Dragaera

domesticated animals

Tue Feb 3 16:56:55 PST 2004

your very first problem is that you are reading something written by 
Jared Diamond. keep the salt shaker handy.


>I'm half-way through Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by
>Jared Diamond, and I'm struck by the similarity between the implicit
>agreement made between humans and wolves in 10,000 BC which led to their
>domestication, and the explicit agreement made between Vlad and Loish's
>mother (and later, between Vlad and Rocza), ie: help me hunt, in exchange
>for long life & easy meat.  No big surprise there, but it's not often one is
>struck by the thought, "hey, this reminds me of Brust" while reading dense
>history texts.
>
>Which led me to wonder: Has anyone else in Dragaeran history ever attempted
>to domesticate wild jhereg?  Is the natural lifespan of wild jhereg on a
>(I'll avoid the word "human" here for the sake of clarity) Dragaeran-scale,
>or a Fenarian-scale?  Assuming the later, shouldn't one expect to see, over
>the next couple of reigns, a similar pattern of selective breeding and
>"artifical selection"?  By the time the next Cycle comes around, will there
>be the jhereg equivalents of Dachshunds, Poodles, and Weimaraners running
>around?
>
>marty