[Rq-rules] Re: Nomads & Barbarian

[Paul Cardwell]

--- Styopa <styopa1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well yeah.  But that doesn't change my POINT about
> them not being "herders"
> in the sense of 'herds of sheep' or 'herds of
> cattle' - unless you're
> asserting they herded dogs?
> I didn't say they didn't domesticate anything, I
> said they didn't HERD
> anything, in the sense of 'domestication' (ie the
> process of taming,
> controlling the movements and breeding of animals to
> the benefit of the
> controlling human).

You said they didn't have any domesticated animals
except horses.  They did (dogs), and that is what I
pointed out.  They had a limited herding of bison -
herd them together and stampede them over a high
cliff.

They knew genetics better than your European
Meisterrasse did at that time, as witness the
appaloosa.  That is breeding, and obviously one can't
ride a horse that isn't tamed and has its movements
controlled - especially without stirrups - but they
did regularly, including by children too small to
mount unassisted.

And apropo others' comments, a tipi, like a gir, is a
portable house much as a house trailer is today.

The lines are quite blurred and all-encompassing
categories just don't work.  Where would you put
Scythians?  They wandered three seasons a year, but
lived the winter in log houses; smithed metal (exquite
gold work); had wheeled wagons much like 19th century
Roma [Gypsy] caravans; had no written language; had
total sexual equality in rights and occupations; were
a military culture who for payment in food would
guarantee than treaty agricultural cultures wouldn't
be bothered by anyone; and formed the police force for
Periclean Athens.  They were also the original
"barbarians", so called by the Greeks who thought
their language sounded like sheep bleating, "baaar,
baaar".

Get out of your Eurocentric mind-set and learn from
others.

Paul Cardwell

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