ABSTRACT
While early man was certainly a hunter, fisher, and scavenger, the story of his relationship with animals in sub-Saharan Africa is by no means fully known. There is evidence that in Egypt successful attempts were made to tame and control gazelle, bubal and other antelopes, Barbary sheep, ibex, and hyenas, and, at Jebel Uweinat, giraffes and ostriches, but none of these species seems to have become fully domesticated in the way that the only known purely African domesticates – the ass, the cat, and the Guinea fowl – did (Shaw 1975, but see also p. 204, this volume). It has been suggested that because domesticates like cow, sheep, goat, and pig, introduced from southwestern Asia and perhaps elsewhere, adapted well to tropical conditions, there was little need to find local substitutes (Ajayi 1971). Also, an abundance of game and plant food in Africa might go towards explaining this lack of domestication of aboriginal animals. Further enlightenment on African approaches to animals might be found by looking at other forms of man–animal interaction, such as man’s association with the honeyguide.
