Opening remarks for the Bells: Connecting Animals, People and Land Exhibit presented by Thad Box

              BELLS, PEOPLE, ANIMALS AND LAND
Manuscaript version of a lecture given at
Merrill-Cazier Library, Logan, Utah
28 October 2009
by Thad Box
First, let me thank the Friends of the Merrill-Cazier Library for asking me to give this talk. We
are especially indebted to Barbara Middleton and Randy Williams who took a rambling interview with
me and a bunch of old bells and made the special educational exhibit that is in the Library.
I have been surprised at the many comments from people who saw the notices. My friend Kit
Flannery, an artist from Hyde Park, wrote:
“I remember 6 in. X10 in. bells on embroidered bands around necks of Lichtenstein cattle being taken
off the Alps,
“Remember belled cats that perhaps only once or twice worked to scare off birds, who tuned them out
and became aware of surroundings, or not.
“Remember in Turkey, garlanded harnesses of farm horses for maybe no reason except decoration, and
braided strands of camel bells galore in Morocco. Sleighbells from my ancestors' means to winter
errands were one of the only (and bison robe) items I coveted (didn't get).
“Beat-emphasizing bell wristlets & anklets on any number of indigenies from Borneo to Madagascar to
Americas. Bells in Hindu-Buddhist Temples in AngorWat and Thailand summoning spirits ; and in
R(oman) C(atholic) churches announcing solemn parts. And rung in bell towers of christian churches
in half the world.”
I thank Kit for summarizing the worldwide use of bells today. I could just read her comments
and sit down. But I won't. As an old schoolteacher, I'm not going to waste a chance to talk to a captive
audience about the land.
(Walking away from the podium and speaking in his father's voice) LISTEN, MARY. WATER
GAP MUST OF WASHED OUT. I HEAR OL POLLY'S BELL OVER THERE WHERE ALL THEM
WILD ONIONS GROW. MILK AIN'T GONNA BE FIT TO DRINK. LET THE CALF HAVE IT
ALL IN THE MORNING. OR FEED IT TO THE HOGS. ME'N'THADIS WILL FIX THE GAP THIS
EVENING AFTER HE GETS HOME FROM SCHOOL.
As I grew up in Texas, bells were our GPS units that told us where our livestock were. They
were like cell phones that signaled when our livestock were at peace or notified us when they were in
danger.
As a child, I lay awake nights listening to the tinkle of goat bells in nearby hills. I was happy.
All was well. But some nights I would be awakened by a chorus of clanging bells, goats bleating and
Dad pulling on his boots. That was often followed by blasts from Dad’s 10 gauge shotgun. Mother and
I would wait to find out how many goats had been maimed and killed. Or if Dad killed a coyote. Or a
feral hog. Or if we had to explain to a neighbor why Dad shot his dog.
Years later I was part of a United Nations livestock team in Somalia. The people I worked with
spoke a language I did not understand, their skin was a different color, they worshiped God differently
and they had no concept of how I lived my life. I struggled for a way to relate to them.
One moonlight night I lay awake in a Nomad camp staring up a peaceful sky with both the big
dipper and the southern cross visible. Camel outlines moved against the sky. The gentle sound of
wooden bells broadcast songs of peace. Then bells rattled, camels ran, rocks rolled down the hillside.
Herders were on their feet, shouting, brandishing spears in the air, running toward the camels.
The hyena, lion or thief that startled the camels got away. But I realized these livestock people
were only superficially different from those who raised me. In both our cultures, we were co-dependent
on our animals. The next day, I talked one of the herders out of a camel bell. Over then next few
months, I bartered pencils and bandanas for bells.
That was the start of piles of bells. I’m not a collector. But people give me bells with stories— a
bell that was on sheep killed by a mudslide in Montana, a Condamine cowbell from Queensland, a
French bell given to me by the Utah Woolgrowers that arrived in Utah with a Basque sheepherder, an
ox bell lost near the Temple sawmill.
Tonight I will talk about physical items that help identify cultural traditions of land use. I'll
discuss briefly the evolution of bells through time, the worldwide spread of bells and relate bells to the
European settlement and land use in the United States. I'll talk some about animal bells for other uses
and leave time for your comments and questions
My thesis is simple. Utilitarian objects used every day by people of a given culture give an
indication of how they relate to the land. Bells are one of those tools that give us the understanding that
we are part of the land. Bells are used every where livestock are raised. But there are other tools as
well.
Walking sticks or guide sticks are used to control animals, ward off predators, and signal to
other pastoralists. Shepherd's crooks are standard anywhere sheep are raised. Special sticks are used to
guide draft animals from oxen to elephants. Sticks are also used to show status or tribal affiliation.
Dad's old walking stick is a good example. Dad fancied himself as a livestock trader. He carved
his cow brand on his stick, not his name. He used it to pen animals, as a prod to load them, to catch and
hold them to examine teeth for age or check condition by feel. But most of all he carried this particular
kind of hickory stick to signify that he was a serious trader.
Knives are common as a tool for surgery on beast and person, repair of equipment, survival.
But knives most important use may be whittling where they became a tool to show one belonged to the
culture, to aid discussion or show intention during negotiation.
Whittling was not always limited to wood and a knife. Hershel Bell was a special kind of
whittler. He was a legendary soil conservationist in Texas. He was one of the most successful planners
in the entire Soil Conservation Service. He could get landowners to sign up as conservationists and
give them an evangelical spirit about the land.
Hershel carried the heavy glass base of a coke bottle and a section of a deer antler in his pocket.
As he and the rancher talked and toured the ranch, Hershel chipped away on the glass with the antler tip
using techniques Indians used to make arrowheads from stone.
When they had developed a conservation plan, Hershel handed the rancher a new glass
arrowhead he had made. He said, “There's a jewel in every piece of land if you have the eye to see it.
Just keep chipping away the unnecessary ugly stuff to get to that jewel.”
Now back to bells. Bells are some of the earliest tools in animal agriculture. In its most
primitive form, animal agricultural demonstrates that people are part of the land, not a superior
organism standing outside the biotic system. It took ecologists a long time to come to that concept.
Pastoralists knew that from the beginning.
The African pastoral culture is one such system where one can see people as part of the land. I
went to Somalia at the end of a long drought. People were thin, their skin dull and scaly. When the
rains came and the milk flowed, people fattened up like cows that had wintered hard in central Texas.
Their health depended directly on the health of their animals. The animals, in turn, depended on the
health of the land.
The word for camel bell “kor” is in now in several languages of pastoral tribes in the Horn of
Africa. Linguists demonstrate the word existed in a now-extinct root language that was used thousands
of years ago. This may mean that bells have been in Africa for at least 5000 years.
When I worked with Somalis 42 years ago, the system was much the same as it had been a
thousand years earlier. Trade goods from outside the system were rare. The people were part of the
biotic community. Their bells came from the land: wooden camel bells, bells made from tortoise shell,
and bells from bone. They were attached by collars woven from the inner fiber of acacia trees.
Throughout Africa, pastoral nomads still live directly off the land by a commensual relationship
between them and their animals The health of the land determines the health of the animals. The health
of the people depend on keeping their animals healthy and well fed. This system represents one of the
most basic and simple examples that all of us , whether in Africa or Logan, are part of the land.
Bells have probably been in Europe since animals were domesticated. Bell factories are some of
the earliest recorded businesses in Europe. Factories were making church bells and animal bells by the
middle ages. Most animal bells were made by individual blacksmiths. Gypsy metalsmiths sold bells at
trades days throughout Europe.
Two major types of bells were made. Heavy, cast metal, round bells appeared to be miniature
church bells. Lighter bells made from a single sheet of metal were often used for identification, herding
and decoration of cattle, sheep, goats, horses and dogs. Bells for decoration of animals, especially at
celebrations, became a tradition.
Europeans arrived in the Americas with the cultural tradition of using bells. They were met by
Native North Americans who had only domesticated turkeys. I find no record of bells on Indian
turkeys. There is some indication turkeys were decorated with bright colored feathers or shells, so I
would not be surprised if it is proven they had turkey bells.
In pre-revolution America animals were fenced out of farms, not fenced in. Bells were used to
locate animals on the unfenced areas. Bells made by individual blacksmiths and the design was similar
to European bells.
America spread westward after the revolution, drawn by military service land bounties or cheap
land. Settlers occupied large, unfenced areas. Bells became instruments of settlement and land control.
Bells became tools to mark human territories.
Bells were no longer used just to locate work stock—oxen and horses. More bells were used on
breeding stock, to keep track of them, as alarms to signal the approach of predators and to establish
territory. Demand for bells increased. Most American bells were made from single sheets of iron, hand
bent and heat welded. They tended to be long, narrow metal bells flared toward the bottom.
The first factory made bells were made in New England. Beven Brothers from Connecticut
were some of the pioneers. Their factory is still in existence. Their cold-pressed, squarish bells are
available for a number of uses other than livestock.
As the rangelands west of the Mississippi became open for settlement, the demand for bells
increased. The Moore brothers came from Pennsylvania and opened a blacksmith shop in Collinston,
Ill. to service coal mines in the area. But the demand for bells was so great that they had little time to
do anything except make bells. They developed a design now known as Kentucky cowbells.
They sold their business to Christian Blum, an immigrant tinsmith. He patented a “former” and
other processes for mass producing bells. He marketed many different sizes of bells, both under his
own label and labels of hardware stores and farm suppliers.
Most bells used in the western United States between the 1880s and 2000 were probably Blum
bells or a knockoff of the Moore/Blum design. Collectively, these bells are referred to as Kentucky
Cowbells or simply cowbells.
Back east, our nation became more urbanized. More and more people were losing direct
contact with the land. Cowbells became used for pointing dogs, musical instruments and recreation.
Livestock bells occur on every continent. In Australia they are used on camels, oxen, cattle and
sheep. There are some original designs of Australian bells: the Condemine bell and Mieneke bells. But
bells there show the influence of American and European bells
South American bells are used much like those of Australia and North America. In general bells
in South America tend to show a design more like European bells. On the Indian Sub-continent bells
are used on camels, cattle, sheep, goats, elephants and water buffalo. In other parts of Asia, I have
observed livestock are belled. I have not studied or included them in this talk.
The modern use of bells has gone far beyond a tool for animal agriculture. Percussion sections
playing most kinds of music have a cowbell. Bell choirs, including one in Cache Valley, perform on
special occasions.
Hikers wear bells for safety in bear county. Hunters put bells on pointing dogs when hunting in
dense cover. Bells are major noise making devices at sporting events. Bells on wind chimes sound from
suburban patios.
Bells are made for jewelry. One can buy cheap costume bells or those studded by diamonds.
Bells are standard devices for advertising and promotion events. Bells with team names are sold
as fund raisers for Universities. Obama bells were sold for the last presidential campaign. A special
bell was made for his inauguration. There are web sites where you can order and buy bells labeled for
any occasion.
Unfortunately, Most people who use modern bells do not have a direct tie to the land. They may
worry about “the environment” but they don't realize they are really part of the land.
I have tried point out that bells are a symbol of co-dependency of two parts of the biotic
community we call land. And that in primitive animal agriculture we can see the relationship that
demonstrates that people are really part of the land as Aldo Leopold described in his essay on a land
ethic. And this concept is now accepted by most ecologists and land managers.
LEOPOLD---wrote, “All ethics so far evolved rest on a single premise: that the individual is a
member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in
that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a
place to compete for)
In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from a conqueror of the land-community to
plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow members, and also respect for the
community as such.”
The connection between people, animals and land, in its most primitive setting, is a living
example of how humans are part of the land. Most people today look at land as a possession, an
investment or a place to park their car.
I close by sharing a personal story----the impact of one bell on me, and my quest to keep the
College of Natural Resources focused on a land ethic.
On January 1, 1970 Jenny, our four children and I moved to Cache Valley for the second time. I
accepted the position of Dean of Natural Resources. The following summer our family spent a fair
amount of time up Logan Canyon, particularly the School Forest, now known as the Theodore Daniel
Experimental Forest.
The outings gave us a chance to bond together as a family in a new setting---in a new land
foreign to our children. They also provided me an opportunity to let the land speak to me, become one
with the land, and give me, a young 40 year old learning to be a dean, guidance in trying to make our
college a community work together toward a land ethic.
On one outing, I noticed a rusty bell sticking up through the duff on the forest floor. I called the
kids over. We unearthed the bell carefully and gouged the composted litter from it. Then I rang it. For
the first time in decades its sound moved through the trees. It's sound was not clear and strong, but
muffled from many layers of rust. It had lost its voice, but not its power. It would speak to me and to
our college for decades.
I told our children it was probably lost from an oxen that pulled logs to the Temple sawmill
only a few miles away. I told them how the trees had been cut to build houses and tabernacles, stores,
barns and temples. Then smaller trees were cut for railroad ties. Others were cut for firewood until the
land was bare. We talked about how the grasses and shrubs had been grazed out by uncontrolled,
migratory sheep flocks coming from as far as California. And that wildlife was killed. I said it was our
job to make the land healthy.
The children scattered about, looking for evidence for my story: old stumps, fire scars, pieces of
orphan metal, rusted globs where tin cans had become one with pine needles. When we left, the bell
was in our picnic basket.
That bell became a resident in the Dean's office, where it became a symbol of the mission of a
land grant university. It constantly reminded me that we who called ourselves scientists and professors
were only ephemeral servants within the land.
Some of you may have seen this bell before---in my office, in one of the classes I taught, at
my opening message for freshmen or the opening of summer camp or at a faculty retreat. You may
have heard me preach that this bell is a rusting symbol of what we humans did to the land, and a
durable reminder that we have work yet to do.
Aldo Leopold again: A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience,
and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land. Health
is the capacity of the land for self renewal. Conservation is our effort to understand and preserve
that capacity.”
That was the concept that for years motivated the College of Natural Resources to be better than
a little college in the desert was funded to be. It reminded us that we, too, were part of the land
community.
Listen to this sound. (ringing of the bell). Hear in it your personal responsibility for air quality
in Cache Valley this winter. Hear your responsibility to keep agriculture healthy and spaces open for all
of us to enjoy. Hear its tone when you hike through the forest or attend a public hearing on a new
subdivision. Listen to its call for us to understand and adapt to global warming. Personalize your role as
a part of the land. Remember your responsibility to the community.
Listen,------- land does not belong to us; we belong to the land.
With apologies to Hemingway, Ask not for whom this bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Thank you.