Читать книгу The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State - Friedrich Engels - Страница 9

Table of Contents

1. Lower Stage. Infancy of the human race. Human beings still dwelt in their original habitation, in tropical or subtropical forests. They lived at least part of the time in trees, for only in this way they could escape the attacks of large beasts of prey and survive. Fruit, nuts, and roots served as food. The formation of articulated speech is the principal result of this period. Not a single one of all the nations that have become known in historic times dates back to this primeval stage.

Although the latter may extend over thousands of years, we have no means of proving its existence by direct evidence. But once the descent of man from the Animal Kingdom is acknowledged, the acceptance of this stage of transition becomes inevitable.

2. Middle Stage: Commencing with the utilization of fish (including crabs, mollusks and other aquatic animals) and the use of fire. Both these things belong together, because fish becomes thoroughly palatable by the help of fire only. With this new kind of food, human beings became completely independent of climate and locality. Following the course of rivers and coastlines, they could spread over the greater part of the earth even in the savage state. The so-called palaeolithic implements of the early stone age, made of rough, unsharpened stones, belong almost entirely to this period. Their wide distribution over all the continents testifies to the extent of these wanderings. The unceasing bent for discovery, together with the possession of fire gained by friction, created new products in the lately occupied regions. Such were farinaceous roots and tubers, baked in hot ashes or in baking pits (ground ovens). When the first weapons, club and spear, were invented, venison was occasionally added to the bill of fare. Nations subsisting exclusively by hunting, such as we sometimes find mentioned in books, have never existed; for the proceeds of hunting are too uncertain. In consequence of continued precariousness of the sources of sustenance, cannibalism seems to arise at this stage. It continues in force for a long while. Even in our day, Australians and Polynesians still remain in this middle stage of savagery.

3. Higher Stage: Coming with the invention of bow and arrow, this stage makes venison a regular part of daily fare and hunting a normal occupation. Bow, arrow and cord represent a rather complicated instrument, the invention of which presupposes a long and accumulated experience and increased mental ability; incidentally they are conditioned on the acquaintance with a number of other inventions.

In comparing the nations that are familiar with the use of bow and arrow, but not yet with the art of pottery (from which Morgan dates the transition to barbarism), we find among them the beginnings of village settlements, a control of food production, wooden vessels and utensils, weaving of bast fibre by hand (without a loom), baskets made of bast or reeds, and sharpened (neolithic) stone implements. Generally fire and the stone ax have also furnished the dugout and, here and there, timbers and boards for house-building. All these improvements are found, e.g., among the American Indians of the Northwest, who use bow and arrows, but know nothing as yet about pottery. Bow and arrows were for the stage of savagery what the iron sword was for barbarism and the fire-arm for civilization; the weapon of supremacy.