Man and his customs

Front matter

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

HOW THE WORLD GREW UP

Contents

I What Is Custom? 11

Are customs important? What are some common customs? How did customs begin? Who started the customs? How did new customs start? How did customs change? How can a custom become a law? What happens if customs are broken?

Do all customs seem natural? Are our customs better than those of other people?

Chapter I WHAT IS A CUSTOM?

A MAN who has made a study of human customs tells us that if people suddenly forgot all the knowledge and habits they had learned, their minds would still be just as good as ever. But all would be so helpless that in one month nine-tenths of them would die, and in six months practically all that were left would be dead.

We simply could not learn over again fast enough all the inventions and customs that now make life so easy and pleasant for us. We should die of cold or starvation before we had time to find out how to do the countless things that today we seldom think of because they have become so natural to us.

When you got up this morning you dressed, you washed your face and hands, and you

Are customs important?

What are some

common

customs?

brushed your teeth. Then you sat down at a table and ate your breakfast. Your food was placed before you in different kinds of dishes, and in eating the meal you used a knife, a fork, and a spoon. And later in the day you did all sorts of things in ways that have become habits.

But did you stop to think why you acted like that? Why did you take the time and trouble to see that your hands were clean before eating? Why did you sit, instead of stand, to eat? Why did you use a fork instead of your fingers? Why do you dress in certain kinds of clothes—shoes that lace, stockings that pull on around the legs, shirts that button?

If we stop to think about it we will find that every day of our lives all of us do many things without knowing exactly why. Why do we do these things? There must be a reason.

The answer is this: we do these things be¬ cause everyone else does them. We do them because they make living easier and pleasanter. We do them without thinking because when we were very young we learned to do them

WHAT IS CUSTOM?

from our parents, neighbors, and friends. In other words, we do such things because it is the custom to do them. And every people believes that its ways of doing things are the right and best ways.

Custom, then, must be a strange and power¬ ful thing to make thousands, even millions of people do the same things every day without even wondering whether or not they are the right things to do.

Long ago when there were only a few peo¬ ple on earth they probably did not wash their hands and faces before breakfast. We are sure they did not brush their teeth. The only clothes some of them wore were strings of beads, made from shells or stones, around their waists. Others, who lived in a colder climate, wore the skins of wild beasts which they had killed. Those who wore the beads knew that beads were the right kind of clothes to wear be¬ cause the important people they knew wore them. It was the custom. And those who wore wild animal skins felt the same way. In their

How did customs begin?

Who started the customs?

family and in their tribe it was customary to wear animal skins. It was the right thing to do, then, because it was the custom.

Somebody had to start these customs, of course. There is no way to tell exactly who started them and exactly how they were started. We can only guess at their beginning.

At first in the warmer places people prob¬ ably wore no clothes at all. Then one day some man or woman picked up an unusual stone or shell. It might have been a queer shape, or a pretty color. This stone was dif¬ ferent enough from other stones to make the finder want to keep it.

Probably because it would be easier to keep if it were tied to something, the stone was then tied to a piece of tough grass or vine, or a tough root. And then, because the earliest people had no houses and no safe place to keep things, the man with the fancy stone tied it around his wrist, or his neck, or his waist.

Perhaps he found several other pretty stones tied them with the first. Then someone

Soon everyone was wearing heads

WHAT IS CUSTOM?

in his family or tribe noticed the new deco¬ ration, liked it, found another pretty stone and tied it to a vine, and wore it.

Soon everyone in the family and in the tribe was wearing beads made of shells and stones. By this time it was a custom to wear them. Anyone who did not have on his beads would have felt undressed. He would have been a little worried because he was not like all the rest.

When the first clumsy tools were made, when the first animal was killed, when the first fire was built, when the first food was cooked, when the first house was made— every one of these things started new customs. All of these things were very important to the people who had just learned about them. Here was a new idea, or a new way of doing things that was better than the old.

Man’s first weapon was probably a clumsy club, a limb that he had torn from a tree. With this he could protect himself and kill some animals for food. But think how much

How did new customs start?

How did customs change?

better off he was when he thought of sharp¬ ening a hard, flinty rock, and fastening it to the end of his club.

Using a club for protection and for hunting was a custom. When a man made an ax of the club by fastening a rock to one end, he was changing an old custom to a new one. The new ax, he found, was much better than the old club. So he told his father, and his brothers, and the other members of the tribe. Soon they were all turning their clubs into axes. They all found that killing animals was easier with the new weapon. After that they always used axes. Hunting with stone axes had become a custom.

So it was with building fires, and cooking foods, and building shelters. Someone dis¬ covered something new or a new way to do things. Probably he hadn’t been thinking about it. It is more likely that these new ideas were discovered by accident or were learned from neighboring tribes who had made the discovery in some way.

WHAT IS CUSTOM?

Once the new way of doing things was found, the other members of the group imitated it if they found it good. After that How they told their children about it. The chil- they dren grew up doing things in the way they had been told. They told their children, who told their children. And these last children followed a custom that was started long be¬ fore they were born. Probably it was years and years before someone else found a new and better way of doing the same thing, or before the old custom was changed to a new.

So while we can only guess at the actual beginning of all the customs of the first people on earth, we can be sure of the way these customs were learned and remembered. The younger members of the family, and the younger members of the group or tribe, de¬ pended on the older ones to tell them how to do things.

The older men and women had had more experience. They knew and remembered things that had been told them by their own

T hey told their children about it

Is respect a custom?

Are laws customs?

parents. Thus it was always the older ones who were respected and their ways followed.

The little boy looked up to and admired his father. When he played games he probably pretended he was hunting and killing wild animals, just like his father. The little girl admired her mother, and watched her so that she might learn to cook food and to string beads.

The father and mother in turn respected the grandfathers and grandmothers of the family and the tribe. This made another custom. For it is as customary today as it was in the first few thousand years on earth, to respect those who are older than we are. It is a custom to respect and love those who teach us the cus¬ toms we must learn.

Some customs do not always stay just cus¬ toms. Some of them grow into laws. Even the earliest people had customs that were almost laws, or that became laws. They were not written as our laws of today are, but one was punished if one did not obey them.

A member of a tribe, if he wanted a wife,

WHAT IS CUSTOM?

might capture any girl or woman he wanted and keep her as long as he could. He may have had to use his club to get her to go with him or stay with him. If he were stronger than she, then he succeeded in keeping her.

If the girl’s family and her own tribe did not like to have her dragged off to live with another tribe they made war upon the man and his tribe to get her back.

Finally some of the tribes decided that it would save life and bloodshed if the men picked their wives from certain other tribes who would agree not to fight about the mat¬ ter. Or a man might purchase his wife. Thus we have a custom that grows into a rule, or law. A man might capture a wife from certain tribes and be sure there would be no war. If he was daring or reckless enough to capture a woman from one of the tribes outside the agreement, then his own fellow tribesmen were not bound to help him if his wife’s family and tribe sought revenge. He would have to take the punishment himself.

How can a custom

become a law?

What happens if customs are bro\en?

Today we have marriage laws. These laws say that men and women cannot be married until they are of a certain age. One must have a license to be married. The marriage may be performed only by ministers or priests or certain officers of the law. After the marriage is performed it must be recorded in the books kept by the government for that use.

This seems a long way from the time when a man got a wife simply by capturing her or buying her. But our marriage laws have really grown very slowly from the first rules about picking out a wife.

As long as people have the same customs, these customs are enough to keep others from doing wrong. And when someone does some injury to another, an injury which is against the customs, those who are offended or the whole group punish the offender.

This custom has grown into a law which protects us all. It is against the law to kill another person. But when someone does kill another, the dead person’s family is not re-

WHAT IS CUSTOM?

sponsible for punishing the offender. The gov¬ ernment takes charge, finds out who did the killing, and punishes the person who did it. No one need punish the wrongs done him when there are laws and governments to do it for him.

Most of the customs of early people seem very strange to us. Even the customs of other people living today seem queer. In France or Holland or Germany people eat food tha* is not quite like ours. In India and Japan and China the food and customs of eating it seem even stranger to us. We think the styles of clothing in other countries are funny and uncomfortable compared to our own. We think them interesting but amusing. And we think them amusing because all of us think that our own customs in dress and food and conduct are just a little better than those of the Japanese, the Chinese, or the Hindu.

The strange part about this is that the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Hindu think exactly the same way about each other and about us. Each one believes that his own

The government ta\es charge of punishing

Do all customs seem natural?

Are our customs better than those of other peoples?

customs are the best ones. And they are. That is to say, they are the best for him.

Every tribe of people, every little group of farmers, every little town and settlement, every country—all developed their own ways of doing things. And after a time, when this way of doing things became common to all, it became a custom.

So it is that the customs we have, no matter how different they are from those in other parts of the earth, are good customs for us, because our kind of people made them, and they are the best we know, although some day we may find better ones.

Chapter II THE CUSTOM OF OWNING THINGS

E VERYONE has certain things that are his very own. Even tiny babies soon get the idea that certain toys are theirs and will cry if someone else, even another baby, picks them up. All of us have clothes that were bought or made especially for us. Most of us have books that are our own. We call these things possessions or property. And whether we have worked to earn them or whether they have been given to us, we like the feeling that we own them.

It seems strange that there was a time on earth when people did not own anything. Of course this was at the very beginning. People had no clothing to own because they did not wear any. They had no houses to live in and own; they slept at night in trees. It is likely

Does everyone own things?

What were the first things owned?

they didn’t very often sleep in the same tree, so that they never got the feeling that a par¬ ticular limb in a certain tree was their own. Probably the tribe owned everything at first.

Having no homes, of course, when they first got the idea of owning a thing, the thing had to be something they could carry with them. It is probable that the clubs men used for protection were the first things that were owned. Pretty or unusual shells or stones were probably owned about the same time. The stone or shell was small and could be carried easily, especially if tied to a vine or root. Probably the finder of the stone or shell thought there was magic in it, be¬ cause it was different from the others he had seen. After he had carried it for a while and it had been admired by others in the tribe, then he was sure there was magic in it.

By this time he liked it more than ever. He knew it was something worth having because other people had admired it. He was beginning to get the feeling of ownership,

THE CUSTOM OF OWNING THINGS 2S and it would take a great deal to part him from that stone or shell.

As the world grew a little older and the first people grew more thoughtful, they began to see magic and spirits in many such objects— feathers, tufts of fur, bones, animal teeth. As soon as people thought these things had magic in them they became very valuable things to own. Everybody wanted them because they would keep the evil spirits away. Evil spirits, they thought, were what made people sick. They were also supposed to chase the animals away, so that the hunting was bad, and to keep fish from being caught.

Most of the little objects were worn as ornaments. That way the owners were less likely to lose them, and when wearing them they would be guarded all the time from the evil spirits.

When people began making tools, stone axes, fish hooks, and arrow heads, these all became valuable as property, too. There was so little to work with that it took days or

How did magic start?

What things are prized most?

weeks to shape a stone for an ax.. After a man had spent that much time making one tool he was naturally careful to keep it in his possession. It was only natural for him to feel that probably his ax was better than others, too, after he had put so many hours and such hard work into the making of it.

Even today we find that we are very care¬ ful of some of the things we own. Some boys have pocket knives which they would not trade for anything. Carpenters and other workmen have some tools that they like very much, and which seem to do better work for them than others do. A woman who does a lot of sewing will probably like one pair of scissors better than any other because they seem to cut better. These feelings, the same today as when the world was very young, make tools valuable to the people who own and use them.

Sometimes one man could make better ax heads than another. Since having a good ax made it possible to kill more animals, and

People came to the man who made good axes and offered things in exchange

How did trading begin?

to chop off more tree branches for fires, the maker of axes would become an important man in the group. Others would come to him to ask for one of his axes. We can imagine how they bargained in their queer talk that was mostly grunts and gestures.

“I need one of your axes.”

“But I need them too. I spent many hours on them. Make your own axes.”

“But your axes are better than mine. Look, I have brought all these fishhooks. See how well they are made. I caught many fish with them yesterday. I will give you two of these for the ax you have in your hand.”

“No. It took me much longer to make this ax than it took you to make those fishhooks.”

“Three fishhooks then for the ax.”

“Not enough. But if you will give me the feather and shell you wear, along with the fishhooks, you may have the ax.”

Probably they were not able to strike a bargain that day. The man with the fish¬ hooks was very proud of the feather and

THE CUSTOM OF OWNING THINGS 29

shell. Had they not kept him well and strong?

And had he not killed a great animal soon after he started wearing them?

In the end if he decided he wanted the line ax more than the magic feather and shell, there would be a trade. Probably the first trade was between neighboring tribes because one tribe had things which the other needed and could not make.

This is how buying and selling property Was money started. For thousands of years after people used in tradin z ? started trading there was no money as we know it today. People sold things and bought things, but they did it by barter or trade. This means that they exchanged some property they owned for something they wanted.

Naturally, this led to the use of some very curious things for money. The Greenland Eskimos laughed at gold and silver coin when they were first offered it in exchange for animal skins. They would rather have had steel, which was more useful to them.

Some people have used salt for money.

What \inds of money have been used?

Others have used cloth, beads, tobacco, or coffee. One tribe of people used fishhooks, because fishhooks were their most important tool. Stones, shells, cattle, pigs have all been used to buy other things. Pieces of metal, furs, slaves, sugar, whale teeth, iron spades, brass wires, cakes of beeswax have all been used, too. In some parts of the earth many of these things are still used. And there are still many places in this country where farmers bring their butter and eggs to the store in town and trade them for coffee, sugar, tea, other things to eat and drink, and clothes to wear.

All of us have pasted a postage stamp on a letter. But did you ever stop to think that the postage stamp is a kind of money? People used to have to pay actual money for the postage due on a letter when it was delivered to them. Now we paste a little stamp on our letter and it is taken wherever we want it to go, by train or boat or airplane. The stamp is really a kind of money that gets mail delivered.

THE CUSTOM OF OWNING THINGS 31

In some towns and cities we buy street-car tickets and use them instead of money to ride on street cars. Most of us have seen milk cards that are marked off or punched as we get our milk, or tickets that conductors punch in exchange for a ride on a train.

It is certainly easier for us to do our buying and selling than it was for the people who had no money. We work, or our parents work, and are paid money for working. We take this money to the stores to buy food and clothing and other things we need.

We can buy houses to live in or pay rent to live in them. We buy furniture to put in them. We buy books and radio sets and tickets for the theater.

Think how much more difficult it would be if for everything that we needed we had to trade some other piece of property that we owned.

We have found that using money is the easiest way to buy and sell. To every one who lives in this county, a dime is worth ten

Why is money a help in buying and selling?

Is using money a custom?

cents and a dollar is worth ten dimes. We have things made even easier by the use of paper money. Think how your pockets would be loaded if you were to carry ten or twelve silver dollars. We can carry that amount in paper money without any trouble, and always know that the paper money is just as good as the coins would be.

Using money for exchange is a custom with us. It is a custom with all the civilized people on earth. All money is not the same in value, for in different countries different kinds of money are used. But it is all used as we use it: to buy and sell. And everywhere that money is used its use grew out of the custom of owning things.

Something else that grew out of the custom of ownership, and of buying and selling, is a system of weights and measures. It generally does not occur to us when we buy a pound of sugar, a dozen eggs, a ton of coal, or a yard of cloth that there was once no sure way of measuring the things that we use.

A yard was the distance from his nose to his thumb

THE CUSTOM OF OWNING THINGS 33

Such a system for measuring was not worked out until long after people learned to use figures. In fact, until quite recent times, people were still using very rough ways of measur¬ ing things. To measure length they used the palm of the hand (that is, the width of the hand), the foot, and the “cubit”, or the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. Since no two persons would measure exactly the same for any of these, we can see that this way of measuring was just a little better than guessing.

There came a time, of course, when people realized that their customs for measuring were bad, and slowly they changed the customs. One of the kings of England set the yard measure that we use today. It was the distance from the point of his nose to the end of his thumb. For a long time people used a foot measure that was over thirteen inches long.

Ways of measuring weights came a little later when another English king said that thirty-two grains of wheat should weigh one

What are weights and measures?

Why are they important customs?

pennyweight, that twenty pence (English pennies) should weigh one ounce, and that twelve ounces should be one pound. This custom kept on changing, too. Now we say that sixteen ounces make one pound.

A very important thing about the custom of measuring things correctly is that it has made it possible for inventors, scientists, and machine workers to measure things to a thousandth of an inch. This is quite different from merely guessing. Because of it we can have such things as automobiles, airplanes, telescopes, and many important things that we use every day because these things have to be made according to careful measurements in order to work correctly.

Chapter III E VERYBODY, as a rule, has to work

Young children, when they reach a certain age, must put away their toys. Little h wor\ a girls like to help their mothers with the house- custom? work. Small boys generally have certain things to do every day to help their fathers. As soon as we go to school we have to work to learn things. When we are through with school we work to earn a living. Before we are old enough to earn a living for ourselves, someone else has been working to earn it for us.

The hats, the shoes and stockings, the dresses and coats, everything we wear means a certain amount of work that someone has done. Everything we eat means work. Everything we must have to live and be com¬ fortable means work for somebody.

Has it always been so?

We are taught to like work and not to be ashamed of it. Even people who have so much money that they would never need to work again often keep right on working because they like it. Work is now a general custom.

People have not always thought work was a fine thing. Some tribal folk thought work tiresome—that is, such work as plowing the ground to grow food, and making gar¬ ments—and unworthy of men. That was the work for women to do. The men, they thought, being brave and strong, were not meant to be doing such things as putting seeds in the ground. They should be out hunting wild and fierce animals, or fighting other tribes of men just as wild and fierce as the animals.

So it was that to women fell the work of scraping the animal skins and stretching them out to dry. The women had to make them into clothes to wear. They also had to prepare the meat for eating. They had to gather wood for the fire and see that the fire did not go out. They had to make the clumsy dishes that were used to store food. They had to scratch the ground with sticks and plant seeds so that food might grow near their homes.

Sometimes women even made or helped make the spears and arrow-heads that the men used to hunt with, although this was usually thought to be part of the hunting and men might do it.

This sounds, of course, as if the women had to work very hard. They did. But it does not mean that the men led an easy life. Their lives were in constant danger, for their weapons were very clumsy and the beasts they had to kill for food were often very strong and savage. There was always the danger that some wild beast might pounce upon a hunter and kill him before he could even try to use his ax or spear. To the men, too, fell the duty of protecting the women and children. What is done by the men in

The men were in great danger, jor beasts were strong and savage

Are customs of wor\ ali\e the world over?

a'

Is tvor\ a good custom?

one tribe may be done by women in another.

In some places men found that animals could help them in their work, and in other places they used captured men from other tribes whom they held as slaves.

Even much later, when the world had grown more civilized, there was still some people who thought it degrading for men to work. The Greeks, who were very wise people for their time, thought that to work for money was unworthy. To them it was much more important for a man to spend his time in study so that he might always be learning more and more.

The Romans, too, thought it was not right for a man to work. To work for money would have made them ashamed. By fighting they could take property from other people. And that, they thought, was a much finer way of getting possession of the things they needed or wanted. Women and slaves did the work at home.

Only in the last few hundred years has it become a custom to work. Now, instead of despising work we respect it as something fine and noble. Nobody is ashamed of work¬ ing; rather, we are proud of it. For we know that by hard work even the poorest of us may become better off. All of us have a chance to get some of the things we want most if we are willing to work hard for them.