1 online resource (xix, 274 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)
SUMMARY
Domestic animals have lived with humans for thousands of years and remain essential to the everyday lives of people throughout the world. In this book, Natasha Fijn examines the process of animal domestication in a study that blends biological and social anthropology, ethology and ethnography. She examines the social behavior of humans and animals in a contemporary Mongolian herding society. After living with Mongolian herding families, Dr Fijn has observed through firsthand experience both sides of the human-animal relationship. Examining their reciprocal social behavior and communication with one another, she demonstrates how herd animals influence Mongolian herders' lives and how the animals themselves are active partners in the domestication process
CONTENT
Part I. Crossing Boundaries: Prologue: life in the Khangai Mountains; 1. Introduction; 2. A Mongolian etho-ethnography -- Part II. The Social Herd: 3. Social spheres; 4. Names, symbols, colours, and breeding; 5. Multi-species enculturation; 6. Tameness and control -- Part III. Living with Herds: 7. In the land of the horse; 8. The cycle of life: birth to death, spring to winter; 9. The domestic and the wild; 10. The sacred animal -- Conclusion: co-domestic lives
