As a rule, it seems reasonable to contend that any practice which has been historically prevalent among non-agriculturalist groups, and which does not rely upon demonstrably recent technologies, is just as likely to have occurred 50,000 years ago as 500 years ago.
(2) To this category can be counted armour made of materials such as wood or animal hides. The practice of strapping protective material to yourself is hardly rocket-science, and is known to have occurred in hunter-gatherer societies such as the Haida.
(3) Hygenic/aesthetic practices such as complex facial- and body-paint as well as hair-braiding and cropping do not require advanced technology, and are documented from Palaeolithic art as well as modern hunter-gatherers.
(4) Complex maritime exploitation and habitat-management such as clam-gardens are known from historical peoples in the Pacific Northwest dating back more than 3000 years. Societies such as the non-agriculturalist Floridan Calusa exploited aquatic resources on a massive scale.
(5) Evidence of pet-keeping in various forms is ubiquitous in forager-societies across the world, from the raising of orphaned juveniles to the intentional maintenance of semi-domestic game. Melanesians intentionally spread cuscuses to islands for food as early as 20kya.
(6) The Okiek hunter-gathers of Southwestern Kenya create and maintain artificial bee-hives, as well as tending to wild ones. They migrate throughout their area, moving their hives in rhythm with the seasonal flowerings.
(7) Though stone-craftsmanship was comparatively primitive during the Palaeolithic, spears were fashioned with beautifully carved atlatls to increase thrust and throwing-distance.
(8) Into recent times, complex and intricate wooden clubs and spears have been fashioned by stone-limited societies all across the world. Little evidence of such things would be expected to survive to today, but it seems inexplicable to suppose they weren't made.
(9) Despite typical conceptions of non-agriculturalist stone-wielders as living in tiny, socially simple bands, members of ppls as culturally simple as the Mbuti pygmies live in settlements of up to 250 individuals. The Calusa hosted thousands in vast, monumental settlements.
More could be added, but the point is simple: People were not dumber in the late Pleistocene than we are now. A good deal were probably sharper. They didn't dress in dirty rags, they didn't live in caves, their hair didn't fall in wild manes and doubtless they had poets.
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An extremely fascinating bit of obscure history is that of the Kongsi republics in Western Borneo - Chinese 'company-states' predicated on gold and tin mining that existed on the island between the 1700s-1800s
The term 'kongsi' (公司) is not a Mandarin Chinese word, but instead from Hokkien, a Chinese language spoken primarily in southeastern Fujian, while the related form 'Kung-sze' exists in Hakka, another regional Sinitic language spoken in the south.
This etymology is significant because it belies the origin of the Southeast Asian kongsis. Both the Hakka and Hokkien peoples originated from the north of China, arriving in a south already populated by other Chinese groups. Pushed to the margins, they formed a mercantile culture
THREAD - The Origins of Kiswahili & the Swahili Coast
(1) In recent decades, Swahili has emerged as the African language par excellence, from culture & education to geopolitics. A bridge across the East African community, Swahili has deep roots - but where do they begin?
(2) With 200+ million speakers, the Swahili language is spread today across a vast swathe of eastern Africa, serving as the main national language in Tanzania and (alongside English) in Kenya, and with a growing presence in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Congo.
(3) It is the most widely spoken language entirely native to Africa by a sizeable margin. Despite this, Swahili is not exactly an ordinary member of the Bantu language family - emerging as a trading lingua franca across the eastern seaboard, it carries great foreign influence.
So many people discussing Dune (take a shot) get the prophecy of the Lisan al-Gaib wrong. They point out, correctly, that it is a fake prophecy, planted by the Bene Gesserit, and then conclude from this that Paul's rise as the mahdi is just empty propaganda, but... no.
The prophecy is part of the Bene Gesserit's 'Missionaria Protectiva', a panoply of false superstitions planted across the galaxy to aid the Bene Gesserit sisters in their grand breeding project, should they need help on a given world, by providing them leverage to manipulate.
But that's just the point, they are fake prophecies for the Bene Gesserit to manipulate. The BG were not actually expecting the Kwisatz Haderach to arise among the Fremen, nor on any of those other planets. Not outside their supervision. They *weren't meant to come true*
Most reports from traditional agrarian societies are that people despised their subsistence farming life and would do anything to escape it. See for instance Blythe's Akenfield.
To be clear, I am also v wistful about the passing of the old countryside and rural traditions, and Akenfield is certainly full of old-timers mourning the passing of many venerable and beautiful things.
But it cannot be understated that the day-to-day for most was miserable.
Any serious grappling with the issue of farmland life and tradition - just like any serious engagement with the preservation of traditional culture among peoples like the African Bushmen or Maasai - must face up to the fact that most people did & do not want to live that way.
(1) Easter, like Christmas, Halloween and so many other Western festivals is field for a now-annual set of arguments over the holiday's "true" provenance - Christian or "really" pagan? Much of this roots in a murky and debatable figure - 'Ēostre'
(2) The common narrative for the "Easter is pagan" crowd is well-known at this point: Aside from the extreme cranks drawing references to Mesopotamian Ishtar, the story goes that Easter takes its name from a goddess known in Old English as 'Ēostre' and German as 'Ostara'
(3) With this is usually attached a host of extremely tenuous claims about the supposed connection of other Easter staples - Easter eggs, bunnies - with the cult of Ēostre. These have essentially nothing going for them, but debates about Easter often get bogged down here.
A fundamental tragedy of human society appears to be that certain core societal goods are almost invariably mutually exclusive.
For some reason, friendliness in a culture seems consistently opposed to politeness, joy and vitality rarely co-occurs with safety and contentment.
Anyone who has spent prolonged time in the less developed part of the world, f.ex. Africa, will know that people there are famously extremely friendly and hospitable. Total strangers with no wealth and little spare time will go out of their way to help you on a whim.
At the same time, as such a traveler would also know, this individual friendliness is mirrored by an equal impoliteness and chaos at the broader level. Drivers drive like madmen, govt officials are corrupt, restaurant waiters are cold, etc.