Chapter 9 Seven wild buffaloes, Javanese cattle and yaks

Icons of other cultures ★Wild buffalo Wild buffalo (buffalo) is the most misused word in the animal dictionary. Before the appearance of modern humans, there was no trace of wild buffalo in Europe or North America.Buffalo appeared in Europe, probably not far away 250,000 years ago, but in terms of the time frame of raising animals, there were no wild buffaloes on these continents. The correct name for the so-called buffalo found in the American plains and eastern woodlands should be bison (Bison, Bison bison).The wild buffalo in Europe is better known as the European bison (wisent, Bison bonasus), but it is not a buffalo.What is the difference between buffalo and bison?The difference between them is like the difference between a zebra and a horse, or the difference between a wolf and a fox.Wild buffalo and bison don't have the same genetic makeup, and they're completely different animals.Of course, humans have hunted them in the past, and many cultures have depended on them for their subsistence, but it's surprising and historically interesting that neither species of bison has ever been domesticated.

In Africa, there are Cape/African buffalo, Sycerus caffer, which are sometimes mistaken for "water" buffalo.But the real buffalo came from Asia, which later spawned a very important domestic animal.The South African wild buffalo has never been domesticated by humans, in fact, it is widely recognized as the most dangerous animal in South Africa.Herds of South African wild buffalo obviously feel safe and usually do not actively conflict with humans.But if one of the bulls is left alone, he becomes a terrifying animal, at which point he stalks humans with his famously fearsome obstinacy.If some of the hunter rumors of this century are true, it is no longer incomprehensible why humans did not seriously attempt to domesticate the wild buffalo, or that humans tried but did not record it, and why humans failed so utterly .

★Buffalo The Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) has a wide range, including parts of Pakistan and Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and perhaps from Burma to the Sunda Isles in Indonesia.For thousands of years, Asian buffalo have been exported as domestic animals to Israel, Egypt, Syria, Madagascar, and Italy in the west, and Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Australia, the Philippines, Japan, and The largest Chinese.In addition, they have also reached Central and South America, and there is already an experimental breeding population in Gainesville, Florida.There are now at least ten recognized breeds, with many additional variants or synonymous species.According to worldwide statistics, the current number of domestic buffalo has exceeded 75 million.

Both the wild buffalo and the domestic buffalo (the latter called carabao in the Philippines and kerabou in Indonesia) are huge animals.A large bull, weighing up to 2,500 pounds (about 1,135 kilograms), is uncommon.Given the opportunity, buffaloes roll in the mud, covering themselves in the sticky mud that protects them from the insects that plague them so much.On hot days, both wild and domestic buffaloes will remain submerged in water whenever they can, with only their noses exposed. Apart from their size, there is not much difference between wild and domestic buffaloes in appearance. Their coat color is probably reddish brown or black, and only a few are white. Their outstretched horns are impressive.Viewed in cross section, buffalo horns are triangular in shape and can measure up to five feet long along the outer edge.In addition, both male and female buffaloes have horns.In general, the domestic cow is smaller in body size and horn size than its wild ancestors.

It is logical that domestic buffaloes are not as aggressive as wild buffaloes, since the cows have the size and horns mentioned above, and humans simply cannot use them without being quite docile and submissive.Even the domestic buffalo can be unruly and dangerous at times, but some breeds are more docile than others.Coincidentally encountering wild buffalo in their natural habitat is an unforgettable experience, one that I was lucky enough to have; the close eye contact alone is enough to be creepy.There have been some experimental bred hornless variants, but no matter how good the idea is, it's not very common.

As the name suggests, buffalo need water to wallow in, and without it they find it intolerable.This characteristic more or less confines them to the humid regions of the tropics and subtropics, though they can still be found slightly north or south of these bands.Buffaloes are powerful pulling animals and are very useful in rice cultivation.In fact, without the buffalo, there probably would not have been large-scale rice agriculture, and many rice cultures.For example, in Europe and the United States, people can only see buffalo in zoos, so it is easy to overlook the importance of buffalo in other parts of the world.

In India, buffaloes are listed as a type of domestic cattle, accounting for only 20% to 25% of the total number of domestic cattle, but the milk supply accounts for about 60% of the country's total.A female buffalo produces about three times as much milk as a cow on a regular basis and has half as much fat, resulting in a firmer, longer-lasting, less perishable cream that is slightly greener in color of white. Buffaloes are more disease resistant than domestic cattle and in hot and humid climates it is generally wise to choose buffaloes.It is puzzling that some people in hot and humid regions insist on using domestic cattle when buffaloes are readily available.This may be influenced by Europe, because domestic cattle are a traditional wealth in Europe. It is not only a product and power, but also a status symbol.Colonists always carry a lot of baggage, and tradition is often one of the heaviest and most cumbersome baggage.

We are almost certain that there were buffaloes in India more than 5,000 years ago.Before this time, humans had hunted these giant beasts for their meat, fat, very hard leather and horns, and the husbandry episode here seems to be similar to the breeding of the first domestic cattle from aurochs in Europe There is not much difference in the plot; this behavior must be a bold attempt. There is a connection between man and the buffalo he hunts.Buffalo do gather in herds, although not on the scale of the wild buffalo in Africa, which can gather as many as a thousand in a small valley, but buffalo must have been driven into some kind of trap so that early breeders could control They move without regard to their size, strength, and terrifying horns.With enough care, humans can remove calves from the herd and raise them in captivity, but it is not known exactly where humans get the milk for feeding calves. Maybe he gets it from goats that have been domesticated and bred, and also Learned to express milk.A cylindrical stamp from Mesopotamia around 2500 BC shows half-human, half-god creatures feeding or drinking water buffaloes from jars, showing that the idea of ​​buffalo breeding was early It was fully established at that time.

Man's first management of buffalo must have taken place in some wooded valley on the continent of northwestern India, which also included extensive marshes.These buffaloes provided the same great traction, manure, milk, meat, fat, horns, and excellent hides that the domestic cattle provided to European herders.As long as rice was grown (and rice cultivation began in Lower Egypt, around the time of the Ptolemaic dynasty, long before buffalo appeared there), the buffalo would eventually become an indispensable animal.Rice and buffalo thrive under the same conditions, so combining the best of both worlds to feed the vast human population was a step man had to take.

Large-scale rice planting requires plowing and irrigation, but the hundreds of tons of soil and water required are beyond the reach of human beings. At this time, the tireless and hard-working buffalo just provided labor and pulled plows for human beings. , or pull a trailer loaded with mounds to embankment and control water sources.The same scene is found in China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia; the trapezoidal hillsides are stacked for miles, covered with huge civil dams, large reservoirs, and rice fields that stretch for miles. The westward dispersal of buffalo has been slow and intermittent.They spread to the West very late, mainly because of water.Buffaloes differ from other pack animals (camels, horses, donkeys, steers) in that they cannot travel for extended periods of time on dry land.It is interesting to note that the Romans knew nothing about buffalo, although there was apparently a well-established trade relationship between Rome and India.In modern times, Hungary can be regarded as the pioneer of buffalo husbandry in the north, and the Slavs and Romanians are also quite familiar with buffalo.

Any animal whose current population exceeds 75 million is considered a vitally important livestock; the buffalo has proven to be a vitally important livestock.Whether it is the strength of the buffalo or its milk that has made an important contribution to mankind is still difficult to judge; in the eastern part of its range, the milk of the buffalo is not as valued as it is in the west.In those regions with a long history of buffalo, each product is produced by a different breed of buffalo.While some buffaloes are slaughtered for their hides and others for their meat as part of the ritual, it would be prohibitively expensive to slaughter buffaloes on a regular basis.Perhaps the greatest contribution of the buffalo was the cultivation of rice.Without buffalo and rice, the large populations of Asia and the Indian subcontinent could not have continued to thrive, and thus could not have given birth to the arts and religions that add color to the tapestry of human civilization. ★Yak Wild yaks are currently found in Tibet at altitudes between 6,000 and 20,000 feet.The yak is an extremely huge animal. The male yak can sometimes weigh several tons, and the female yak is only one-third the size of the male yak.The coat color of the yak is dark brown, long and abundant.Due to excessive hunting by local tribes, wild yaks are currently listed as endangered animals. Human breeding of yaks may have begun in the first or second millennium BC, but their wild range did not expand beyond Tibet and China.Domestic yaks are generally smaller than wild yaks, but they provide humans with fur, milk, meat and traction.At a height of six thousand feet, the yak is definitely the single most useful animal of all domestic animals; not only for riding, but also for hard work, whether in deep snow or summer swamps. For them, it's just as easy.Yaks are very stable animals.Infested with flies and resembling unmade beds, they are revered in the hearts of those who depend on them for their products and labor. Hybrids of yak and domestic cattle are quite common in the range of the yak, in Tibet they are called dzo, in China they are called Pianniu in at least one dialect, in Mongolia they are called hainak, in Soviet Russia they are called hainyk.Almost all hybrids are male cattle and female yaks. The male offspring of the hybrids are sterile, but the females can be backcrossed with yaks or domestic cattle.In addition, hybrids are mostly larger than their parents, and hybrid cows also produce more milk than their parents.It is generally believed that hybrid breeds are easier to manage than purebred yaks, so people prefer to use them for pulling plows.In the future, we will probably know more about this domesticated hybrid than we have in the past.In short, most of the unique culture developed in the extremely harsh environment of Tibet should be attributed to the yak. ★Javanese cattle, flat-headed cattle, cattle and Khmer cattle There are many other minor domesticated species within the family Bovidae.Huge wild Javanese cattle still survive in Borneo and Myanmar today, but their numbers are dwindling; war and hunting have always been their eternal enemies.Although male Javanese cattle weighed around a ton, even an animal of this size was no match for the modern weapons that the tribesmen had.Javanese cattle prefer dry and open areas, but they also need bushes for shelter.Javanese cattle are naturally shy, and they probably always have been.Nevertheless, a male Javan may have as many as twenty females. Ladies or bull herds (loose groups of inexperienced bulls, one might call a bachelors club) are ideal for small drives, and with the help of the bush they can be easily led into well-disguised traps.In Java and Bali, the reason why people kept Java cattle, maybe because domestic cattle did not do very well locally, so Java cattle were an accessory, a substitute for domestic cattle, which soon became the standard of civilization .But the Javan cattle was, after all, one of several regional domestic animals that did not make much of an impact outside the range of their wild ancestors. The flat-headed yak may be a domestic animal type of strong and powerful yak, which is still scattered between India and the Indo-China Peninsula, and the Malay Peninsula.The wild type is currently endangered, and due to human encroachment on its habitat, only smaller, domesticated descendants will remain in the future, or even become extinct. Khmer cattle are wild cattle in Southeast Asia, and their livestock-type distribution is limited, only found in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and adjacent areas.The animal was not first known to science until 1937, but the region has been at war since then.Of all the wild cattle, the wild Khmer cattle may be the most threatened animal.The domestic Khmer cattle may be the hybrid offspring of the yak and domestic cattle, while the endangered wild Khmer cattle may be just a wild animal. Livestock such as yaks, Javanese cattle, flatheaded oxen, yaks and Khmer cattle have a very limited impact on the world economy.They were just a recent blip in domestication (about three to four thousand years ago), and seem to have occurred after humans started keeping domestic cattle in pens.They are far better than domestic cattle in their own small world, and at the same time, we should admit, whether they are wild or domestic, they have a considerable contribution.Unfortunately, wild-type species may have been extinct long before humans began to understand their history and their relationship to humans.In the world as a whole, the domestic cattle (aurochs) and buffalo are the animals that have truly changed the face, economy and culture of every continent. There are more than one billion domestic cattle in the world, and buffalo make up perhaps ten percent of the total.The countries leading in cattle production are India, USA, Brazil, China, Argentina, Pakistan, Mexico, Ethiopia and France.Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the number of cattle in its territory ranked third in the world, but among the countries that are now independent from it, there may not be any country that can achieve such a high occupancy rate. If European cattle, common domestic cattle, zebu, Indian cattle, and buffalo are combined, this collection may be the collection of animals that has had the most profound impact on human beings, human culture, and economics.True, goats and sheep came much earlier (humans have been domesticating them almost twice as long as cattle) and are arguably the granddaddy of domestic animals, but the world changed dramatically when cattle joined us. changed, perhaps permanently. Men have fought for cattle, land, and water for them, and cattle thieves have been hanged without trial or shot on the spot; Far more valuable than human life.The reasons for this fact are worth pondering. Assuming you are part of a culture that raises cattle, loyal animals that haul heavy loads for you, provide milk for the elderly, women and children, provide you with manure (sometimes used as building material), or provide you with fuel, In order to start a fire to cook inedible food, such as wheat, millet and rice, etc.At the same time, this animal also allows you to have a larger agricultural land, which is not possible in the original.It is still the animal that assists humans during the sowing and harvesting periods.You eat its flesh, boil its fat, use its horns, and its hide is the most durable leather you know.In addition, cattle can buy brides and are also trade items that are used far and near.Cows give you status, which is difficult for other animals to do.Because of this, maybe you will be completely convinced of the magic and power of cows in this world and other things, such as cows in some cultures, buffalo in others.If you consider that, of all assets, bulls reign supreme, this is not surprising at all.Frankly, a cow is indeed the most valuable thing you can have. Of course, we still have to admit that there is still an unacceptable irony in this.Our debt to domestic cattle is indeed difficult to repay.Today, their meat is a source of protein for many cultures; cream, yogurt, and cheese made from their milk are staples of our modern meals.Cow hide is the standard raw material for the leather industry, and even though humans have invented rubber imitations, we still regard cowhide as a necessity in our lives.The power provided by cattle is still very important in many places, and cow dung is still a valuable item of fertilizer, fuel and building material in countless cultures.The economies of many countries around the world are based on the culture of raising cattle.Every part of a cow that is slaughtered can be used in a variety of industries; cow blood can be used to make steel and pave roads, as can the cosmetics industry, the pharmaceutical industry, bone glue users, pet food manufacturers, etc. Waiting to use a part of them. Even with these contributions, the way cattle are treated by humans around the world remains outrageous.Even in the so-called most civilized countries, all the local churches, synagogues, catholic churches, universities, parliaments, and congresses allow industry to inflict on dogs a cruelty that would be considered socially pathological when inflicted on humans. Treating cattle in a way that would cause public outrage.This is almost one of those very common human behaviors that humans cannot justify under any circumstances.Perhaps only after this behavior is corrected will human beings be entitled to fight for humanity for themselves.