DOGS AND SAVAGES. 661 



Andree 1 concerning the weight and speed of sledges, which differ some- 

 what from the above, are borrowed from John Crawford : ''On the rela- 

 tion of domesticated animals to civilization," in the "Transactions of the 

 Ethnological Society of London,'' II, 387-468. 



Over the highest passes of the Himalayas and Thibet, where ponies 

 and yaks can not venture, sure-footed sheep and goats are used as 

 beasts of burden; sheep also are used in the country surrounding Ba- 

 hia, South America, carrying a water jar on either side, up hill and down 

 on very narrow mountain paths. Among the Indians of Korth America 

 the dog is used as a beast of burden. Here, abused and harshly treated 

 during life, he after death receives many honors — a truly human char- 

 acteristic. At the time of Coronado, in the year 1540, he was used by 

 a branch of the Oomancheson the borders of the province of Durango 

 for the transportation of hides, and is still kept for the same service. 2 

 Dogs are also used as beasts of burden by the prairie Crees in the Sas- 

 katchewan region, 3 as well as by the Atnatanas on the Copper Biver. 4 

 The ancient Peruvians also possessed such dogs. 5 In Asia the so-called 

 Yenesei-East- Jaks 6 own pack dogs and in Kamchatka they traverse 

 the mountains with light loads. 7 



However useful to man the dog may have proven himself as a hunt- 

 ing animal and beast of burden, yet many races of people left it to him 

 to keep himself fat and in good condition as he did before their mutual 

 approach. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he is an omnivorous animal, 

 and this peculiarity makes him useful about the dwellings of larger or 

 smaller settlements of man as a sort of street scavenger, sharing the 

 office with vultures and the like, as is now the case in many eastern 

 countries. What man no longer uses in his household — offal, dead ani- 

 mals, the bones of game, and in many places even human corpses — is 

 thrown out and becomes food for the usually empty stomach of the 

 neglected dog. 



From classical antiquity we obtain many accounts of human bodies 

 being thrown to the dogs to be devoured. Hector threatened to do this 

 to Ajax and retracted his decision only because of Priam's tears. In 

 Pohlinan's paper on the excess of population in the great cities of the 

 ancients, he has collected (p. 135) numerous passages from ancient 

 authors showing this to have been done. In Asia we find, especially 



1 Geogr. des Weltbandels, I, 90,278. 



2 Humboldt, Essai politique, etc., Ill, 56; Beise in die ./Eqninoct. Gegenden, IV 

 585; Ansichten der Natur, I, 138; Bancroft, Native Races, I, 506; Miihlenpfordt, Ver- 

 sucli eiuer Scbilderung von Mexico, I, 159, 177; Verbandl. der Ges. f. Erdk., Berlin, 

 XII, 268; Eatzel, Vereinigte Staaten, II, 127. 



3 Hind, Canadian Eed Eiver Exped., II, 117. 



4 Deutscbe Geogr. Blatter, IX, 224. Sucb dogs are figured in tbe oft-cited work of 

 Lord mid Baines, p. 361 ; V. Martins, Beitr. zur Ethnograpbie, 1, 672. 



r > Waitz, I, 409. 



'■Radloff, Ans Westsibirien, 1, 189. 



7 Krascbenninnikow, Bescbr. des Landes K., p. 18. 



