Free The Intimate Bond by Brian Fagan Page A

their numbers increase, the women have to work harder and harder to feed them. They have to enlarge their gardens to raise more pigs as soon as possible so that the group can hold a
kaiko
before their enemies do. When Rappaport observed a
kaiko
in 1963, the more ambitious Tsembaga women were taking care of about six 61-kilogram (135-pound) pigs each, a demanding job over and above childrearing and other household tasks. Social tensions rose as the women cleared new gardens and hungry pigs ravaged even the fenced, cultivated land. Eventually the women’s complaints bore fruit. The men felled the rumbim shrub, and the moment for a
kaiko
arrived.
    The price in pigs was enormous. Rappaport’s 1963
kaiko
, with its repeated feasts, had the Tsembaga killing off three-quarters of their pigs by number and seven-eighths by weight. Much of the meat went to allies and in-laws. At the climactic rituals in November 1963, ninety-sixpigs were slaughtered, their meat and fat distributed to about two or three thousand people. The Tsembaga themselves ate about 5.5 kilograms (12 pounds) of meat and fat per person over five days of unconstrained gluttony.
    All this slaughter and preoccupation with pigs, as well as the elaborate costumes, dances, and rituals, fulfilled practical needs.
Kaikos
satisfied the Tsembaga’s craving for pork, something that is normally rare in their diet. Their environment, with its humidity and damp shade, is ideal for raising pigs, which obtain much of their food by free-ranging. However, too many pigs overburden the women and endanger the Maring gardens. This is when the
kaiko
comes into play, as the ancestors ensure that pigs do not destroy the women or their gardens. A
kaiko
keeps the ancestors happy and helps keep the pig population under control. No one can set formal limits, for circumstances change radically from year to year, depending on the size of the local population, the fortunes of individual clans, the intentions of enemies nearby, and the amount of secondary forest available for expansion. The Tsembaga and their neighbors are all engaged in a struggle to validate their varying claims to the earth’s resources. Warfare and the mere threat of it validates these claims, giving the ancestors an insatiable pig craving. At the same time, by banking large quantities of nutritionally valuable pig flesh, the Maring can attract and reward allies in times of imminent war. As a
kaiko
unfolds, allies and enemies alike can assess the strength of their and their hosts’ ability to defend territory. The entire system affects distribution of plants, animals, and people over a large area of the New Guinea Highlands. The Tsembaga pigs truly serve as a social lubricant.
    To own and manage a flock or herd, however small, as an ancient subsistence farmer or herder, changed one’s life dramatically—and one’s relationship with animals. Even goats, sheep, and swine were far more than just flesh and hides. As sources of wealth and social obligation, they shaped human society in new ways. And as we will see with cattle, once herding began, humanity was never the same again.

CHAPTER 6

    Corralling the Aurochs
    Aurochs cavort on the walls of Lascaux Cave in southwestern France—black, drawn in outline, always with menacing, lyrelike horns. Seventeen thousand years ago, these great wild oxen would have flickered and moved in the soft light of fat lamps, symbols of primordial power and the challenges of the hunt. Wild bulls were dangerous prey, the stuff of hunting legend and mythic tales, nimble adversaries capable of killing a hunter with a quick flick of a horn.
    The aurochs (
Bos primigenius)
was one of the largest European herbivores to survive the Ice Age. Some weighed in at around 700 kilograms (1,550 pounds). With their massive, forward-facing horns; large, elongated heads; and quite long, slender legs, these were athletic, fast-moving beasts when aroused. At least three subspecies