From: Dave Long (dl@silcom.com)
Date: Wed Sep 27 2000 - 12:04:09 PDT
> ... No sooner did we learn to grow grain than we learned how to
> get stupefyingly drunk, ...
If the switch from a hunter/gatherer to an agricultural society
involves a substantial reduction in leisure for the common man,
then perhaps work truly is the curse of the drinking class?
In _Women's Work: the first 20,000 years_, Elizabeth Barber
uses linguistic evidence of early Uralic {words} to sketch
tundra life in the Mesolithic or late Palaeolithic, showing
that a preagricultural economy is no barrier to insobriety:
> Among the tastiest things to collect were the various sorts
> of wild {berries} and {seeds} that ripened through the summer,
> as well as {eggs} from the {nests} of the many {birds} that
> roosted there. ... But these people also knew of {intoxicating
> mushrooms}, which they almost certainly collected ...
> We don't know who did the cooking, but we can deduce that {soup}
> or {porridge} often graced the menu. To make it, they {boiled}
> the ingredients in {water} and {fished them out} of the {cooking
> pot} with a {ladle}. They also knew how to {roast} food on a
> {spit}. {Fat} and {oil} were so important to this cold-climate
> diet that they merited several terms.
> So we can imagine them sitting around the campfire [telling]
> stories of their adventures, of their {friends or comrades}
> and of the women's {suitors}. Sometimes people would {wrangle},
> {admonish}, or {curse} and sometimes {get high}. But they also
> knew how to {give presents} and {distribute goods}.
Anyone know of a decent net source for early Uralic (or at least
Proto-Indo-European)? It would be interesting to see what kind
of ancient precursors there are for {barking farting chihuahua}.
-Dave
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