CHAPTER V.
II.—SOCIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
1. MATERIAL LIFE: Alimentation: Geophagy—Anthropophagy—Preparation of foods—Fire—Pottery—Grinding of corn—Stimulants and narcotics—Habitation: Two primitive types of dwellings—Permanent dwelling (hut)—Removable dwelling (tent)—Difference of origin of the materials employed in the two types—Villages—Furniture—Heating and lighting—Clothing: Nakedness and modesty—Ornament precedes dress—Head-dress—Ethnic mutilations—Tattooing—Girdle, necklace, and garland the origin of all dress—Manufacture of garments—Spinning and weaving—Means of existence: tools of primitive industry—Hunting—Fishing—Agriculture—Domestication and rearing of animals.
1. MATERIAL LIFE.
Alimentation.—The first and most imperious preoccupation of man at all times is the search for food. It is therefore natural that we should begin our brief account of sociological characters with those relating to this preoccupation.
In tropical countries man finds in nature without effort edible plants in sufficient quantity for his support. It is said that in the island of Ceram a single sago-tree will yield what will nourish a man for a whole year.
In temperate countries there are also not wanting vegetable species which, with only slight effort on man’s part, produce nutritive substances. The animal world also supplies everywhere a great variety of species suitable for food. These, for the most part, belong to the division of vertebrates or molluscs; however, certain of the arthropods (crustaceans, insects, etc.), echinoderms (sea-urchins), nay, even worms (large earthworms of China, Tonkin, and Melanesia), also furnish their contingent to human gluttony.
The mineral kingdom contributes only salt, which, however, is unknown to certain tribes, as, for example, the Veddahs (Sarazin), the Somalis (Lapicque), etc. Besides, according to Bunge,[169] peoples whose food is almost exclusively animal (as is the case of the Veddahs, Eskimo, etc.) never eat salt, while those whose chief food is of vegetable origin experience an irresistible need for this condiment, probably because of the insufficiency of mineral substances in plants.