THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 303 



individual, but communal. It was the realization, to some extent, 

 of the socialistic ideal of collective or governmental ownership of 

 landed property, the return to which a modern school of reform- 

 ers would fain persuade themselves and others to regard as a step 

 in advance. 



It is also interesting to note that this most important and 

 epoch-making transition from pasturage to tillage was due to the 

 initiative and activity of woman. Everywhere in the growth of 

 society women have been the first agriculturists. While the men 

 were leading the life of hunters or herdsmen, with frequent epi- 

 sodes of pillage and predatory warfare, women began to cultivate 

 the soil and to rear domestic fowls, to sp^in and to weave, and to 

 develop, in a rude way, various kinds of industry. This is the 

 condition in which we still find all savage and semi-civilized 

 tribes. Herodotus (vol. vi) says of the Thracians, " They regard 

 tillage as the most degrading and pillage as the most honorable 

 occupation." The savage looks upon all forms of manual labor, 

 and especially husbandry, as ignoble, and therefore leaves such 

 work to his squaw. 



At first, her efforts in this direction were quite ignored and 

 often thwarted by the sudden removal of the tribe to another 

 place before she could reap the fruits of her toil. The little patch 

 of ground which she had planted was deemed of small account, 

 compared with the pleasures and products of the chase, and was 

 frequently abandoned without hesitation before the meager har- 

 vest was ripe. For this reason barley was the earliest grain cul- 

 tivated, because it is the hardiest of all grains and matures soon- 

 est. It was a long time before the fields tilled by women became 

 of sufficient importance, as supplying means of subsistence, to 

 keep the tribe settled for a whole season in one spot, or even to 

 induce them to return thither in the autumn and remain there 

 until the crop was gathered. This semi-nomadism was the first 

 step toward a sedentary life and the starting point of a higher civ- 

 ilization, and woman was the chief agent in its accomplishment, 

 although unconscious of the immense change which her humble 

 efforts were effecting. 



For a similar reason the weakest male members of the tribe 

 were the first artificers and mechanical inventors. Men who were 

 crippled or otherwise incapable of waging war and following the 

 chase, if they had not been left to perish at their birth, remained 

 at home and made hunting implements and weapons of war for 

 their more vigorous and valorous tribesmen, and thus acquired 

 skill in handicraft, sharpened their wits, and developed their in- 

 ventive faculties. In mythology, the gods of the smithy, Hephaes- 

 tus, Vulcan, and Veland, are represented as lame, and the experts 

 in ores and workers in metals are dwarfs, gnomes, and creatures 



