History According to Cattle

Abstract

This creative and poetic endeavour explores the limits and potentialities of perceiving cattle history through the lens of a bovine perspective. It is imaginatively written by cattle. It contends that because cattle cannot speak or write in human language, history has rejected cattle and rendered them invisible. Cattle have been removed from historical writing as subjects with their own perspectives, felt experiences and tremendous contributions to history. In an attempt to include cattle in history, the author imaginatively approximates a cattle perspective by borrowing human language to describe cattle’s contribution to history, cattle’s conception of time, and to communicate that cattle ought not to be silenced in and debarred from history-writing. This contribution presents a cattle history periodisation from a cattle perspective including The Time Before History, when cattle’s ancestors—the Aurochs—roamed the earth; The Historical Time, from when cattle were domesticated; and the Ahistorical Time, when cattle were subjected to industrial agriculture regimes.