The Great Divide

New World of hallucinogenic plants. We may therefore say – exaggerating only slightly – that the core of Old World history was defined largely by the role of the shepherd, whereas in the New World an equivalent role was fulfilled by the shaman. As late as 1972, in Trujillo, Peru, there was an outdoor shamans’ market, where folk medicines were traded. 15 The shaman and the shepherd epitomise the great divide.
    In the Old World, the existence of domesticated mammals released humans from place and that mobility, in conjunction with the pattern of fertility, associated with the weakening monsoon, favoured the development of several ideologies, culminating in the Christian/Greek idea of an abstract but rational god, with ideas of linear time and ‘progress’. In the New World, in Latin America at least, where civilisations appeared, the great violence and destructive capacity of the weather, indeed its increasing frequency of destruction, combined with the essentially vivid characteristics of trance-inducted shamanism, was much more difficult to cope with in a rational way. The gods of the New World were not as manageable, or anywhere near as friendly, as cooperative, as understandable , as those in the Old World. All these factors made the New World a harder place to adapt to than the Old World.
     
    The natural experiment that has been the subject of this book enables us to say that the evidence presented here shows that religions, and worship, are entirely natural responses to the predicaments in which early peoples found themselves. Beliefs and practices such as sham-anism, animal sacrifice, human sacrifice, bloodletting and the consumption of mind-altering drugs are clearly linked – and linked intimately – to the immediate landscape in which early peoples were located. Judaism, Christianity and Islam may be more ‘developed’ religions than most but, nevertheless, they are no exception to this general rule. Religion (or ‘ideology’, a better term) is therefore most fruitfully understood in an anthropological sense, as part of humankind’s attempts to interpret his/her world and the enormous, mysterious forces that shape history, and account for the great divide.

• Appendix 2 •
F ROM 100,000 K IN G ROUPS TO 190 S OVEREIGN STATES : S OME P ATTERNS IN C ULTURAL E VOLUTION
    This appendix, which explores the similarities between the civilisations of the Old World and the New, is available online at:
www.harpercollins.com/books/greatdivide

I NDEX
    The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use your ebook reader’s search tools.
     
    Aaron, 341
    Abel, 44, 349
    Abelard, Peter, 452
    Abraham, 26, 340, 343
    abstract thinking, 366, 369, 379
    Abu-Lughod, Janet, 460
    Abzu, 262
    acacia, 204
    Acapulco, 95
    Acari Valley, 381, 382
    Acha 2 site, 250
    Achuara, 312
    Acosta, Fray José de, 56, 99, 526, 528, 531–2
    Acropolis, 363
    Adad, 99
    Adam, 134, 135
    Aden, 24
    Adena culture, 408–9
    Aegean, 163, 171, 174, 260
    Afghanistan, 5, 24, 36, 86
    Africa, 4, 5,12, 23, 24, 27, 41, 43, 46, 74, 75, 78, 83, 89, 93, 100, 107, 110, 111, 114, 115, 124, 126, 128, 129, 140, 142, 146, 147, 235, 278, 381, 462, 518, 525, 529
    afterlife, 116, 327
    agave, 107
    Agni, 326, 327
    Agnicayana , 328–9
    Agora, Athens, 175
    agriculture/farming, 7, 28, 31, 34, 44, 45, 81–2, 86, 88, 100, 101, 104, 105–15, 124–8, 129, 132, 134, 136, 139–48, 149, 150, 234, 240, 244, 245, 259, 260, 268, 303, 309, 349, 384, 385, 386, 409–10, 455–6, 469, 487, 544
    Agüero, Adriana, 433
    ahimsa , 328
    Ahler, S.A., 73
    Ahuitzotl, 478
    Ahura Mazda, 326, 327
    Ai , 338
    Aiakos, 161
    ‘Ain Ghazal, 131
    Akkadia/Akkadian Empire, 85, 86, 99
    Alabama, 410
    Alaska, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 21, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 71, 136, 441, 533
    Albertus Magnus, 458
    alcohol, 113, 167, 170, 172–4, 177–8, 180, 191, 192, 224, 400, 430, 507, 509 see also beer; wine
    Aldan River, 14
    Aleutian Island/Archipelago, 11, 16, 58
    Aleuts, 11
    Alexandria, 379, 461
    Algeria, 142
    Algonquin tribes, 39, 40, 161
    alleles, 9, 12–13
    alluchu , 387
    alpaca, 111, 112, 313, 385, 543
    alphabet, 100–1, 342, 365–9
    Alps, 114, 167
    Altai mountains, 114, 287
    Altiplano, 187, 487
    Amahuaca Indians, 206
    Amanita muscaria (fly agaric), 53–4, 200, 201
    amaru , 388
    Amato, 382
    Amazon/Amazonia, 50, 52, 101, 103, 124, 182, 188, 196, 205, 208, 213, 220, 226, 228, 229, 234, 257,