DOI Artikel:
Editorial
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48998#0071
EDITORIAL. Since the publication of the
first number of Tools and Tillage the editors
have tried to make more contacts with scholars
interested in the fields of research sketched in
the first editorial notes.
Two of the editors - Steensberg and Lerche -
visited Japan, Australia, India and Syria in the
autumn of 1968. Professor Y. Kumashiro had
arranged meetings in Tokyo and Kyoto respec-
tively with some of the prominent historians of
agriculture in Japan; and professor J. Golson of
Canberra introduced us in the Australian uni-
versities and arranged a stay in the New Guinea
Highlands for a study of the practise of sweet-
potato agriculture among the Papuans.
A report, mimeographed, has been distributed
to those on the distribution list of the Inter-
national Secretariat for Research on the History
of Agricultural Implements. It includes a list of
addresses of the scholars we met and indicates
their range of interests. This report is still avail-
able on request.
Connections between ancient Europe and Asia
can be a rewarding subject for study, and Jiro
linuma’s survey of the use of spades for traction
and primitive ploughing is meant as a request to
our readers for further contributions to Tools
and Tillage, elucidating functions and raising
further questions for examination.
Two of the editors - Fenton and Lerche -
attended in the summer of 1969 the Second
Ethnological Seminar skilfully organised by pro-
fessor J.Podolak, the energetic head of the
Ethnographical Institute of the Comenius Uni-
versity in Bratislava. Visiting scholars and
students worked in joint field-work projects, in
lectures, and in discussions to their mutual
benefit. The village of Liptovska Teplicka, in the
High Tatry mountains, with its grouped farms
nestling in the valley, and its arable strips and
terraces in intermingled ownership reaching up
into the hills, made an ideal setting and supplied
a wealth of ethnological riches. The subject for
study was a peasant community, not collectiv-
ised, the coherence of whose everyday life gave a
reflection of what had become past history in the
countries of most of those who were there as
guests, e.g. the relationship of the village to its
arable fields and meadows; the spades, mattocks,
and ploughs, ordinary and one-way, for use on
the terraces; the function of scythes and sickles
for hay and corn; the wagons, sledges and kinds
of transport on the human back; the herding of
the cattle; the milking of sheep and the making
of sheep’s cheese in the shepherd’s huts in the
mountains; all this and much more could be
examined and recorded as integral parts of this
community’s existence. There is a sociological
problem of the viability of such communities,
thrown out clearly in relation to collectivised and
capitalist farming. There is also the variation
from village to village in details of material cul-
ture and nomenclature representing variations in
the religious and ethnic background. Above all,
there is the sense of real achievement in meaning-
ful international collaboration in ethnological
problems, when the people of several countries
worked closely together for the same ends.
From the Carpathian Slovakia Grith Lerche
continued to Hungary to lecture and make
contact with future contributors to our work. In
forthcoming issues of Tools and Tillage this
might prove profitable to our readers. We wish
to provide fresh, well illustrated studies of ma-
terial, for good illustrations tell more about the
function of implements than many words.
For practical reasons some alterations in the
list of articles promised for this issue have been
made. Articles on classification and prehistoric
finds of plough furrows etc. will be published in
future issues.
LEITARTIKEL. Seit dem Erscheinen der er-
sten Nummer von Tools and Tillage hat sich
die Redaktion bemuht, weitere Verbindungen
mit Wissenschaftlern, die sich fur die in den ein-
leitenden redaktionellen Bemerkungen umrissen-
en Forschungsgebiete interessieren, anzukniipfen.
first number of Tools and Tillage the editors
have tried to make more contacts with scholars
interested in the fields of research sketched in
the first editorial notes.
Two of the editors - Steensberg and Lerche -
visited Japan, Australia, India and Syria in the
autumn of 1968. Professor Y. Kumashiro had
arranged meetings in Tokyo and Kyoto respec-
tively with some of the prominent historians of
agriculture in Japan; and professor J. Golson of
Canberra introduced us in the Australian uni-
versities and arranged a stay in the New Guinea
Highlands for a study of the practise of sweet-
potato agriculture among the Papuans.
A report, mimeographed, has been distributed
to those on the distribution list of the Inter-
national Secretariat for Research on the History
of Agricultural Implements. It includes a list of
addresses of the scholars we met and indicates
their range of interests. This report is still avail-
able on request.
Connections between ancient Europe and Asia
can be a rewarding subject for study, and Jiro
linuma’s survey of the use of spades for traction
and primitive ploughing is meant as a request to
our readers for further contributions to Tools
and Tillage, elucidating functions and raising
further questions for examination.
Two of the editors - Fenton and Lerche -
attended in the summer of 1969 the Second
Ethnological Seminar skilfully organised by pro-
fessor J.Podolak, the energetic head of the
Ethnographical Institute of the Comenius Uni-
versity in Bratislava. Visiting scholars and
students worked in joint field-work projects, in
lectures, and in discussions to their mutual
benefit. The village of Liptovska Teplicka, in the
High Tatry mountains, with its grouped farms
nestling in the valley, and its arable strips and
terraces in intermingled ownership reaching up
into the hills, made an ideal setting and supplied
a wealth of ethnological riches. The subject for
study was a peasant community, not collectiv-
ised, the coherence of whose everyday life gave a
reflection of what had become past history in the
countries of most of those who were there as
guests, e.g. the relationship of the village to its
arable fields and meadows; the spades, mattocks,
and ploughs, ordinary and one-way, for use on
the terraces; the function of scythes and sickles
for hay and corn; the wagons, sledges and kinds
of transport on the human back; the herding of
the cattle; the milking of sheep and the making
of sheep’s cheese in the shepherd’s huts in the
mountains; all this and much more could be
examined and recorded as integral parts of this
community’s existence. There is a sociological
problem of the viability of such communities,
thrown out clearly in relation to collectivised and
capitalist farming. There is also the variation
from village to village in details of material cul-
ture and nomenclature representing variations in
the religious and ethnic background. Above all,
there is the sense of real achievement in meaning-
ful international collaboration in ethnological
problems, when the people of several countries
worked closely together for the same ends.
From the Carpathian Slovakia Grith Lerche
continued to Hungary to lecture and make
contact with future contributors to our work. In
forthcoming issues of Tools and Tillage this
might prove profitable to our readers. We wish
to provide fresh, well illustrated studies of ma-
terial, for good illustrations tell more about the
function of implements than many words.
For practical reasons some alterations in the
list of articles promised for this issue have been
made. Articles on classification and prehistoric
finds of plough furrows etc. will be published in
future issues.
LEITARTIKEL. Seit dem Erscheinen der er-
sten Nummer von Tools and Tillage hat sich
die Redaktion bemuht, weitere Verbindungen
mit Wissenschaftlern, die sich fur die in den ein-
leitenden redaktionellen Bemerkungen umrissen-
en Forschungsgebiete interessieren, anzukniipfen.