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Title: The Extended Family
Author: Elisée Reclus
Date: 1896
Language: en
Topics: family, culture, social ecology, human ecology
Source: *Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus.*
Notes: This essay was published as “La grande famille” in Le Magazine international

Elisée Reclus

The Extended Family

Man likes to live in a dream world. The mental effort required to grasp

reality seems too demanding, and he tries to avoid this struggle by

resorting to ready-made opinions. If “doubt is the pillow of the wise,”

then blissful faith is the pillow of the simpleminded. Once there was a

supreme God who did our thinking for us, willed and acted from on high,

and guided human destiny according to his whims. His power was all that

we needed, and it caused us to accept our inevitable fate with

resignation or even gratitude. This personal God, on whom the meek could

depend, is now perishing in his own temples, and men have to find a

substitute for him. No longer do they have the All-Powerful at their

service. They have only a few words that they try to endow with

mysterious force or magical power—for example, the word “progress.”

Without doubt, man has progressed in many ways. His sensations have

become more refined, his thinking more acute and profound, and his

humanity, embracing a much wider world, has expanded prodigiously. But

no progress can occur without some degree of regression. The human being

grows, but in the process he moves forward, thus losing part of the

terrain that he formerly occupied. Ideally, civilized man should have

kept the savage’s strength, dexterity, coordination, natural good

health, tranquility, simplicity of life, closeness to the beasts of the

field, and harmonious relationship to the earth and all beings that

inhabit it. But what was once the rule is now the exception. Much

evidence suggests that a man with determination and a favorable

environment can equal the savage in all his basic qualities, while also

adding to them by means of a consciousness strengthened by a higher

soul. But how many have gained without losing, who are the equals of

both the primitive of the forest or prairie, and the modern artist or

scholar in the bustling city?

And if sometimes a man of exceptional willpower and exemplary deeds

manages to equal his ancestors in native qualities and even surpass them

in acquired traits, one must still conclude that humanity as a whole has

lost some of its early achievements. Thus the animal world, in which we

find our origins and which instructed us in the art of existence,

teaching us hunting and fishing, techniques of healing and of building

houses, methods of working together and providing for our needs—this

world has become more foreign to us. Whereas today we speak of the

training or domestication of animals in the sense of subjugation, the

primitive thought of his association with animals in fraternal terms. He

saw in these living creatures his companions rather than his servants.

Indeed, during times of danger, especially storms and floods,

animals—dogs, birds, and snakes—took refuge with him.

The Indian woman of Brazil happily surrounds herself with a whole

menagerie, and tapirs, deer, opossums, and even tame jaguars can be seen

in the clearing around her cabin. Monkeys gambol in the branches above

the hut, peccaries root in the ground, and toucans, hoccos,[1] and

parrots perch here and there on the swaying branches, protected by dogs

and large trumpeter birds.[2] And this entire republic functions without

the need for an ill-tempered mistress to deal out insults or blows. The

Quechuan[3] shepherd, crossing the plateau of the Andes with his llama

and its packs, gains the cooperation of his beloved animal only through

strokes and encouragement. If there were a single act of violence, the

llama, his personal dignity offended, would lie down angrily and refuse

to get up. He walks at his own pace, never accepts a burden that is too

heavy, pauses for a long time at dawn to gaze upon the awakening sun,

expects to be wreathed with flowers and ribbons or to have a banner

waving above his head, and wants the women and children to pet and

stroke him when he arrives at their huts. Isn’t it also true that the

horse of the Bedouin, another primitive, stays in the tent and the

infants sleep between its legs?

The natural sympathy existing between all these beings brought them

together in a pervasive atmosphere of peace and love. Birds perched on a

man’s hand, as they still do today on the horns of bulls, and squirrels

frolicked within reach of the farmer or shepherd. Primitive people do

not even exclude animals from their political communities. In Fazokl,[4]

when the subjects depose their king, they always address the following

speech to him: “Since you are no longer acceptable to men, women,

children, and donkeys, the best thing you can do is to die, and we will

help you do so.”[5] Long ago, men and animals kept no secrets from one

another. “The beasts talked,” according to the fable, but more

significantly, man understood. Are any stories more charming than those

of southern India, which are perhaps the oldest traditional tales in the

world, and which were passed on to the Dravidian invaders by the

indigenous peoples? In these stories, elephants, jackals, tigers, lions,

jerboas,[6] snakes, crayfish, monkeys, and men converse freely, thus

forming, so to speak, the great common school of the primitive world.

And in this school, the real teacher is usually the animal.

In these early periods, alliances between men and animals included a

much greater number of species than are found today in the domestic

sphere. Geoffroy St. Hilaire mentioned forty-seven of them that formed,

so to speak, the entourage of man. But how many species that he failed

to mention also lived long ago in intimacy with their youngest brother!

He included neither the many companions of the Guarani[7] Indian woman,

nor the snakes that the Dinka of the Nile[8] call by name and share

their cows’ milk with, nor the rhinoceroses that graze with the other

livestock on the meadows of Assam,[9] nor the crocodiles of the

Sindh,[10] which Hindu artists decorate with religious symbols.

Archeologists have demonstrated conclusively that the Egyptians of the

Old Kingdom[11] had among their herds of domestic animals three or even

four species of antelope, and one ibex. After having been incorporated

into human communities, all of these animals have now become wild again.

Even hyena-like dogs and cheetahs were transformed by hunters into loyal

companions. The Rig-Veda extols carrier pigeons, “swifter than the

clouds.” It sees in them gods and goddesses and directs that sacrifices

be made and libations poured for them. And surely the mythical story of

the Flood reminds us of our early ancestors’ skillful use of the swift

homing pigeon. Noah sent forth from the Ark a dove that explored the

expanse of waters and the emerging land, and brought the olive branch

back to him in its beak.

Today’s domestication of animals exhibits in many ways moral regression

since, far from improving animals, we have deformed and corrupted them.

Although through selective breeding we have improved qualities such as

strength, dexterity, scent, and speed in racing, as meat-eaters our

major preoccupation has been to increase the bulk of meat and fat on

four legs to provide walking storehouses of flesh that hobble from the

manure pile to the slaughterhouse. Can we really say that the pig is

superior to the wild boar or the timid sheep to the courageous

mouflon?[12] The great art of breeders is to castrate their animals and

create sterile hybrids. They train horses with the bit, whip, and spur,

and then complain that the animals show no initiative. Even when they

domesticate animals under the best possible conditions, they reduce

their resistance to disease and ability to adapt to new environments,

turning them into artificial beings incapable of living spontaneously in

free nature.

Such degradation of species is itself a great evil, but civilized

science goes even further and sets about exterminating them. We have

seen how many birds have been wiped out by European hunters in New

Zealand, Australia, Madagascar, and the polar archipelagos, and how many

walruses and other cetaceans have already disappeared![13] The whale has

fled the waters of the temperate zone, and soon will not even be found

among the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean. All the large land animals are

similarly threatened. We already know the fate of the aurochs[14] and

the bison, and we can foresee that of the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus,

and the elephant. Statistical estimates place the annual production of

elephant ivory at eight hundred tons, which means that hunters kill

forty thousand elephants, without counting those that are wounded and go

deep into the bush to die. How far we have come from the Singhalese of

long ago, for whom “the eighteenth science of man was to win the

friendship of an elephant!” How far from the Aryans of India, who

assigned to the tamed colossus two Brahmins as companions so that it

might be taught to practice the virtues worthy of its breed!

On a plantation in Brazil, I once had the opportunity to observe the

great contrast between the two modes of civilization. The owner took

pride in two bulls that he had purchased at great expense in the Old

World. One of them, which had come from Jersey, was pulling at a chain

that passed through his nostrils, bellowing, fuming, pawing the ground

with his hoof, pointing his horns, and looking menacingly at his keeper.

The other, a zebu imported from India, followed us like a dog and with a

sweet look begged to be petted. We poor, ignorant, “civilized” people,

cooped up in our houses, distant from a nature that we dread because the

sun is too hot or the wind too cold—we have even completely forgotten

the meaning of the holidays that we celebrate. Though Christianity

ignores the fact, all of them—Christmas, Easter, Rogation Days, and All

Saints’ Day—were originally nature festivals. Do we understand the

meaning of the traditions that place the first man in a beautiful garden

where he walked freely with all the animals, and that have the “Son of

Man” born on a bed of straw, between the ass and the ox, the two

companions of the plowman?

Although the distance that separates man from his animal brethren has

widened, and though our direct interactions with species that remain

free in the wilderness has diminished, it nevertheless seems clear that

at least some progress has occurred, thanks to our closer relationship

with domesticated animals not used for food. Without doubt, dogs have

been to some degree corrupted. The majority are, like soldiers,

accustomed to beatings and have become loathsome beings that tremble

before the whip and cringe at the threatening words of the master.

Others are trained to be vicious, like the bulldogs that bite the calves

of poor people or go for the throats of slaves. Still others, those

“greyhounds in jackets,” take on all the vices of their

mistresses—greediness, vanity, lust, and haughtiness. And the dogs in

China, which are bred to be eaten, are of unsurpassed stupidity. But if

a dog is truly loved and raised with kindness, gentleness, and nobility

of feeling, doesn’t it often realize a human or even superhuman level of

devotion and moral goodness?

Cats have known much better than dogs how to maintain their personal

independence and their distinctive character, so that we make alliances

with them rather than taming them. Haven’t they made almost miraculous

intellectual and moral progress since they emerged from their original

wild state in the forests? There is no human sentiment that they do not

from time to time understand or share, no idea that they do not intuit,

no desire that they do not anticipate. Poets have imagined them as

magicians. And indeed, they do seem at times to be more discerning than

their human friends in their foresightedness. And don’t the “happy

families” exhibited by showmen at fairs demonstrate that rats, mice,

guinea pigs, and many other little creatures wish to attain, along with

man, the great union of happiness and kindness? Every prison cell is

soon transformed into a school for small animals—rats and mice, flies

and fleas— provided the guards do not set things in order. The story of

Pellisson’s spider is well known.[15] The prisoner had regained his love

of life, thanks to the little friend whose trainer he had become. But a

guardian of order appeared, and with the avenging boot of official

morality, crushed the creature that had come to console the poor wretch!

All of these facts demonstrate man’s enormous resources for exerting a

positive influence over the entire living world, which he now leaves to

the mercy of fate and fails to connect to his own life. Some day our

civilization, which is so fiercely individualist and divides the world

into as many little belligerent states as there are private properties

and family households, will finally collapse, and it will be necessary

to practice mutual aid to assure our common survival. Some day the quest

for friendship will replace the quest for material well-being that

sooner or later will have been adequately provided for. Some day

dedicated naturalists will have disclosed to us all that is charming,

appealing, human, and often more than human in the nature of animals. We

will then reflect upon all the species left behind in the march of

progress and seek to make of them neither our servants nor our machines,

but rather our true companions. Just as the study of primitive people

has made a noteworthy contribution to our understanding of the

civilized[16] man of our own time, so the study of the ways of animals

will help us to delve more deeply into the life sciences, increase our

knowledge of the nature of things, and expand our love. Let us look

forward to the time when the deer emerges from the forest and, looking

at us with its dark eyes, comes before us to be petted, and the bird,

aware its own beauty, triumphantly perches on the shoulder of a beloved

human companion, asking her for its share of love.

[1] Local name for several birds of the family Cracidae, found in

Guiana. They are also called curassows.

[2] The Agami Heron, Agamia agami, is sometimes considered the most

beautiful of all New World herons. Its range is in tropical lowlands

from southeast Mexico south on the Pacific slope to Ecuador and on the

Atlantic slope to northern Bolivia and Amazonian Brazil. It is noted for

its reclusive nature and relatively inaccessible habitat. See Emmet Reid

Blake, Manual of Neotropical Birds (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1977).

[3] Member of an Amerindian group of Quechua speakers, primarily in the

Andean region of South America.

[4] The Fazokl or Fazogli is a region in the eastern Sudan, near the

border with Ethiopia. It is located in the foothills of the Abyssinian

plateau and is crossed by the Blue Nile. The region was inhabited

primarily by the Shangalla tribes, with later Funj and Arab immigration.

[5] Reclus cites “Letters from Egypt.” He is referring to Letters from

Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Peninsula of Sinai, trans. Lenora and Joanna B.

Horner (London, 1853) by Karl Richard Lepsius (1810–84), a German

philologist and Egyptologist.

[6] Any of several jumping rodents of the family Dipodidae, with long

hind legs and a large tail.

[7] Tribal people of the Tupian family of Central South America,

including Brazilian Amazonia.

[8] A pastoral people of Sudan.

[9] A state of northeast India.

[10] The Sindh is a region in the northwestern part of the Indian

subcontinent. It is now one of the four provinces of the Islamic

Republic of Pakistan.

[11] 2575–2150 B.C.e.

[12] A wild sheep of the mountainous regions of Corsica and Sardinia.

[13] Reclus says “other cetaceans”; however, the walrus is a pinnaped,

not a cetacean.

[14] Extinct large, long-horned wild oxen of the German forests.

[15] Paul Pellisson-Fontanier (1624–93) was a French attorney and writer

who was imprisoned in the Bastille.

[16] Reclus says “l’homme policé.” The French thus has a connotation of

being “policed” or supervised.