Continued from the previous post regarding the inventiveness of the ancient Peruvians.
J. Grahame Clark, speaking of the contributions made by the Indians of North and South America to the Old World, wrote: “Baron Nordenskiold, unlike some European theorizers, who found it difficult to credit the aborigines with the ability to raise their own civilization independently of the Old World inspiration, had spent many long and arduous years in the field of South American archaeology, and his conclusions carried with them outstanding authority. In addition to many technical inventions he attributed to the American Indian the achievement of domesticating the animal and plant life of his habitat so effectively that during the four centuries since the Discovery by the White Man he had failed to make a single contribution of importance to the Andean way of life.
The
native fauna gave poor scope, but from it he domesticated the llama, alpaca,
guinea-pig, and turkey. Of plants he domesticated hundreds, among them were maize,
beans (kidney and lima), numerous varieties of potatoes, including sweet
potatoes—all four of today’s leading foods of the world. The root Manioc, is extensively cultivated by the
natives of tropical America and is now the staff of life for millions of people
living in the equatorial belt. Other important items, such as peanuts, squash,
chocolate, peppers, tomatoes, pineapples and avocados can be added.
In addition the early Peruvians were the discoverer of quinine, cocaine,
tobacco, and rubber, useful commodities of modern times. Maize or Indian corn
was one of the most important contributions of the ancient Americans to mankind—over
a considerable portion of the Americas, it was the staff of life.
The ancient Peruvians also contributed Aloe, Jerusalem Artichoke, Alligator Pair, Pineapple, Arrowroot, Indian Fig (Prickly Pear), Cacao, Pumpkin, Chili Pepper, Star Apple, as well as Cotton—gossypium barbadense Linn (M.D.C. Crawford, The Conquest of Culture: How Man Invented His Way to Civilization, Fairchild Publications, New York, 1948, pp184-185).
Kenneth Macgowan adds to this list, the custard apple, strawberry, vanilla bean, chickle, and cascara, besides a number of others less familiar. His whole list of important plants made up by the early Peruvians agriculture is impressive, as he says, for it contains 50 items, not one of which is an Old World species! Every one of them can be cultivated with a hoe, requiring no draft animals whatever. He also mentions one other accomplishment which is very difficult to account for—the Indian devised a method of extracting a deadly poison (cyanide) from the otherwise limited use plant, manioc, without losing the valuable starch it contained. Macgowan says that Henry J. Bruman called this "one of the outstanding accomplishments of the American Indian." The remarkable thing about it is that they should ever have thought of making use of a plant which, as they found it, contained a deadly poison (Kenneth Macgowan, Early Man in the New World, Macmillan, New York, 1950, p199, 202 (cyanide)
A native of South America, the pineapple has changed the world at the same time it remains strong in Cuzco. It is hard to imagine the major city without pineapple juice for breakfast or its taste along with purple corn in the iconic chicha morada drink that accompanies most meals. In addition, Pineapple, sliced on a plate, is common in this city as well.
When the Spanish came to the new world, they found pineapple growing in Peru. There is evidence that the ancient societies of the Peruvian coast grew pineapple as there is that the Incas also enjoyed the plant. When the street markets stand filled with pineapples in the streets of Cuzco, it is a sign of something very ancient in this land.
More recently, J. L. Collins wrote: “The pineapple shares the distinction accorded to all major food plants of the civilized world, of having been selected, developed, and domesticated by people of prehistoric times, and passed on to us through one or more earlier civilizations. The pineapple, like a number of other contemporary agricultural crops originated in America and was unknown to the people of the Old World before the New World’s discovery. However, the Andean Pineapple is not exported very much because it is not the same in appearance as the ones demanded by international buyers.
Just where the Indians found the original plants which they improved upon to produce modern pineapples, is unknown. None of the existing varieties compares with the domesticated product, and as Collins observes, "none of these can be singled out now as the form or forms which gave rise to the domesticated pineapples of today, or even of those varieties in the possession of the Indians at the time of the Discovery of America." This was no accidental by-product then, but a deliberate and intelligent breeding process which progressed so far before we knew anything about it, that we cannot now retrace the steps by which it was first accomplished (Julius Lloyd Collins, Pineapple: Botany, Cultivation, and Utilization, Leonard Hill, London, 1968; Collins, "Pineapples in Ancient America," Scientific Monthly, vol.66, no.11, Nov., 1948, p372).
Melville J. Herskovits points out that the North American Indians increased the fertility of their land artificially, by putting a fish in each Maize hill, and practiced multi-planting highly successfully. In each hill where they planted Maize they placed squash and bean seeds together, so that the bean plants could climb the corn stalks and the squash vines run along the ground. Their reasoning, as Herskovits points out, is different from ours: they hold that a plant which grows erect, one that climbs, and one that hugs the earth must each have a different nature and therefore extract a different food from the earth, therefore they do not compete with each other (Melville J. Herskovits, Man and His Works, Knopf, New York, 1950, p250).
Looking at the textile usage in the Middle East at Sumeria, they developed mechanization in large mills with hundreds of specialized workers, each doing a single kind of operation, was well developed five thousand years ago.
In fact, some of the garments
associated with King Tutankhamen's tomb have 220 threads to the inch compared
to common linen handkerchiefs of today, only about 60 to 70 threads per inch and good linen cloth for such purposes seldom has
more than 100 threads per inch, or less than the Egyptian prototype.
Pottery in South America has always been a source of amazement, whether in the New World or the Old. The pottery is remarkable for its complete freedom of form, and for its ingenuity. In an environment where evaporation rates are high, it is desirable to cut down the size of the opening at the top. But this makes pouring more difficult. The air rushing in suddenly causes the water to flow out unevenly, and to spill easily. But in many places water is too precious to be wasted in this way. The Peruvians and the Maya overcame this by putting two spouts on the pot so that one became both a handle and a separate air inlet.
According to an acknowledged expert on American Anthropology, Athel Joyce, who was the President of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1931, and President of the Anthropological section of the British Association in 1934, the variations of South American pottery were both ingenious and aesthetically pleasing. Not content with this, they even went further and so designed the passages that when water was poured out, the air rushing in caused a whistle to blow. In some cases it is difficult to see why this was done, though other types seem clearly to have been whistling kettles (Athol Joyce, "Marvels of the Potter's Art: In South America" The Wonders of the Past, edited by Sir John Hammerton, London, Putnam's, 1924, vol. 2, p.464, 465; Retirement of T.A. Joyce, Nature, vol.142, July 1938, pp142,146
Many of their vessels were shaped as heads, faces, animals, and even full-body people—the reproductions were so lifelike in many cases that they must surely have been actual portraits. Their artistry and skill seem to have known no limits.
The same is true of Middle East pottery where the wares were of such delicacy that it seems they must be copies of originals made in hammered metal. Even the 'rivets' are indicated sometimes. They also reveal that the metal prototypes were sometimes formed by a process akin to deep drawing as we technically understand it now. Some of the pottery from the earliest times were astonishing in its complete freedom of form and unbelievable delicacy.
The early Peruvians developed many pre-Columbian textiles and food that were not known in Europe until the early explorers and conquerors took them back to Spain and then England. They also developed unique building and artistic skills, the former still baffling today’s engineers. Where did these skills come from and ow were they known and then developed independently from Europe and Asia? One of the answers is that the first Peruvians came to this area with a 1,000-year history and were quite advanced as a new civilization.
No comments:
Post a Comment