the Gar­den, the river and its ad­ja­cent pas­tures oc­cu­py­ing the cen­tral area.

69:8.4The hunter, like the Amer­i­can red man, did not en­slave. He ei­ther adopted or killed his cap­tives. Slav­ery was not preva­lent among the pas­toral peo­ples, for they needed few la­bor­ers. In war the herders made a prac­tice of killing all men cap­tives and tak­ing as slaves only the women and chil­dren. The Mo­saic code con­tained spe­cific di­rec­tions for mak­ing wives of these women cap­tives. If not sat­is­fac­tory, they could be sent away, but the He­brews were not al­lowed to sell such re­jected con­sorts as slaves—that was at least one ad­vance in civ­i­liza­tion. Though the so­cial stan­dards of the He­brews were crude, they were far above those of the sur­round­ing tribes.

68:5.8Prepas­toral so­ci­ety was one of sex co-op­er­a­tion, but the spread of an­i­mal hus­bandry re­duced women to the depths of so­cial slav­ery. In ear­lier times it was man’s duty to se­cure the an­i­mal food, woman’s busi­ness to pro­vide the veg­etable ed­i­bles. There­fore, when man en­tered the pas­toral era of his ex­is­tence, woman’s dig­nity fell greatly. She must still toil to pro­duce the veg­etable ne­ces­si­ties of life, whereas the man need only go to his herds to pro­vide an abun­dance of an­i­mal food. Man thus be­came rel­a­tively in­de­pen­dent of woman; through­out the en­tire pas­toral age woman’s sta­tus steadily de­clined. By the close of this era she had be­come scarcely more than a hu­man an­i­mal, con­signed to work and to bear hu­man off­spring, much as the an­i­mals of the herd were ex­pected to la­bor and bring forth young. The men of the pas­toral ages had great love for their cat­tle; all the more pity they could not have de­vel­oped a deeper af­fec­tion for their wives.

69:7.5When man was a hunter, he was fairly kind to woman, but af­ter the do­mes­ti­ca­tion of an­i­mals, cou­pled with the Cali­gas­tia con­fu­sion, many tribes shame­fully treated their women. They treated them al­to­gether too much as they treated their an­i­mals. Man’s bru­tal treat­ment of woman con­sti­tutes one of the dark­est chap­ters of hu­man his­tory.