OT: Naming Continents

On 13 Dec, caeruleancentaur wrote:

># 1 <salut_vous_autre@H...> wrote:
>
>>When Colomb disovered America it was in the region of Cuba and in
>>South-America...
>
> Can we logically connect Columbus with the naming of America?  I'm
> guite sure he didn't give that name to what he had "discovered."  The
> vikings called it Vinland, IIRC.  And who knows what the first
> immigrants across the Bering Strait called it?
Question: Do hunter-gatherer bands have the concept of areas
which require names? ( Even if they did, I wouldn't suppose that
the first immigrants across the Bering Strait would have a
_continental_ perspective:
("Hey! That mammoth herd has taken us into a totally new continent!
Anybody have a good name for it?"  ;-)   ).
    My personal feeling is that hunter-gatherer bands would name
landmarks and, at the most, areas close to and associated with
landmarks. It seems to me that naming areas implies ownership
and control over areas with defined borders. And, AFAIK,
this didn't come into being until the advent of farming and a more
settled life.
    Still, I could be wrong about this. If anybody knows for certain
about any hunter-gatherer bands with a culture of naming
well-defined areas (not merely "our hunting grounds", but giving them
a name), I'd be very happy to be corrected.

Dan Sulani
---------------------------------------------------------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.

Reply