Book Reviews 767

ography is misleading. I t is clearly selected and introductory with emphasis primarily on the Old World and to a great extent upon the Near East in that area. This is par- ticularly true in terms of the site reports and literary sources mentioned and un- doubtedly reflects the obvious proximity of the Oriental Institute personnel to the authors. Nevertheless the number of articles included is extensive and the annotations will be most useful to all those interested in the subject. From the archeologists view- point it would have been helpful to have included references to surveys of the native fauna of the major areas of the Old World for use as background material against which to view the spread of the domestic types. Attention should also have been drawn to the serious confusion and problems present in the proliferation of specific names and the archeological readers attention directed to E. T. Shenk and J. H. McMasters Pro- cedure in Taxonomy (Revised by Keen and Muller), Stanford University Press, 1948, or some such discussion in order to encourage a more sophisticated understanding on his part of the problems involved.

This Bibliography provides a welcome addition to a growing body of data and makes a good beginning in organizing the data on domestication. I t makes very clear the need for further work of the same kind and suggests the great value that might come of a major conference devoted to combined regional surveys of the known archeological data and zoological background in relation to linguistic evidence and cultural patterns. Such a coordinated summation would go a long way to end the present state of fragmentary and disconnected presentation of material from culturally and historically related areas.

Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances in the Old World. FREDERICK J. SIMOONS. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1961. xiii, 241 pp., 9 figures, index, 13 maps, notes, references. $6.00.

Reviewed by MARVIN HARRIS, Columbia Uaiversity Writing as a cultural geographer, Simoons provides us with one of the most striking

recent examples of the comparative method gone haywire. Not since the Golden Bough has a great intellectual issue been approached with such a massive disregard of func- tional context. In 122 pages of text (half of the book consists of references, notes, maps and bibliography), Simoons makes mention of the foodways of close to five hundred different societies, including 278 from Africa, 38 from Southeast Asia and 54 from India and Burma. With separate chapters devoted to pigs, chickens, cattle, horses, and dogs, Simoons not infrequently speeds along past the cultural and natural landscape as fast as 15 societies per page.

One might be grateful for this book as a compendium of references, trustworthy or untrustworthy, were it not for the fact that the author actually thinks that he has proved something about food taboos. His thesis is that irrational ideologies frequently prevent the effective utilization of available food resources by compelling men to overlook foods that are abundant locally and are of high nutritive value, and to utilize other scarcer foods of less value (p. 3). If ever there was a subject which requires pains- taking inquiry into total contexts, this is it. Before a conclusion can be reached about resource mismanagement, we must know how widespread the taboo is in a given popu- lation, what technological adjustments would be required to increase the production of the food in question and what ecological consequences would ensue in terms of the existing natural and cultural ecological balance, especially in relation to the other items in the food inventory. Simoons attempts none of this. T o show that a food could be pro- duced in a given environment is woefully inadequate to the task of proving that its pro-

168 American Anthropologist [65, 19631

duction would, in fact, substantially raise nutritional standards. Since Simoons de- liberately turns his back on the functional approach (p. 4), refuses to treat the pro- duction of comestibles as part of a larger energy system, and ignores quantitative data, his conclusion about mismanagement cannot be taken seriously. His treatment of the Indian beef-taboo is typical of the social scientist who delights in the brand of romantic idealism which is not satisfied until it has brought chaos out of order. That Indian cattle are literally milked for all they are worth, that ghee is the basic cooking fat for Hindu India, that cattle dung is a fuel and a building material, that cattle are eaten when they die and that every part of the carcass is put to use, he either summarily dismisses or ignores. Instead, what strikes him as most significant in all this is that the cattle are not slaughtered. Now, even if we suppose that cattle are never slaughtered (a dubious assumption, to say the least), this by itself carries no weight in the argument for mis- management. The slaughtering taboo merely raises the question of whether or not a dairying industry with regular slaughtering is more or less efficient than one without regular slaughtering. Moreover, the question cannot be answered in a vacuum, but must be studied in relation to specific Indian situations. No one knows just how much animal protein and fat is lost in India as a result of the prohibition on slaughtering. Nor does anyone know what would happen to the lower caste carrion eaters if cattle were to be slaughtered and eaten by other castes. Equally unknown is the number of cattle needed for agricultural work and what would be the long-range effect on agricultural productivity if such animals were subject to slaughter during famine periods. Simoons never raises these questions. His treatment of Indian foodways relating to pork is equally uninspiring. It is probably true that swine are relatively rare in India, but does this mean that swine could be produced in large quantities without diminishing the availability of some other comestible? India supports a vast population of scavenger goats and poultry. Under the given techno-environmental conditions, where are the extra calories for pigs going to be found? Note also that goats, like cattle, are a source of both milk and meat. There is not the slightest evidence to indicate that more effort devoted to pork would in fact raise nutritional standards in India. One might just as well argue that the Indians are ruining their health because they dont raise guinea pigs and Muscovy ducks. The absurdity of Simoons position is spelled out for him in China. The Chinese love pork and they produce as much of i t as they can. However, the Chinese masses are a t least as malnourished as the Indian masses. As a matter of fact, India probably has a higher population density than does China.

Simoons handling of dogs, horses, and poultry suffers from similar blindspots, too numerous to mention. This book should nonetheless be read by all those interested in cultural ecology and economic anthropology. The author has unwittingly rendered a service by consistently offering all of the wrong explanations for a large number of im- portant problems.

Siberian Journey: Down the A m w to the Pacijk, 1856-1857. PERRY MCDONOUGH COLLINS. (New edition of A Voyage down the Amoor.) Edited with an introduction by CHARLES VEVIER. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1962. ix, 370 pp., 2 illustrations, index, 3 maps. $6.00.

Reviewed by DOROTHY LIBBY, Indiana University The only reason I can see for the republication of this neglected account of the

1856-1857 journey from St. Petersburg across Siberia to the head waters of the Amur and down that stream to its mouth by Perry McDonough Collins, an American merchant opportunist with sugar plum visions of great commercial expansion and de- velopment possibilities for both the United States and Russia along the Amur valley,