412 ROD NOT EMPLOYED— REASONS 



even of a mild understudy to Ashur-bani-pal. i The Bible 

 gives but two — ^Esau's brother scarcely ranks as one — hunter- 

 characters : Esau " a cunning hunter," and Nimrod " a mighty 

 hunter before the Lord." Even the latter of these two heroes 

 was no Israelite, but a king " of Accad," a Sumero- Assyrian, 

 whom some writers identify with Gilgamesh. 



Such indifference to or aversion from the chase cannot 

 either at the time of the invasion of Palestine (Exodus xxiii. 29), 

 or subsequently be ascribed to the lack of wild beasts or of 

 game, for we read of lions, bears, jackals, foxes, etc., and of 

 hart, fallow deer, and antelope. 



Two reasons — neither, to my mind, satisfactory — ^have been 

 advanced to explain this attitude as regards hunting, a pursuit 

 which admittedly has played, both as a necessity and a pastime, 

 an important part in the education and evolution of mankind. 



The first : the Hebrews, as described in the Old Testament, 

 had already reached the stage of pastoral nomads, when 

 " hunting, which is the subsistence of the ruder wanderer, has 

 come to be only an extra means of life." 2 



The second : the Hebrews, hampered perhaps by certain 

 peculiarities of their religion, or on account of the density of 

 the population were not often induced " to revert for amuse- 

 ment to what their ancestors had been compelled to practise 

 from necessity." 3 



Either, or both, of these reasons might have carried weight, 

 had it not been for the existence hard by in Assyria of a people, 

 among whom, although sprung from the Semitic stock, hunting 

 was a recognised and popular pastime, and this despite a 

 population far denser. 



Nor, again, when we compare the culture of the two nations, 

 can LacepMe's previously quoted dictum that in civilisation 

 the fisher nation is usually more advanced than the hunter 



^ It is fair to record that some of the Assyrian monarchs preferred a battle 

 mid safer surroundings, for in representations the head keepers are seen 

 letting the lions, etc., out of cages for their royal master to pot ! Parks 

 (TrapaSeitroi) and districts were strictly preserved by both AssjTian and 

 Persian rulers ; in England for several reigns the penalty for poaching in the 

 New and other Royal Forests was death. 



- E B. Tylor, Anthropology (London, 1881), p. 220. 



' M. G. Watkins, Gleanings from Natural History (London, 1885), ch. 10. 



