Pallas says: “Every Samoyede has his reindeer and tends them himself with the help of his family, except the very rich who employ poor men as herdsmen.” Von Stenin also states that the poor serve the rich. The following anecdote, given by this writer, shows how strongly the desire of wealth influences psychical life among the Samoyedes. One of them depicted the delight of intoxication in these terms: “Spirits taste better than meat. When a man is drunk, he fancies he has many reindeer and thinks himself a merchant. But on coming to his senses he sees that he is poor and has just spent his last reindeer in drinking”[37].
Of the Koryakes we are told: “Before they were subjected [[271]]by the Russians, they had neither government nor magistrates; only the rich exercised some authority over the poor.” Their greatest pleasure consists in looking at their herds. The poor are employed in tending the herds of the rich for food and clothing; if they have themselves some reindeer, they are allowed to join them to their master’s herds and tend them together with the latter[38].
Among the Tuski, according to Georgi, the poor serve the rich as herdsmen[39].
In North-East Africa the state of things is not quite the same. The pastoral nomads here form the nobility, and tax subjected tribes with tributes and compulsory labour. Servants are not found here so often as in Asia. Sometimes, however, they are found. Thus among the Beni Amer there are herdsmen, maid-servants etc. who work for wages[40]. The same, perhaps, applies to the Massai, where the man who owns large herds and many wives, enjoys high consideration but a poor man is despised[41].
“Among all South African natives” says Fritsch “the rich tyrannize over the poor who, in the hope of filling their stomachs, comply with a state of dependence that is not authorized by law”[42].
Among the Caffres poor men place themselves under the protection of a rich head of a family, build their huts in his kraal, and in reward yield their cattle to him[43].
Kropf tells us that among the Ama-Xosa the consideration a man enjoys depends on the number of cattle he owns. The poor are fed by the chief and in return render him services[44].
The Ovaherero despise any one who has no cattle. The rich support many people, who become their dependents, and so they acquire distinction and power[45]. The children of impoverished families who, according to Andersson[46], are kept as slaves, are perhaps rather to be called servants.
Among those tribes which are mainly agricultural, but besides [[272]]subsist largely upon the produce of their cattle, similar phenomena present themselves.
Among the Ossetes freemen are often employed as servants[47].