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| Who says that all tomatoes have to be the same size? |
It is a crisp and sunny day. The sun, winter nearing, moves across the horizon just above tree top level. The time is just a little over noon.
The boars were out in force last night.
When I went to visit the temple, the herd (my neighbor says he thinks there are fifteen pigs in it), had dug and plowed quite a spot of grass.
I do not know what the pigs were looking for, but there is a depression in the ground where they do their digging. In the spring water collects in the depression and comes up my rubber boots above my ankles. Later in the year the water evaporates and except for slightly plusher grass, the spot is like any other on the field. Perhaps moisture still collects there (underground), and roots grow there better than in other places. The pigs know it.
I suffer the pigs be. They are my warriors against civilization.
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| One can sense if not see that tomatoes are clones. |
I sleep in a double bed. On the side of the bed that abuts the wall, I have six or so books on the sheets. Before I go to sleep, I pick up one or several and leaf through the pages. Some times I read.
Last night, I picked up a book by anthropologist Michael Taussig. The book is called “Mimesis and Alterity” (Routledge). On page 85, Professor Taussig mentions a myth of the Selk’nam society (the original dwellers on Tierra del Fuego in South America), which tells how the men of that society came to fear women so much that they killed them all, then built themselves a “men’s house”. Taussig writes that the story comes to him by way of an Austrian priest and enthnologist by name of Martin Gussinde, who did interesting field work in Tierra del Fuego at the beginning of the 20th century.
Last night, I picked up a book by anthropologist Michael Taussig. The book is called “Mimesis and Alterity” (Routledge). On page 85, Professor Taussig mentions a myth of the Selk’nam society (the original dwellers on Tierra del Fuego in South America), which tells how the men of that society came to fear women so much that they killed them all, then built themselves a “men’s house”. Taussig writes that the story comes to him by way of an Austrian priest and enthnologist by name of Martin Gussinde, who did interesting field work in Tierra del Fuego at the beginning of the 20th century.
It does not take much imagination (at least not to my way of thinking) to realize that after the Selk’nam men had killed their women, they made raids on the tribes round about them, kidnapped the women there, and brought them to their village. As long as the men lived in the men’s house—and they would do that ‘forever’ as far as they were concerned—the sexual practice was that of a gang bang. I do not believe that this practice changes significantly even if the chief of the Selk’nam gets to have sex first.
After the initial attack, kidnap, and imprisonment, however, the sexual relations between men and women (I imagine here) take a more ritualized or ‘theatrical’ form: sex takes place only during some ‘festival’ during which the participants reach a certain level of intoxication. The intoxication is needed to overcome the familiarity and intimacy that develops between the sexes during the tribe’s daily intercourse with each other after the abductions. Intoxication makes sex between two familiars somewhat less familiar and, in that sense (paradoxically), less brutal and more acceptable to nascent human consciousness.
Why would the Selk’nam men (and by implication men of many other tribes and societies) kill their women and replace them with women abducted from their neighbors?
The answer is that men fear women. As long as the women of the Selk’nam society have grown up with the men in one society, that is to say, as long as there is no radical break or severance between the men and the women of the tribe, the women cause society to be more cohesive than men. This is where women start instructing men.
It is in the geness of women to be socially more cohesive, more responsible. The genes are for mothers, so to speak. Mothers must nurture their children and care for them a long time. It is the body with the womb that becomes attached to its fruit. One may argue that a mother’s love for her children is a form of transformed narcissism. One’s love of one’s self (narcisism) imitates one’s self by transferring that love onto a child.
In a stable society, one that is not under stress of war, or famine, or lack of resources, women transfer their sense of responsibility to men. This can be observed among females of many species. In some primitive tribes men give suck to babies to calm them. I told this to some men friends at one time, and they all made faces that spelled "yetch!"
Such male reactions is why among elephants, for example, the mothers and daughters group together. This enables the females to keep the males on the periphery of the group.
Among lions, where the mothers do not group together, a male may attempt to kill the female’s offspring (if he can get close). The male does this, because a loss of offspring will cause the female to go into estrus (a stage where she is receptive of the male) sooner than she would otherwise. If there are no young in the way (I do not believe that the males actions have anything to do with "improving" his line of descendants), the male lion gets to have sex more often. Having sex more often causes the lion to feel ‘happy’, not to say more powerful.
Among lions, where the mothers do not group together, a male may attempt to kill the female’s offspring (if he can get close). The male does this, because a loss of offspring will cause the female to go into estrus (a stage where she is receptive of the male) sooner than she would otherwise. If there are no young in the way (I do not believe that the males actions have anything to do with "improving" his line of descendants), the male lion gets to have sex more often. Having sex more often causes the lion to feel ‘happy’, not to say more powerful.
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