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THE INDIAN JOURNAL OF VETERINARY SCIENCE AND ANIMAL HUSBANDRY [VII, IV
How large the evil is at present may be gauged by the statement given above
that 25,000 square miles are overstocked. ' It has been calculated that this area
is still capable of carrying satisfactorily upwards of two million cattle together
with the same number of sheep and goats, and actually it is being asked at present
to sustain half as many more. Considering the cattle alone, this means that some
1,200,000 cows and heifers drop 600,000 calves every year on to land of which
the carrying capacity is diminishing so that these births must be balanced by at
least the same number of deaths from slaughter, disease, and starvation. By
the most generous estimate 150,000 is the maximum slaughtered or sold for
slaughter, and we cannot avoid the conclusion that an average of at least 200,000
die each year directly or indirectly from starvation. And meanwhile much of
the land is steadily or, in places, rapidly, deteriorating ' [ 5 ].
The primary cause of overstocking is the ordinary desire for wealth acting in
communities where wealth is reckoned principally in terms of stock. Subsidiary
causes are indifference to the future, and ignorance as to the best ways of achiev-
ing the desired wealth. The result is the acquisition by each individual owner of
as many animals as possible with little regard to their quality, less regard to their
standard of nourishment, and no regard to the way they deplete the soil. Such
a state of affairs in a European community would be reprehensible ; in an almost
savage community it is not blameworthy but merely deplorable.
One should not deal with the subject of native-owned stock without bearing
in mind that, at present, to many natives no form of wealth can replace stock. To
quote from Seligman's Races of Africa [ 10 ] : ' It is impossible to exaggerate the
importance of their cattle to the Masai and kindred tribes; not only must their
practical function be considered, but also their ceremonial value, indeed the
prominence that grass has in ritual among these tribes is due to the fact that
it is the food of their beloved animals.
' Among the Suk, and this may be true of the other tribes, cattle are so im-
portant that if an adjective stands by itself the noun it qualifies is always under-
stood to be " cow ". Again, in Suk even the skin of an ox has a different word
to the skin of any other animal, and the verb to drink, if the fluid be milk, is differ-
ent from the word meaning to drink any other liquid, while an ordinary gourd
has a name different from that of one used to collect milk '. Again, on p. 175,
Seligman says : ' Among the Dinka there is a well defined initiation ceremony at
which the father of the young man presents his son with a bull, and it is no
exaggeration to say that the youth attaches himself so strongly to this animal that
the process called by psychologists " identification " takes place ; he will pass
hours singing to and playing with his bull, he will be known to his associates by
the name of his bull, and the death of the latter is a true bereavement. It is not
then surprising that cattle are not killed for meat except on ceremonial occasions,
the diet of the Nilotes being mainly milk and grain '.