Here's an interesting little tidbit that I found at the Cleveland Zoo...I found it amusing:There once was a tribe in Africa that practiced "Crocodile Justice". If you were accused of a crime you would be forced to swim across a croc-infested river. If the crocs ate you, then you were guilty. If you made it across unscathed, not only were you deemed innocent, but your accuser also had to give you "2 cattle".
That's exactly how it was written..."2 cattle". I don't even think that's grammatically correct! But say you already had "1 cattle." You could feed the crocs before your swim, make it across and receive 2 cattle for the swim. You'd be up one cattle.
You gotta figure that "2 cattle" has to be worth about $2000 today. I think it would be worth the 2K to watch someone you hate swim the gauntlet.
I think I am going to try to incorporate the "2 cattle" monetary system into my everyday life. If that's the case, for my week in Cleveland, I received about the hoof of the cattle.
(c) 2000 Artificial Horizons