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The Domestic Goose

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

W. H. Riddell
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Extract

When, Where and How the Wild Goose was first domesticated are questions which offer a wide field for speculation, and an interesting subject, should the opportunity occur, for archaeological research, Our present tame geese differ, generally speaking, in so small a degree from their wild congeners that we hardly need Darwin’s authority to assure us that they are all descended from the Grey-Lag goose Answ anser (Linnaeus). The very small change they have suffered under domestication, which is rarely more than an increase in size, a diminution in the warmth and intensity of their coloration, and a tendency, partial or complete, towards albinism, would suggest that the domestication of the goose took place at a comparatively recent date. The most cursory examination of the available evidence shows this opinion to be untenable. For example it is probable that, when in 390 B.C. the tame geese in the Roman Capitol saved a critical situation by being more wakeful than the men on guard, their establishment there was already an ancient institution and that they either possessed then, or else acquired by this salutary action of theirs, a semi-sacred character. Contrary to expectation the Romans attributed a particular sanctity to those geese which were white.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 17 , Issue 67 , September 1943 , pp. 148 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1943

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References

* Is it only coincidence that the Chinese name for a Wild Goose, which in modern mandarinese is pronounced ‘yen’, is still pronounced ‘Ngan’ or ‘Gait’ in south China ; the latter pronunciation being preserved in the Sinico-Japanese ‘gan’. The origin of its sound, like the Aryan ‘Ghans ’, was probably also onomatopoeic.

* A liking of eggs for food (as for caviare) is an acquired, not a natural, taste.

* Readers may remember in the Chinese Exhibition at Burlington House, 1935-6, a bronze wine-pot in the shape of a goose (no. 134) which was attributed to the Chou dynasty, and was possibly of the 5th century B.c. or earlier. The out-thrust head and neck of this goose (not unlike the attitude of the foreground goose in PLATE II) is so true to nature that in all probability the artist arrived at it from intimate study of a tame goose rather than from distant and chance observations of wild ones. We have here an indication that the goose was domesticated in China before the date of this bronze. A goose, or a pair of geese, appears to have played an integral part in the ancient Chinese marriage ceremony as a symbol of marital fidelity. Stylized out of all recognition they appear on the willow pattern plate.