Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

ariel · 25th November 2017, 01:57 PM

I could not find even a hint of such assertion in this paper, but if you indeed read it somewhere, I (just like you) doubt its veracity. Weapons, no matter how simple, always come first: one needs to defend himself and his family against predators ( animal and human) as a prerequisite for planting turnips. And then he will need weapons to protect his turnips :-) Agriculture is a relatively late occupation of a settled society.

Nomads of Asia had splendid weapons without ever planting a single cabbage patch. Some Chinese martial arts weapons did indeed stem from agricultural implements ( “ fighting hoe”, “ fighting shovel” etc) but those are mostly used by Shaolin monks in the Friday night Kung Fu movie marathons:-)

African sword-like objects are so convoluted and so decorative, that their descent from their horrendously primitive and ( barely) functional agricultural tools and/or fully functional hunting implements seems to be impossible and presupposes some magical or artistic background.

25th November 2017, 01:57 PM	#5
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	I could not find even a hint of such assertion in this paper, but if you indeed read it somewhere, I (just like you) doubt its veracity. Weapons, no matter how simple, always come first: one needs to defend himself and his family against predators ( animal and human) as a prerequisite for planting turnips. And then he will need weapons to protect his turnips :-) Agriculture is a relatively late occupation of a settled society. Nomads of Asia had splendid weapons without ever planting a single cabbage patch. Some Chinese martial arts weapons did indeed stem from agricultural implements ( “ fighting hoe”, “ fighting shovel” etc) but those are mostly used by Shaolin monks in the Friday night Kung Fu movie marathons:-) African sword-like objects are so convoluted and so decorative, that their descent from their horrendously primitive and ( barely) functional agricultural tools and/or fully functional hunting implements seems to be impossible and presupposes some magical or artistic background.