BY EVELYN REED  
Production and procreation are the twin pillars upon which all human society has been founded. Through labor humans provide themselves with the necessities of life; through reproduction they create new life. However, only one of these is an exclusively human activity. Procreation is a natural function that humans share with the animals; production is uniquely a human acquisition. The use and making of tools, therefore, marks the great dividing line between human society and animal existence.

It is sometimes objected that primates, like humans, can make and use tools. A primate may grasp a twig, defoliate it, and then utilize it to get at insects under a stone. In captivity, under human influence, these animals can be very clever; sometimes they fit sticks together to extend their reach or stack boxes one on the other to climb up for food. But these are only incidental and episodic acts. Their existence does not depend on learning them. Humans, on the other hand, cannot survive except through systematic labor.

Further, in the course of their productive activities humans generate entirely new needs that go beyond the biological needs of animal existence. From the first chipped stone or digging stick to the jet plane and space ship, the history of human production is the continuous emergence of new needs and of the technology for satisfying them. Gordon Childe defines society as “a co-operative organization for producing means to satisfy its needs, for reproducing itself— and for producing new needs” (What Happened in History, p. 17).

It is commonly believed that because men are the principal producers in modern society this has always been the case. In fact, the opposite was true in the earlier and longer epoch before civilization; the larger share of work devolved upon women. This is borne out in the oft-cited statement of a Kurnai aborigine in Australia, who said that man’s work was to hunt, spear fish, fight, and then “sit down.” Woman’s work was to “do all else.” Let us examine what is incorporated in the succinct “all else.”  
 
Control of the food supply
The quest for food is the most compelling concern of any society. No higher development of society is possible unless and until people are fed. Moreover, while animals can live on a day-to-day basis, humans had to win some measure of control over their food supply if they were to progress. Control means not only sufficient food for today but a surplus for tomorrow, and the ability to preserve and conserve stocks for future use.

From this standpoint human history can be divided into two main epochs: the food-gathering epoch which extended over hundreds of thousands of years and the food-producing epoch which began with agriculture and stock-raising about eight thousand years ago, laying the foundation for civilization. Between these two periods was a transitional stage of small-scale garden culture or horticulture.  
 
A continuous record of women’s work
From the beginning there is a continuous record of the work of women in procuring and developing the food supply, discovering new sources and kinds of food, and gaining knowledge about its preservation. The prime tool in this work was the digging stick, a long stick with a pointed end used by the women to dig up roots and vegetables from the ground. To this day, in some parts of the world, the digging stick remains as inseparable from the woman as her baby. The white settlers called the Shoshone Indians of Nevada and Wyoming “The Diggers” because they still employed this ancient technique.

Except for a few areas in the world at certain historical stages, the most reliable sources of food were not animal but vegetable....

It is not surprising that primitive men came to look upon women as possessing magical powers in the growing of food, akin to their powers in growing children. Crawley tells how the Orinoco Indians explained this to a missionary:

When the women plant maize the stalk produces two or three ears; when they set the manioc the plant produces two or three baskets of roots; and thus everything is multiplied. Why? Because women know how to produce children, and know how to plant the corn so as to ensure its germinating. Then, let them plant it; we do not know so much as they do. (The Mystic Rose, vol. I, p. 62)

In addition to cultivating plants, women also collected grubs, bugs, lizards, molluscs, and small animals such as hares, marsupials, birds, and the young of many animal species. They protected, fed, and cared for many of these animals as well as the young animals brought back alive by the hunters to the campsite.

This care and protection on the part of the women provided the basis for the first experiments in animal taming and domestication. Not infrequently a field investigator has encountered a woman suckling a puppy or other animal infant at one breast, her own baby at the other. The specific characteristics of each animal were studied, and those which grew up to be dangerous were kept in cages....

Even the discovery of the uses of fire was connected with women’s labor activities. From the first digging stick, with its point hardened in the fire, there is a continuous development in the uses of fire by women....  
 
The medicine woman
The original “medicine men” in history were actually women. Briffault writes on this subject, “The connection of women with the cultivation of the soil and the search for edible vegetables and roots made them specialists in botanical knowledge, which, among primitive peoples, is extraordinarily extensive. They became acquainted with the properties of herbs, and were thus the first doctors.” He adds: “The word ‘medicine’ is derived from a root meaning ‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdom’—the wisdom of the ‘wise woman....’”

As one need was satisfied, new needs arose, and these in turn were met in a rising spiral of newly emerging needs and newly acquired skills. Since woman’s labors in primitive industries are usually credited to “man” or “mankind,” it is worth examining the great variety of handicrafts that originated in the hands and heads of women before they were taken over by men in the higher stages of industry.  
 
 
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