Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

9
BENDING THE BOW
One of the characteristics of all human societies is innate aggression resulting
from the desire of individuals to protect themselves and their own. It
is hardwired into our genetic make-up. If uncontrolled, it prevents communities
living and working together and it is for this reason that societies devise
rules and procedures to contain and to control these potentially destructive instincts.
Steered into competitiveness, aggression can become creative. It can drive the individual
to greater feats of personal achievement and it can foster team spirit bonding
a community, or a sect of that community, closely together in common enterprise.
For horse-riding nomads on the steppe, hunting was just such an activity. The ease
with which the Scythian riders, confronting the army of Darius, were distracted by
a fleeting hare is revealing. Hunting expeditions across the open steppe were perfect
outlets for pent-up energy focusing the aggression and competitive desire on a single,
harmless (at least for humans) objective. It also honed the skills of the rider. The game
of buzkashi, played extensively across Central Asia, which involves large numbers of
riders vying to take command of the dead body of an animal, usually a goat, is simply
a more stylized version of the hunt. The horse-racing events, wrestling matches, and
hunting with golden eagles, characteristic of the sports of modern Mongolia, have a
deep ancestry in the practices that steppe societies have evolved to provide a harmless
outlet for ever-present aggression.
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