ABSENCE OF DOMESTICABLE ANIMALS 129 



as a beast of burthen, and yielded wool for clothing, 

 and milk, cheese, and flesh for nourishment. In the 

 plains of Tropical America there exists no animal com- 

 parable to the ox, the horse, the sheep, or the hog. Of 

 the last-mentioned, indeed, there are two wild species ; 

 but they are not closely allied to the European domestic 

 hog. Of the other three animals, which have been such 

 important helps to incipient civilization in Asia and 

 Europe, the genera even are unknown in South America. 

 There is no lack in the Amazonian forests of tameable 

 animals fit for human food ; the tapir, the paca, the 

 cutia, and the curassow turkeys, are often kept in houses 

 and become quite as tame as the domesticated animals 

 of the old world ; but they are useless from not breeding 

 in confinement. Curassow birds are often seen in the 

 houses of Indians ; one fine species, the Mitu tuberosa, 

 becoming so familiar that it follows children about 

 wherever they go ; it will not propagate, however, in 

 captivity. It is shown to be not wholly the fault of the 

 natives in this case, by their valuing the common fowl, 

 which has been imported from Europe and adopted 

 everywhere, even by remote tribes on rivers rarely visited 

 by white men. It is, however, treated with little at- 

 tention, and increases very slowly. The Indians do not 

 show themselves so sensible of the advantages derivable 

 from the ox, sheep, and hog, all of which have been 

 introduced into their country. They seem unable to ac- 

 quire a taste for their flesh, and the management of the 

 animals in a domesticated state is evidently unsuited to 

 their confirmed habits. The inferiority of the native 

 animals compared with those of the old world in regard 

 to capability of breeding in confinement, to which, accord- 

 ing to this view, is originally owing the defect in the Indian 

 character regarding the domestication of animals, has 

 been brought about, probably, in some way not easily 

 explicable, by the domination of the forest. It has been 

 lately advanced by ethnologists, that where dense forests 

 clothe the surface of a country, the native races of man 

 cannot make any progress in civilization. It might be 

 added, that vast and monotonous naked plains produce 

 the same result. The animals which have been so useful 

 in the infancy of human civilization are such as roamed 

 originally over open or scantily wooded plains, probably 

 of limited extent. The fact of many delicious wild fruits 



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