2 - Taming, herding and breeding

Summary

‘The food-producing revolution’

It is usual to assert that pastoralists exploit ‘domesticated’ animals, whereas hunters exploit ‘wild’ ones. According to one orthodox definition, ‘pastoral peoples are those who are dependent chiefly on their herds of domesticated stock for subsistence’ (Krader 1959:499; see also Salzman 1971, Spooner 1971). It is moreover assumed that ‘domestication’ involves some recognizable morphological modification of the exploited species away from its wild prototype. I intend to show in this chapter that the difference between hunting and pastoralism lies not in the particular characteristics of the animals themselves, but in the productive relations that link animals and men. For this purpose I find it necessary to distinguish three forms of man–animal interaction, which I shall designate as taming, herding and breeding. Each does not necessarily imply, and may even preclude, the other. Only selective breeding can alter the inherited traits of an animal population in intended, irreversible ways. Tame animals may be ‘domestic’, in the sense of their incorporation as members of human households, but need not be morphologically ‘domesticated’. Conversely, selectively bred animals may run wild, as in emergent ranching systems, while the herds of pastoralists need be neither ‘domestic’ nor ‘domesticated’. It will not do to refer to such combinations as states of ‘semi-domestication’, for the implication that they are in the process of evolution towards ‘full’ domestication is not always warranted.