All we like sheep

Spring is a perilous time for sheep. Lambs are born in the spring, and often capricious weather can spell their doom. In the spring, many one year-old lambs are slaughtered to provide meat for a feast. It is the time of the sacrifice of the lambs.

Sheep are one of the earliest domesticated animals, and they still figure largely in the economies of pastoralist cultures from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe with China currently having the most sheep of any country in the world. Images of sheep appear in ancient rock art. Their wool provided one of the first textiles for humanity. Artisanal cheese from sheep’s milk is now a highly sought-after product. And don’t forget haggis.

What do cultural anthropologists have to say about this important animal? Compared to the amount of published sources by archaeologists: not much. In my search of AnthropologyPlus and AnthroSource, using the search words “sheep” or ‘lamb,” I found fewer than 30 articles published since 1995. I then looked in Google Scholar, using the search terms “culture sheep” and “culture lamb” and found a few more sources scattered among the many non-anthropological studies.

Several sources in the following list have to do with herding practices. Another prominent theme is the importance of sheep as items of exchange and sacrifice. Others look at sheep in mythology, symbolism, and healing. The most famous individual sheep in the world, Dolly, attracted some recent attention in terms of bioscience and ethics.

Cultural anthropologists have not written much about the animals in our lives, period. So sheep are not any more neglected than are dogs, horses, pigs, and other animals wild or domesticated. Cultural anthropologists have probably written more books with the word “car” than “sheep” in the title. Perhaps these gentle, low-demand, high-yield animals deserve more of us.

The following sources are the result of a few hours’ research and, with apologies again, they are not open-source:

Abu-Rabia, Aref. 1999. Some Notes on Livestock Production among Negev Bedouin Tribes. Nomadic Peoples 3(1):22-30.

Ayantunde, Augustine A., Timothy O. Williams, Henk M. J. Udo, Salvador Fernández-Rivera, and Pierre Hiernaux. 2000. Herders’ Perceptions, Practice, and Problems of Night Grazing in the Sahel: Case Studies from Niger. Human Ecology 28(1):109-140.

Bolin, Inge. 1998. Rituals of Respect: The Secret of Survival in the High Peruvian Andes. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Maggie. 2005. Quartering Sheep at Carnival in Sud Lípez, Bolivia. In Wendy James and David Mills, eds., The Qualities of Time: Anthropological Approaches. Pp. 187-202. New York: Berg Publishers.

Brower, Barbara. 2000. Sheep Grazing in National Forest Wilderness: A New Look at an Old Fight. Mountain Research and Development 20(2):126-129.

Dám, Laszlo. 2001. Buildings of Animal Husbandry on Peasants’ Farms in Hungary. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 46(3/4):177-227.

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Chimpanzees eat the ants, and we eat the chimpanzees

By Barbara Miller

Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates possess a range of cultural skills that enhance their lives. Depending on the species and location, these learned and shared capabilities include nest building, tool use to access choice food items such as ants and honey, greetings including the “raised hand clasp,” food preparation such as washing an item before eating it, and use of a leaf by males after sex for wiping off their penis.

Crickette Sanz, a professor of primatology at Washington University in Saint Louis, has devoted years to studying wild chimpanzee populations in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. She and her co-authors have recently published important new findings about a “tool set” that chimpanzees use to access and eat army ants. The chimpanzees in several different communities use a wooden tool made from a sapling to perforate the ant nest. Then they use the flexible stem of a particular herb as a “wand” for attracting the ants from their nest so that the chimpanzees can eat them.

The more primatologists study nonhuman primates in the wild, especially the great apes, the more evidence they produce about the richness of nonhuman primate culture. But theirs is a race against time. Or, more aptly, a race against us and the ravages of “civilization” and consumerism.

The authors note: “Further research is needed to determine the ecological and social factors shaping the diverse and complex tool technology of these apes. There is an immediate need to conduct this research, as the conservation status of Great Apes in the Congo Basin is jeopardized by mechanical logging, bushmeat hunting, and disease epidemics…” (p. 6). Destruction of the habitat is also having detrimental effects on the ant population, especially army ants.

Protecting the chimpanzees and ants for science is definitely important and rational from the point of view of science. But isn’t there a larger reason? Shouldn’t the habitats, chimpanzees, and even the ants be protected for their own sake? And what about the local people whose ancestors have long lived in the region? If science can provide some muscle for organizations that lobby for regional habitat protection, then that’s certainly a good thing. An image of David and Goliath comes to my mind, with science facing off against massive commercial interests and greedy governments. But, after all, the small guy won.

Sanz, and a co-author, David Morgan, provide some practical insight into the complicated and urgent questions of preservation in a report prepared for the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, titled Best Practice Guidelines for Reducing the Impact of Commercial Logging on Wild Apes in West Equatorial Africa (2007).

What can we do? Change our consumption practices to rely more on pre-used items and to rely more on less stuff in general. Support organizations that work to protect the habitats where great apes and other primates live, as well as the indigenous/local populations:

The Great Ape Trust

Survival International

Cultural Survival

Map of Goualougo Triangle by David Morgan. Photo by Crickette Sanz. Special thanks for permission to use their images.

Anthro in the news 9/9

Interview with Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall’s contributions to primatology and primate conservation are monumental. In a brief interview with Cathy Areu that was published in the Sept 6 issue of the Washington Post Magazine, Goodall discusses her love of animals as a child, her meeting with Louis Leakey, her first visit to Africa, and her first experiences with a secondhand tent.

Decades later, as founder of the Jane Goodall Institute for wildlife research, education and conservation in Arlington, Va., she dedicates her time to protecting endangered primates. “It’s our responsibility to push forth and reach into people’s hearts and make them responsible for other animals on this planet. We’re part of this animal kingdom.”

Photo, “Jane Goodall”, from Flickr, via creative commons.