DOI Artikel:
Takács, Lajos: Grubbing by swine as a means of preparing the soil on swampy ground
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49001#0163
GRUBBING BY SWINE AS A MEANS
OF PREPARING THE SOIL ON SWAMPY
GROUND
By
Lajos Takacs
The early forms of agriculture and within
that the ways of cultivating the soil are not
easy to discover, though the task is not
hopeless. The necessary data are very rare,
and for what does exist - just a few objects
and late scraps of information - there can be
several explanations. Missing links have to
be bridged with suppositions, but as an aid
to interpretation, and even more so for origi-
nal conceptions, much help can be got from
the analogy of late survivals of characteristic
traits from the times when ploughing culti-
vation was already general. Reasons for such
survivals can arise out of a situation of neces-
sity when a plough could not be used and yet
the soil had to be cultivated, as on mountain-
ous ground where no draught animals, such
as oxen, could be used; or on swampy
ground where heavy beasts could not draw
the plough.
Both cases may be highly interesting from
the point of view of trying to reconstruct
early agriculture, in spite of the fact that the
survival is caused by circumstances of neces-
sity which can lead to differences as com-
pared to the early stages. Of the two situa-
tions referred to, agriculture with hand tools
on steep slopes as the way of tilling land in
mountainous regions has been studied in
numerous parts of Europe and beyond. In
some regions it is certain that manual tilling
has a continuous existence as a surviving
tradition. There are far fewer data about
tilling swampy land, yet there do exist early
references to this also. The earliest data,
from the Ancient Egyptian Empire, state
that ears of corn were trodden into the soft
and moist soil by animals, mostly sheep. The
expression “to plough with sheep”, derives
from this custom (Kees 35). Pictorial repre-
sentation, also to be found, shows clearly
that the sheep used for treading in the corn
move between two persons of whom the
first walks in front with a basket hung
around his neck from which the seed is
scattered on the ground, and the other, be-
hind, has a lash and a stick in his hands and
drives the beasts with sharp thorns (Klebs47).
In the New Empire, of which Herodotus
writes, the treading in of the corn was done
with swine in the region around Memphis.
The detailed description is: "... any other
people in the world, the rest of the Egyp-
tians included, have no need to break up the
ground with the plough, nor to use the hoe,
nor to do any of the work which the rest of
mankind find necessary if they are to get a
crop; but the husbandman waits till the river
has of its own accord spread itself over the
fields and withdrawn again to its bed, and
then sows his plot of ground, and after
sowing turns his swine into it - the swine
OF PREPARING THE SOIL ON SWAMPY
GROUND
By
Lajos Takacs
The early forms of agriculture and within
that the ways of cultivating the soil are not
easy to discover, though the task is not
hopeless. The necessary data are very rare,
and for what does exist - just a few objects
and late scraps of information - there can be
several explanations. Missing links have to
be bridged with suppositions, but as an aid
to interpretation, and even more so for origi-
nal conceptions, much help can be got from
the analogy of late survivals of characteristic
traits from the times when ploughing culti-
vation was already general. Reasons for such
survivals can arise out of a situation of neces-
sity when a plough could not be used and yet
the soil had to be cultivated, as on mountain-
ous ground where no draught animals, such
as oxen, could be used; or on swampy
ground where heavy beasts could not draw
the plough.
Both cases may be highly interesting from
the point of view of trying to reconstruct
early agriculture, in spite of the fact that the
survival is caused by circumstances of neces-
sity which can lead to differences as com-
pared to the early stages. Of the two situa-
tions referred to, agriculture with hand tools
on steep slopes as the way of tilling land in
mountainous regions has been studied in
numerous parts of Europe and beyond. In
some regions it is certain that manual tilling
has a continuous existence as a surviving
tradition. There are far fewer data about
tilling swampy land, yet there do exist early
references to this also. The earliest data,
from the Ancient Egyptian Empire, state
that ears of corn were trodden into the soft
and moist soil by animals, mostly sheep. The
expression “to plough with sheep”, derives
from this custom (Kees 35). Pictorial repre-
sentation, also to be found, shows clearly
that the sheep used for treading in the corn
move between two persons of whom the
first walks in front with a basket hung
around his neck from which the seed is
scattered on the ground, and the other, be-
hind, has a lash and a stick in his hands and
drives the beasts with sharp thorns (Klebs47).
In the New Empire, of which Herodotus
writes, the treading in of the corn was done
with swine in the region around Memphis.
The detailed description is: "... any other
people in the world, the rest of the Egyp-
tians included, have no need to break up the
ground with the plough, nor to use the hoe,
nor to do any of the work which the rest of
mankind find necessary if they are to get a
crop; but the husbandman waits till the river
has of its own accord spread itself over the
fields and withdrawn again to its bed, and
then sows his plot of ground, and after
sowing turns his swine into it - the swine