532 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



scarcely have been the origin of the plow-beam; for the latter, as we 

 shall see, appears to have been absent in the earlier plows, its place 

 being taken by a rope. 



It was quite otherwise with that archaic implement, the digging- 

 stick. This in time developed into the foot-plow, which assumed a 

 variety of forms, either curved or else bent at an obtuse angle, and 

 provided with a rest against which the cultivator pressed with his foot. 

 Possibly the "shoe-last celts," characteristic of the Central European 

 culture known as Danubian I, were in some instances at least the 

 shares of preliistoric foot-plows.^ In regions as far apart as Ireland, 

 China, and even Peru, men using implements of this class have worked 

 in pairs abreast, walking backward, their belief being that in this way 

 they can accomplish nuich more than when acting indepedently.^ 

 Such instruments are still employed in parts of the British Isles, the 

 Sudan, the Far East, and elsewhere. 



A further step in the direction of more effective tillage was the 

 application of the principle of traction. By this method, while one 

 individual pushed the implement, one or more others pulled it with 

 cords.^ This practice likewise attained a wide distribution. It 

 appears to have existed at one time or another in nearly every part 

 of the north temperate zone of the Old AVorld. Perhaps certain large 

 leaf -shaped stone implements found in northern China were the shares 

 of such primitive nuin-drawn plows." Instruments operated on this 

 principle were used until lately in parts of Europe; and they still 

 survive in discontinuous and usually backward areas from North 

 Africa and South Arabia right across to the extreme east of Asia. 



The substitution of animal for human power marked the final step in 

 the evolution of the true traction plow. This change seems most 

 likely to have been mitiated through the operation of ideas which we 

 should consider the reverse of utilitarian, but which to earlier peoples 

 seemed rational enough. 



That the bull and the cow have often been regarded as embodi- 

 ments and even as gods of fertility is well known. Such beliefs seem 

 to have been more especially prevalent in those lands where wheat and 

 barley were cultivated in antiquity. It was perhaps the wish to enlist 

 the magical fertilizmg force believed to inliere in the ox-kind rather 



' Childe, V. Gordon, The dawn of European civilization, pp. 65, 172, 1925: cf. the lower example in fig. 77, 

 p. 172; see also the same author, The Danube in prehistory, pp. 40, 45, 1929. 



♦ For an account of the Peruvian taclla, see Cook, O. F., Foot-plow agriculture in Peru, Ann. Kcp. Smith- 

 sonian Inst. 1918, pp. 487-191, 1920. In view of the striking similarity of the taclla to certain western Euro- 

 pean implements, it may have been introduced Into South America by the Spanish, as we know was the 

 case with the traction-plow itself. 



For information regarding the Irish laidh and its use I am much indebted to Dr. E. Cecil Curwen. The 

 practice in vogue among the ancient Chinese is often mentioned in their classical books; for information 

 concerning its modern survival I have to thank Dr. A. W. Hummel, of the Library of Congress, whose 

 observations in the field confirm my own. The mode of using the Peruvian taclla is fully described in the 

 paper by O. F. Cook cited above. 



» Wundt, W. M., Elements of folk psychology (trans, by E. L. Schaub, undated), p. 291. 



« Licent, P^re E., Collections N6ohthiques du Mus<5e Hoang ho Pai ho, vol. 1, p. 12, 1932. 



