The Fit And Capable

Dr. Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) was honored as the "Father of Anthropology". He carefully studied and classified the fit and capable populations of humanity in every corner of the world in his time into seven groups:

"Savage": (could he get away with that now?) low, middle, and high;
"Barbarian": low, middle, and high, and
"Civilized"

He placed the line of division between savage and barbarian at the point of the manufacturing of pottery. The fact that his high savages could learn to mimic barbarians in the manufacture of pottery upset Dr. Morgan's categories. Being unaware of the physical limitations and physical evolution of the brain, he hastily concluded any man could be educated and become "civilized".

Franz Boas (1858-1942) continued this point of view, and promoted the idea that the difference between the lowest and highest types of men was a simple matter of conditioning. Boas decried the rather harsh classifications of Morgan, and substituted "emerging populations", and "advanced populations", all with the implied understanding that one could be converted into the next higher category by education.

Both of these men made remarkable and objective observations of the populations of the world. In this presentation we will create a synthesis of these observations and relate them to evolutionary principles to gain a better understanding of why these people were as they were, and what can be expected in the future. In the chapters to come, we will follow the progress of a group of people who's culture followed evolutionary principles and, as a result, produced some of the most brilliant people in the world today.

In this chapter, we will substitute "preliterate populations" for Frans Boas' terminology: "emerging populations". We will also keep the term "barbarian", from Dr. Morgan's terminology, because we still act like barbarians. For reasons to be explained, "barbarian" will be transformed into "literate barbarian". We will also add another category called "Steward". It must also be emphasized from the very beginning that any identifiable group of people has a wide range of capabilities among it's members. This is not only confirmed by any tested measurements of any group of humans, but is also a necessary requirement for, and a result of, the evolution of humanity. Due to this, there is always the possibility of finding individuals among an preliterate population who are capable of learning some degree of reading, for instance.

Evolution has no direction. However, in western civilization, the evidence indicates that evolution starts with minimal capabilities and gradually develops more and better talents. Every capability of significance is heritable. Each heritable capability must lead to increased survival among a group of individuals having the new capabilities or it will be lost again in succeeding generations. As evolution progresses, there can only be incremental improvements in succeeding generations emerging from environmental and social demands. All development is gradual and based on available variation present in the population. Since it is generally accepted, due to our understanding of DNA, that we all emerged from Africa, evolution must be accepted or we would all still be like the original, no-longer-existent, preliterate Africans from which we all emerged. Preliterate populations existing today broke-off long ago and continued, fit and capable, in their environment. Even so, there will be a variety of reading capabilities among these people. There will undoubtedly be some who could read if they were exposed to it. Without a variety of capabilities in every group, evolution would not have been possible. As a result, we can look at these "populations" of biologically determined characteristics as not only representing a point of development, but also being existent across race and geographical location.

Conquest of fire
We have no evidence that Homo Erectus had a way to kindle a fire when they wanted one. They, presumably, had to take advantage of a forest fire started by a bolt of lightening, which is the most common natural source of fire in the forest. Then they had to somehow pick up a live coal and carry it to where they wanted their fire. To retain the fire over night was another problem. The tendency to throw on larger branches as the fire burned may have provided live coals for the next day. Rain presented a dire consequence. It is possible that the first use of shelter was to keep the fire dry rather than to shelter the humans.

Painting abstracts
Another peek into the intellect of prehistoric people comes to us by way of beautiful pictures of bison and other creatures painted on the walls of caves in southern France. Many of these caves can only be accessed by scuba divers. This indicates these pictures were painted before the sea levels rose. It was extremely dangerous for hunters to approach a herd of bison on foot as they were. It took courage and it was exciting. It very possibly was a rite of passage when a man attained a higher degree of bravery in the eyes of the tribe. Otherwise, their hunting was confined to less dangerous animals. Drawing, as a human capability, began perhaps only 50,000 years ago. People draw all over the world today.

Sexual mate selection
Each evolutionary population has a distribution of levels of capability. Selecting two people with the best of these capabilities has been done voluntarily where sociocultural influences have shown the way. In one instance, the tribal traditions associate a happy mood with competitive procedures highlighting the attributes of height and jumping, thus leading to marriages with height and jumping on both sides of the marriage. The offspring of such marriages are more probably children who would also be tall. Who could have predicted the success of this evolutionary endeavor?

The Biafrans
There is one situation in the equatorial zone where "foresight" was important in sexual selection. As a ritual among the Biafrans, both the families of the bride and groom got together before the wedding to discuss the capabilities of the bridal couple in this respect. "Foresight" was necessary on both sides before the families approved. As would be expected, this type of sexual selection has made a beneficial difference in succeeding generations. This is significant that an isolated group in the tropics were able to foster this one mental capability because of heritable mental factors. Studies of the Biafrans has won the admiration of the people who have grown to know them.

The evolutionary threshold of literacy
It is most likely that you will not find this threshold discussed in any text book. I don't know why. When this concept is discussed, most people need some sort of explanation. If one understands that humanity evolved from an preliterate primate ancestor, then this threshold occurred sometime between then and the point at which some individuals began representing sounds of speech with symbols. One doesn't need to imagine some sort of ape like creature to fill in the picture of the preliterate primate, there are individuals today of all sorts of reading and writing levels who look perfectly normal walking down any street. Anyone who has studied the skill of reading knows that there are readiness tests to tell us when an individual is maturationally "ready" to learn to read. There are other tests that measure the level of difficulty of words that an individual will comprehend. The same is true of the ability to mentally comprehend paragraphs of increasing difficulty. All this points to a multi-layered neurological representation of literacy including recognition, comprehension, and expression.

About 15,000 years ago (more or less), all of humanity was preliterate. This is just a guess because writing has not survived unless it was on clay tablets. Perhaps the time of this threshold could be better estimated by the size of cities, or something. Although virtually each group of humanity today has a percentage of illiteracy, the bulk of the preliterate population is contained in what Boaz called the emerging populations. Literacy is an evolutionary threshold and is measurable.

The pre-pottery people
Before the development of pottery, "property", as a concept, did not exist. Infringements on material are of no significance. Even though they may use pottery today, or even drive a car, property is not a concern when all a person needs in the way of food, clothing, shelter, and tools is minimal and occurs free in nature or in society all around. This is the environment in which these people are fit and capable.

Concern for possessions did not evolve among the pre-pottery people because it took very little energy to replace anything they have. When the ambient temperatures are such that a person never needs clothes, clothing will always be a matter of whimsy rather than a necessity. In this case concerns with property would be a burden rather than a help. When the necessities of life are freely and consistently available in the environment, concern for acquiring them is at a minimum. To obtain them does not require an investment of time and energy, therefore, property needs no value. If an article is lost or taken, one only has to reach out and get another one when one needs such an article again.

Whenever possessions take time and energy to make, they are taken along when the person moves. Among these preliterate people, if a person should find an article that better suits him as a tool, he drops the one he is carrying so he will not have to carry two. Under such circumstances a dropped article is almost always a discarded article and it is free for anyone who finds it and wants it. Whenever such a article is picked up, it is almost always because it is better than the one the finder has, and he would drop his own before he moves on. Then, if the former owner sees it and wants it back, the finder would be much put out because he would then be without a that article himself. Under such circumstances, concerns about property were of no evolutionary value and did not evolve.

The post-pottery populations
One can hardly overemphasize the importance of the first modification of natural resources to make implements. Such a modification as clay to pottery was probably among the first. Half eaten vegetables were thrown into the fire by children. Half charred vegetables were later fished out of the coals and found easier to chew. Vegetables packed in mud were protected from charring. Certain muds were better suited for the fire. They did not crumble and fall away. Some muds became very hard and had to be broken. Half shells of fired clay held water!

It wasn't long before innovators all over the world began to make larger half shells and fire them to make bowls. Good clay for firing can be rolled into strings between the palms of the hands, and pots can be constructed by laying string upon string until a functional bowl could be constructed. It followed the same principles of weaving baskets which many already knew.

The whole process was much simplified by the fact that people had to be by fresh water. Until the innovation of pottery, all people had to live near fresh water. The banks of fresh water vary from place to place with the occasional occurrence of good pottery clay. Once pottery was invented, people could increase the distance between where they lived and the nearest potable water. Another important consideration was that pottery was the first durable tool that was a family possession. Up to that time durable possessions belonged to individuals.

Stone points belonged to men hunters. Scrapers were given to women who scraped skins. Baskets, where they existed at all, were made by and belonged to the women. The drinking bowl belonged to the group, or at least, was used by all the group. As a cooking pot it was also used by all the group. This concept was very new. It took a new type of mind to take care of it.

Possessions are a responsibility, and it takes a responsible person to take care of them. It was an annoyance to forget a tool, or break it, or have it stolen, or lost. It was one thing to deal with one's own property, and another thing to deal with group property. It took an entirely new type of personality to deal with such problems. Among the people who had developed pottery, possession became a necessary requirement. Those who did not comprehend this were sexually ignored or eliminated.

Eradication of Pygmies
An example of this in recent history is the story of the Pygmy. The Pygmy inhabits two arid areas of Africa, one in the southwest and the other in the southeast. Their dialects are so alike that there is no doubt that they inhabited the majority of south-central Africa at one time. The vast majority of the African population is agricultural and originated in the northeast near the continental isthmus. As they multiplied and spread south they eradicated the Pygmy to the point where they only inhabit those arid sections where agriculture is impossible.

Property and value
If a bowl were broken, lost, or taken, another had to be made to replace it. Energy had to be expended to search for good clay, collect it, shape it, fire it and decorate it. With the expenditure of energy was born a sense of value. Man's mind was beginning to deal with the principles of conservation of energy and ownership. The magnitude of the supernatural in his mind was not quite as large.

Possession as a biological determinant
Dr. Lewis Henry Morgan based his classification on such technical developments. He suggested that the first signs of making of pottery items was the dividing line between barbarians and savages. Savages, barbarians and civilized people differ from one another in their psychological approaches to possessions. A simple legend will clearly demonstrate the differences. Supposing that a sheath knife were lying on the sidewalk:

A savage sees it. He says to himself: "That is Joe's knife, but finders keepers, and I will fight him if he claims it!"
A barbarian sees it. He says to himself: "That is Joe's knife, but if he never sees me with it, I can keep it with no trouble."
A civilized man sees it. He says to himself: "That is Joe's knife. I will pick it up and return it to him as soon as I can."

Each type believes that everybody either acts that way, or they are crazy! Each type of people believes that there is nothing wrong with the way they act, and that what they do is natural and right, and, in deed, it is!

Social bonding
The Natural law was that if one did not recognize another person as a relative, he was considered a mortal enemy until proven otherwise. Some groups identify themselves by what they wear. Deadly feuds are triggered by the color of a person's cloak. The concern with strangers and unrelated people still occurs today. Among many people today, the social groups are small due to their limited social bonding capabilities. Government among these people only extends to the limits of a small group, tribe, or gang.

Monistic and duoistic
As one examines the concept of possessions, one may note that there is a fundamental change in the concept of "self" as possessions become a factor. This change of concept of self is a change that we can examine between people who did not develop pottery and the rest of the world who did. These people feel their body is part of the environment. This is termed monistic. The people who have a sense of property and feel that this property in the environment is a part of their "self" (ownership) is termed duoistic.

The monistic people who feel that their body is part of their environment may modify it extensively. They may stretch their lips, ears, and neck. They may scar their skin extensively. They may cut off their fingers. On the other hand, duoistic people (barbarians) may decorate their bodies with possessions, such as valuable jewels and metals. Tattoos may occur, but body modification is not extensively practiced.

Neurologically, we have even gone so far as to distinguish that in a right handed person this development of a sense of "self" may take place anatomically in the frontal lobe of the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain. If this portion of the brain is accidentally ablated, the subject loses his special sense of individual awareness, that is, if he ever had it.

Religion
To all preliterate or barely literate people, religion is always that of "animism" or "polyspiritualism". Christian missionaries have been preaching and educating for hundreds of years. The resulting religion is always a mixture of rote Christianity and animism. Voodoo is an example.

Studies of the effects of education point out that it does not dispel superstition. The belief in the supernatural goes deeper than learning. The ability to deal with science is a special heritable capability. A scientific capability is an ability to displace a factor from nature to human understanding and possible control. The evolution of the human mind is an evolution of displacement: the displacement of natural factors to human control.

Language
The language of preliterate people is nominative to varying degrees. That is to say in the most rudimentary language, they communicate by naming objects without using verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, or articles. They use no general terms. "Tree-tree-tree" is a forest. "Man-boy-tree-tree-tree", is a man and a boy hunting for food in a forest. As language developed, preliterate people will have a different unrelated word for a small tree, a medium tree, and a large tree. A different unrelated word will refer to a man behind, a man beside, and a man in front. We still retain some of that type of language as we refer to such things as rain, sleet, snow, hail, which all are unrelated words referring to forms of water fallen from the sky. Eskimos elaborate this type of language about snow to a fine degree using nearly thirty different words. There are still languages with only 500 words or less.

Dreams
To preliterate populations, dreams are as real as any other experience. To dream about a dead person is to be visited by that person and is the basis of a belief that that person still exists in a very nebulous form. This understanding of a dream persists in the barbarian people to a lesser degree. Telling or teaching that this understanding is not true to reality has very little effect, and it may be resisted vehemently.

Lifestyle Sanitation is minimally understood. Babies soil the ground where they are. Adults do not move far to relieve themselves. Bad smells are well tolerated. Litter is prevalent. Everything is dropped where the user loses interest. Scraps of food are left where they fall. Cleanup is by wild scavengers and insects. They live in the "here and now" and lack the mental ability to consider much of the past or future. Whether they are in the forest of Borneo or living on the streets of Seattle, intransigence is their hallmark. They are impressed by physical strength and power and choose their leaders on this basis. They are fascinated and obsessed with the bodily functions of sex and excretion.

The Story of Coconuts
Although Anthropologists found it to be vulgar and amoral, they dutifully wrote volumes of primitive mythology dictated to them by the natives. I will briefly recount a primitive myth which may be found in its entirety in Joseph Campbell's The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. This story is from a Polynesian culture relating how the coconut tree came into being.

"Hina (meaning pubic patch) was the wife of the monster Eel, Te Tuna (the penis). Hina became tired of Te Tuna and set out to find a greater fulfillment. In her journey, she passed through the lands of the Tane Clan (male principal), Peka (penetrating embrace), and Tu (erect). Each pointed the way to Maue-Tiki-a-Antarage (wonder worker, the timid), a man with a huge lop-sided penis with whom she united in a struggle of passion that caused a hurricane and an earthquake felt throughout the world." "When Te Tuna heard that Maui had taken Hina as his mate, goaded by the Tanes, Pekas and the Tus, he went after Maui. After an Earth shaking fight, Maui cut off Te Tuna's head and buried it. From the head sprouted the first coconut palm."

It should not be omitted that mankind is everywhere tricky and enjoys a good practical joke. One can hardly deny this to these natives. One can easily imagine them saying: "you should have heard the whopper I told that white man! But it sure made him happy!"

On the other hand, to add to the confusion, there are examples of barbaric cultures which became civilized such as the Lombards in Italy and the Manchu in China. Today, the fantasy of the Barbarian, still a preliterate such as Conan the Barbarian, has acquired admirable qualities descending from the enlightenment idealization of the "Noble Savage" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau 250 years ago. From this idealization, the barbarian is spontaneous, spiritual, and in touch with nature, while the civilized person is repressed, materialistic, and heartless. This adds a deserved broader dimension to the barbarian which makes him less contemptuous.

With all these contradictions surrounding the concept of the barbarian, use of the term has reached satirical proportions such as in the movie Barbarian Invasions and the book Barbarians at the Gates. Both of these examples intimate that we still possess qualities not that different from our "barbarian" predecessors. All that we have discussed so far presents a contradiction and dichotomy between the barbarian and the civilization in humanity.

The only way we can integrate all that we have covered here in regard to the barbarian and the civilized person is to say that at the dividing line of literacy we are all barbarians, in the broadest sense. After the advent of literacy, every evolving, living individual or society begins the transformation from a barbarian, with all the characteristics held in contempt by the civilized man, to become more and more infused with civility. This is a gradual transition taking sometimes a few years, and sometimes several centuries. The infusion of civility continues till there is there is experienced a total civilization of the individual resulting in the new viewpoint of the "Steward".

Now the thought might arise: "So, if we are a mixture of barbarian and civilized characteristics, I would rather emphasize the civilized part of me!" The danger in associating with this more evolved form is that it can fuel barbaric arrogance and self-righteousness to the point of neglecting to check one's own contemptuous characteristics. I believe this thought was expressed in the words of a well known, apparently objective observer of humanity: " Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3).

So we introduce the Literate Barbarian as the second classification of humanity between the "preliterate populations" and the "steward". Most people today don't think of ourselves as literate barbarians; however, we are not that far advanced from the barbarians who defined the word in most people's minds. A detailed history of the literate barbarian evolution might begin with a newly edited large encyclopedia. Literate barbarians have formed the civilized world as we know it. The most capable literate barbarians have a sense of awareness that extends beyond themselves to their family, estate, country, and world. Their advanced social bonding enables hundreds of thousands of them to conduct orchestrated efforts of mass production, industry, warfare and commerce. For the literate barbarian, interaction with society is more of a competition than cooperation.

Religion
The literate barbarian is steeped in religion but does not let it get in the way of his technology and organizational abilities. They have the cognitive power to shift and reorganize their religion to accommodate their goals and desires. The literate barbarian feels that he has a good spirit within himself. Many barbaric kings deified themselves, and set themselves up as objects of worship by their subjects. A literate barbarian believes he, himself, is a wizard, and is supernatural. Therefore, he thoroughly believes that he can enjoy the promiscuities of life. These constitute any of the over-indulgences of life; such as: sex, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. His conscience will not challenge a business windfall as being undeserved no matter how much it hurts the public. He will laughingly relate how he doubled the price of a slow moving item and placed it on "half price sale" much to his own benefit, of course. Literate barbarians can be brilliant and attain high academic status, but still lack respect for consequences by reason of their divine immunity. That can be deadly. As a matter of fact they will be resentful of anyone pointing out their folly, for it tends to hamper their "freedom".

Because of their supernatural belief, they tend to have a deep faith in logic. Whatever is logical is automatically true.

Literate Barbarian Wars
The deadly competition of the literate barbarian man, by stages, came to involve more than individual physical strength and speed of one individual or a small group. With the introduction of foresight and an advanced social bonding system, therein evolved, strategy, logistics, and advances in weaponry as the primary factors in total victory. The advancement of the neurological social bonding system was an evolutionary factor in that the size of groups defined success: the more social the group, the larger it could be; the more likely it was to be internally cooperative; and, with understanding and individual dedication, the easier it was to overwhelm their less social competitors. Thus the ability to form a larger society became a significant evolutionary factor among populations with extended pedomorphism. Family groups lost out to tribal groups. Tribal groups lost out to barbarian hordes. Barbarian hordes lost out to literate barbarian legions, and so it goes.

During the first 1500 AD years of war, the traditions of battle had much to do with advancing literacy and general intelligence. It was rigid military tradition that the opposing armies would line up on the battlefield in two great masses. The least capable, dull witted, and preliterate individuals were placed on the front lines to trip-up the advances of the opposing army. The next most capable were on the second line of defense and so it went until the cadre, who overlooked the scene from a distant high ground.

Almost every battle of the middle ages reduced the preliterate population. If the battle was not going well for one side, the more capable individuals would retreat. The downside of that was the victorious army took no prisoners and would slay every last soldier they could catch. When they were done, they would typically go to the country or town of the vanquished and slay all the women and children. Virgin women were often an exception.

Our civilized attempts to make warfare more humane and spare the noncombatants has only defeated part of the evolutionary significance of warfare. We now-a-days go to war and kill off the best of both sides leaving a genetically weakened population to carry on for future generations. This was shown to be true when Napoleon shortened the French by putting all the tall men in the front lines of battle. With nuclear warfare the whole problem may be wiped out on both sides! The misfits and criminal people of Europe either emigrated to America or were sent there. There, the story of conflict and slaughter was continued. To the Indians, the white man was just another tribe. Before the European arrived, there is archeological evidence of four great Indian nations in just the northeast which were annihilated by other Indians. Any finer analysis of the motives of the conquerors may be just a scrim to cover a basic aggressiveness.

Victory goes to the craftier warrior. The victor uses more elaborate maneuvers, and better trained troops. He also thinks more about outwitting his opponents, plans ahead a little better, and works a better system of logistics so that he does not run out of supplies at a critical moment. We refer euphemistically to following man's progress by studying his tools, but it is his weapons that reveal his sophistication. Skin-scrapers remained simple skin-scrapers for eons, but the weapons improved radically in the meantime. From the various models of war arrows, clubs, and spears we go on to armor, shields, chariots, siege engines, and finally gunpowder and atomic explosives.

For those who are appalled at this recount they should remember that we are trying to get an appraisal of man and a measure of Truth. If the above story applies, and it does apply to some people today in the way that they wage war, then its effect on mankind should be measured. We may well disapprove of war as a social function, but we must know what effect it has had on humanity. We must realize that warfare has been a human function for so long that we may well ask if we can get along without it (sic). Human populations have adapted to warfare to the extent that more boys are born during war time. A question might well be that if there is an evolutionary benefit from war, how may we compensate for it if we attain everlasting peace?

A similar analysis could be applied to epidemics in the cities. The question could be answered and God's process could be verified: Did the more capable immune systems of humanity tend to escape deadly infection to an extent that could have affected human genetic factors? Have communist countries mismanaged their heritage in revolutions that selected the most intelligent for extinction? Is there any evidence that the brainy people who fled such revolutions to other countries added greatly to the advancement of the countries to which they fled? I believe that there is. It is evident that several countries which suffered through class revolutions where their intellectuals were systematically slaughtered and banished have been noticeably retarded since. We can only imagine what would happen in a society where the "least intelligent" were venerated and subsidized. If we are to avoid such horrible processes, we must study alternatives and apply them.

One very effective alternative may be to simply tell the Truth about hereditary behavior patterns and capabilities. Maybe an effective number of those educated people will change their pattern of sexual selection to an extent that subsequent generations may be improved and happier. All this could take place without wars, revolutions, riots, persecutions, or lynching if humanity were properly educated.

Competition and stress
The question is: What kind of competition and stress must be fostered to test and strengthen the advancement? The least we can say is that there is much work to be done, and we suspect that there is no one intending to do it. At the present time in our political history, certain types of investigations are illegal to the extent that government and private grants are not given for them. If certain wealthy people do investigations on the genetic characteristics of people, they are persecuted, and their publications are suppressed, even destroyed. Recently a large conference of policemen were studying a profile of certain types of criminals, and they were forced to cancel the conference. So much for freedom of information!

If we should need wars, what would be adequate substitution? I proposed such a question at a conference of anthropologists and was censured for even thinking of such a question. To get the proper measure of the Truth, we have to think this sort of thing through in this manner, then we should do it! Our survival may depend on it.

Property
Concerns for property put new stresses on the literate barbarian. In the Old Testament, Onan was responding to and ancient primitive tradition to preserve a dead brother's name when he lay with his brother's widow (Deut 25). He withdrew when he feared a division of his estate with his son by his brother's widow. It was not the spilling of his seed on the ground that was considered evil. He was a low barbarian who had acquired permanent property such as a tent and probably a few beasts of burden. In his tent were a few valuable pieces of property which he could use for trading and for a daughter's dowry. When he went to the world of the dead, he wanted to be sure these went to his son only. Another son by his sister-in-law would have clouded the issue.

Self awareness
This matter of self-awareness is sometimes used to divide preliterate populations from literate barbarians. If the self-awareness extends beyond the self, this denotes a literate barbarian. For example a surgeon may extend his sense of touch by using a probe. His feeling is projected to the end of the instrument beyond his fingers. Tools may become very personal as they are selected for quality, heft, shape, strength, and trueness. The Literate barbarian's personal identity can include a house and property as it becomes his home and land. The literate barbarian has a distinct feeling of self, and it is a selfish self. He extends his ego to include his family and estate. Whatever he can get away with outside the law is acceptable. You will never get him to admit it, but even the most pious literate barbarian will do it. He even feels that it is cute.

The Holy Grail
This natural experience of enlightenment is possibly the basis of the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The central theme of this story is the search for the Holy Grail. If you recall this story, which dates back to before 1470 when it was translated from the French by Thomas Malory, the probationary knight would generally wander out into the world searching for the religious experience of the Holy Grail. He would generally be traveling through a dark forest when he would be stopped by a burst of light and the sound of angelic music. Within the light he could see the jeweled goblet of Christ's last supper. It was also used by Christ's father, Joseph, to catch the drops of blood from his son's wounds at the Crucifixion. This goblet later disappeared because its holders were morally impure. In the instant of the vision, the knight experienced all the major Christian attributes of compassion, love of mankind, devotion to God, and so forth. The thrilling experience was usually described with the falling on the knees and praise to God. Some traveled far and never found the Grail. Others stayed at home and experienced it there. A few remembered to mention that their preliterate, primitive squires seemed to be oblivious of what their knights were experiencing. They would stand by dumbly, and probably frightened because they could not understand what their lord and master was doing.

From the editor: Since the majority of those who read this are, like the editor, a literate barbarian, you may find, after reading this, that you know a Steward. Stewards are not aware that they are an evolutionary product. You might find, after reading this, that you are a Steward. The rest of us can only hope to mimic this description.