Читать книгу From Monkey to Man, or, Society in the Tertiary Age онлайн

41 страница из 43

It was customary for the Apes, and also for the Men, when they had taken prisoners from each other, to reduce them to slavery, a custom which had arisen, however, only since their separation; for prior to that, they had neither property nor interest in each other’s work; and so neither man nor ape was believed to be worth anything. But, in acquiring property they put value on men as well as on cocoanuts, and kept each other as a treasure where before they had killed each other as a nuisance. Some even went to war for the prisoners, and the more valuable they found men to be the more they fought them, until they soon came to want enemies more than friends, and to like them better than allies. They fought for something instead of against something, and numbered their prisoners rather than their victories. Both sides became kidnappers, instead of warriors, and the principle and practice of slavery was established, as a result of learning the worth of men.

The warrior Oboo, who had brought Orlee to the Lali, was seen all day to hang around the woman in whose charge the child had been placed. Some thought it was on account of his interest in the child; but shrewder apes said it was on account of his interest in the woman. As the newly-arrived child had obtained a mother he thought it ought also to have a father. The female ape did not repel the advances of the warrior, but said that if he would also restore her own child he might be father to both. The mother was, however, much comforted for the loss of her child by this gain of a father for it. The two wanted both to attend to the new child, the result of which was that the child received no attention, which proved serious, as we shall see. For they paid so much attention to each other that they often wholly forgot the child.