Calf doll

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The milking of a cow by means of a calf doll (from calf and doll ; English dummy calf ) is in the ethnographic -reported literature from many countries method by circumvention of the cow (or in the female horse , camel , Yakkuh been attempted), the formation of To stimulate oxytocin so that the milk flow is initiated or the milk yield is increased. This was particularly the case when the calf died or when it was weaned.

The cow is held in front of a calf pupa, which consists of the stuffed hide (peeled skin with hair) of a dead calf, which is brought near the udder or its head. The process is used in a number of ways. It often occurs with the cow bladder . The traveler Peter Kolb already reported on it in his work published in 1719. According to him, the calf doll was also known in Europe at the time.

The process can be found in numerous cultures. It is widespread among many African pastoral peoples , such as the Nuer , but also among Mongols , Kyrgyz people , Kalmyks , in India and Tibet . In the 1930s, the British ethnologist Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard described not only sucking a cow, but also the process of pushing a calf doll (tulchan) to the cow in order to stimulate the cow to produce milk.

literature

  • Peter Kolb : Caput bonae spei hodiernum. That is: Full Description of Good Hope Foretaste. Volkshochschule, Marktredwitz 1975 (reprint of the Nuremberg 1719 edition).
  • Hans Plischke : The cow blowing. An ethnological mishap about Herodotus. In: Journal of Ethnology . Volume 79, Reimer, Berlin 1954, pp. 1-7.
  • Sture Lagercrantz : Contribution of the Ethnography of Africa. Lund 1950 (English).
  • Hubert Kroll: The retention of milk in cattle and its treatment in African shepherd tribes. In: Milchwirtschaftliches Zentralblatt. Volume 57, Issue 22, 1928, pp. 349-350.
  • Hubert Kroll: The Bantu's pets. In: Journal of Ethnology. Volume 60, pp. 247-248.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Sture Lagercrantz : Contribution of the Ethnography of Africa. Lund 1950, p. 44 ff. (With map on the distribution of Africa, also on the distribution of milking with dummy-calves , the "milking with calf pupae").
  2. ↑ Hans Plischke : The cow blowing. An ethnological mishap about Herodotus. In: Journal of Ethnology. Volume 79, Reimer, Berlin 1954, p. 4 ff.
  3. ↑ Peter Kolb : Caput bonae spei hodiernum. That is: Full Description of Good Hope Foretaste. Volkshochschule, Marktredwitz 1975 (reprint of the Nuremberg 1719 edition).
  4. ↑ Hubert Kroll: The retention of milk in cattle and its treatment in African shepherd tribes. In: Milchwirtschaftliches Zentralblatt. Volume 57, Issue 22, 1928, pp. 349-350.
  5. ↑ Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard : Nuer tulchan. Retrieved June 13, 2014 (photo of a calf pup from the Somali Nuer 1935).