melken, Milch, Molke [Re: Of cows and living]

> Now that we're on it, I've followed the discussion on milk and
> related subjects with great interest and I wonder if any member of
> the list has anything to say on the following problematic points:
>
>
> (1)
>
> Other mammals than cows produce milk too, notably humans, goats,
> sheep and equids, such as horses and donkeys (not to speak of
> milklike substances produced by plants). Chances are that even pre-
> neolithic cultures had/have ways of referring to human milk. On

the

> Balkans, goats' milk used to be a matter of life and death for the
> poorest people. As a basis for the production of cheese, sheep's

milk

> still holds an important position in many parts of the world,
> beginning with France. Is there any reason to assume that words

for

> milk tend to refer primarily or preferentially to cows' milk?
>

The association of OC *lak "kumiss" and OC *lyak "feed (animal);
lick", and afaIk also archaeology seems to indicate that cows were
the first to be milked.

>
> (2)
>
> One of the disadvantages of cows' milk as compared with goats' and
> sheep's milk is that humans are allergic to it. For cows' milk to
> become important in the diet of a group, the people in question

first

> have to develop resistance to the allergenic component in it. Does
> anybody know when that resistance started developing and where?
>

Some aneccdotal evidence: the dentist who replaced of my mercury
fillings, in which he specialised, told me he never had a mercury-
poisoned patient who hadn't also become gluten- and lactose-
intolerant. Gluten-*tolerance* is caused by an error in the immune
system rendering it unable to react to some sub-sequence of gluten
(of which I forgot the name). Perhaps there is a common component in
gluten- and lactose-intolerance.

> (3)
>
> Some members of the list have equated the rise of cows' milk as an
> element in the diet of certain groups with the moment cattle were
> domesticated. To me that seems rash because there may well have

been

> a considerable time lag even apart from the time lag dictated by

the

> need to get rid of our allergy to cows' milk.

Not allergy, intolerance. No violent reaction, only you get drowsy
and unwell.

>
> (4)
>
> Domesticated cattle were among the beasts the earliest European

food

> producers brought with them when they immigrated from Turkey not

long

> before or after 7000 BC. Is there any information how long cattle

had

> been domesticated by that time?

There are some intriguing similarities in words for "curve; round"
and "horn" stretching between Semitic, IE, Sino-Tibetan and
Austronesian.

>I vaguely recall reading that there
> have been at least three "domestication events" of cattle: one
> somewhere in western Asia, one a lot more to the east and one in
> Africa. Is that still the understanding of the experts?

You're not confusing it with rice agriculture, of which something
similar is said?


Torsten