shepherd

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(shĕp'ərd) pronunciation
n.
  1. One who herds, guards, and tends sheep.
  2. One who cares for and guides a group of people, as a minister or teacher.
  3. A German shepherd.
tr.v., -herd·ed, -herd·ing, -herds.
To herd, guard, tend, or guide as or in the manner of a shepherd. See synonyms at guide.

[Middle English shepherde, from Old English scēaphierde : scēap, sheep + hierde, herdsman.]


Later replaced by the stockman, drover and jackeroo, was a familiar figure in the colonies before the introduction of fencing wire on pastoral holdings in the 1850s. The shepherd prevented the sheep from wandering, escorted them to water and fresh pastures, and protected them from depredations by Blacks and dingoes. The solitary shepherd was sometimes himself the victim of marauding Aborigines, who killed him and made off with his flock. He was usually dressed in a rough serge suit tied at the waist with a leather belt; mostly bearded and long-haired, he wore a cabbagetree hat or a less durable one made of plaited kangaroo grass. The itinerant shepherd made a rough shelter each night from branches and leaves; in more settled areas he lived in a rough slab hut with a dirt floor, occasionally with a wife and family for company but more often with a hutkeeper who kept watch over the sheep at night. Detached for long periods from the company of fellow humans, the shepherd often grew erratic in behaviour, such a misfit when restored to society that he could only return to the solitude that had become natural to him. Henry Kendall, himself a shepherd when a young man, planned a major poetic work, 'The Australian Shepherd', using the sheep-herder as the central figure around which to weave the epic story of life in the bush. Only fragments of this work were completed, e.g. 'A Death in the Bush'. Prominent in most histories of the pastoral age, the shepherd is discussed in James Bonwick's Romance of the Wool Trade (1887) and is the central subject of W.R. Glasson's Our Shepherds (1942); the latter also contains a selection of shepherd vocabulary and slang. Artist S.T. Gill painted the well-known work Sleeping Shepherd.

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noun

    Something or someone that shows the way: conductor, director, escort, guide, lead, leader, pilot, usher. See show/hide.

verb

    To show the way to: conduct, direct, escort, guide, lead, pilot, route, show, steer, usher. See show/hide.

The nature of their work kept shepherds somewhat apart from other farmworkers, and they had various traditions of their own: they continued wearing smocks when other labourers had long abandoned them, and they favoured regional differences in the design of crooks and sheep bells. To pass the time while guarding the flock, and to earn extra money, some snared wild birds, and others did elaborate woodcarving. It was customary for a shepherd to be buried with a tuft of wool in his hands, so that at Doomsday he could prove what his calling had been, and so be excused for often missing Sunday church. The fact that in Sussex fossil sea-urchins found on the Downs were called ‘shepherds' crowns' may imply they collected them for sale. They were often displayed on cottage mantlepieces or windowsills, sometimes being blackened with boot polish; the general belief was that they acted as thunder-stones, to keep thunder away and so prevent milk from turning sour, and some thought they also kept witches away. They were regarded as lucky, and whoever found one must spit on it and toss it over his left shoulder.

See also SHEEP-SHEARING, SHEPHERDS' SCORE.

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shepherd

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pronunciation

IN BRIEF: A person who takes care of sheep.

pronunciation And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. — John Milton (1608-1674), English poet who wrote Paradise Lost.

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Shepherds may represent the nurturing part of the dreamer's psyche, taking care of the dreamer and guiding him or her in a safe direction. Shepherds also represent spiritual nurturance and direction, as with a pastor guiding his or her flock.


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  See crossword solutions for the clue Shepherd.

A shepherd (play /ˈʃɛpərd/), or sheepherder, is a person who tends, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. The word stems from an amalgam of sheep herder.

Shepherd in Valdunquillo, Spain.
Middle Age Livestock Shelter or Paridera in a Natural Cave in Piedra River in the monk's old path from the monastery to the roe deer salt ponds, Aragon, Spain
Contents

History

Origins

Ernest Martin Hennings - The Sheep Herder

Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool. Over the next millennia, sheep and shepherding spread throughout Eurasia.

Some sheep were integrated in the family farm along with other animals such as chickens and pigs. To maintain a large flock, however, the sheep must be able to move from pasture to pasture; this required the development of an occupation separate from that of the farmer. The duty of shepherds was to keep their flock intact and protect it from wolves and other predators. The shepherd was also to supervise the migration of the flock and ensured they made it to market areas in time for shearing. In ancient times shepherds also commonly milked their sheep, and made cheese from this milk; only some shepherds still do this today.

In many societies shepherds were an important part of the economy. Unlike farmers, shepherds were often wage earners, being paid to watch the sheep of others. Shepherds also lived apart from society, being largely nomadic. It was mainly a job of solitary males without children, and new shepherds thus needed to be recruited externally. Shepherds were most often the younger sons of farming peasants who did not inherit any land. Still in other societies, each family would have a family member to shepherd its flock, often a child, youth or an elder who couldn't help much with harder work; these shepherds were fully integrated in society.

Shepherds would normally work in groups either looking after one large flock, or each bringing their own and merging their responsibilities. They would live in small cabins, often shared with their sheep and would buy food from local communities. Less often shepherds lived in covered wagons that travelled with their flocks.

Shepherding developed only in certain areas. In the lowlands and river valleys, it was far more efficient to grow grain and cereals than to allow sheep to graze, thus the raising of sheep was confined to rugged and mountainous areas. In pre-modern times shepherding was thus centred on regions such as the Middle East, Greece, the Pyrenees, the Carpathian Mountains, and Scotland.

Modern Times

Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana, August 1942.

In modern times shepherding has changed dramatically. The abolition of common lands in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth century moved shepherding from independent nomads to employees of massive estates. Some families in Africa and Asia have their wealth in sheep, so a young son is sent out to guard them while the rest of the family tend to other chores. In the USA, many sheep herds are flocked over public BLM lands.

Wages are higher than was the case in the past. Keeping a shepherd in constant attendance can be costly. Also, the eradication of sheep predators in parts of the world have lessened the need for shepherds. In places like Britain, hardy breeds of sheep are frequently left alone without a shepherd for long periods of time. More productive breeds of sheep can be left in fields and moved periodically to fresh pasture when necessary. Hardier breeds of sheep can be left on hillsides. The sheep farmer will attend to the sheep when necessary at times like lambing or shearing.

By country

Australia and New Zealand

Shepherd's watch box.

European exploration led to the spread of sheep around the world, and shepherding became especially important in Australia and New Zealand where there was great pastoral expansion. In Australia squatters spread beyond the Nineteen Counties of New South Wales to elsewhere, taking over vast holdings called properties and now stations.

Once driven overland to these properties, sheep were pastured in large unfenced runs. There, they required constant supervision.[1] Shepherds were employed to keep the sheep from straying too far, to keep the mobs as healthy as possible and to prevent attacks from dingoes and wedge-tailed eagles. Lambing time further increased the shepherd's responsibilities.

Shepherding was an isolated, lonely job that was firstly given to assigned convict servants. The accommodation was usually poor and the food was lacking in nutrition leading to dysentery and scurvy. When free labour was more readily available others took up this occupation. Some shepherds were additionally brought to Australia on the ships that carried sheep and were contracted to caring for them on their arrival in the colony. Sheep owners complained about the inefficiency of shepherds and the shepherds' fears of getting lost in the bush.[2]

Typically sheep were watched by shepherds during the day, and by a hut-keeper during the night. Shepherds took the sheep out to graze before sunrise and returned them to brush-timber yards at sunset. The hut-keeper usually slept in a movable shepherd's watch box placed near the yard in order to deter attacks on the sheep. Dogs were also often chained close by to warn of any impending danger to the sheep or shepherd by dingoes or natives.

In 1839 the usual wage for a shepherd was about AU₤50 per year, plus weekly rations of 12 pounds (5.4 kg)} meat, 10 pounds (4.5 kg) flour, 2 pounds (0.91 kg) sugar and 4 ounces (110 g) tea. The wage during the depression of the 1840s dropped to ₤20 a year.

During the 1850s many shepherds left to try their luck on the goldfields causing acute labour shortages in the pastoral industry. This labour shortage leads to the widespread practice of fencing properties, which in turn reduced the demand for shepherds.[3] Over 95% of New South Wales sheep were grazing in paddocks by the mid 1880s. An 1890s census of fencing in New South Wales recorded that 2.6 million kilometres of fencing had been erected there with a contemporary cost of $AU3 billion. Boundary riders and stockmen replaced shepherds working on foot, who have not been employed in Australia and New Zealand since the start of the 20th century.[4]

The Shepherd and his Flock, c. 1905

Religion

"A Sleeping Nymph Watched by a Shepherd" by Angelica Kauffman, about 1780, V&A Museum no. 23-1886
Traditional Midnight Mass with Shepherds in Provence.

Metaphorically, the term "shepherd" is used for God, especially in the Judeo-Christian tradition (e.g. Psalm 23), and in Christianity especially for Jesus, who called himself The Good Shepherd.[5] The Ancient Israelites were a pastoral people and there were many shepherds among them. It may also be worth noting that many Biblical heroes were shepherds, among them the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob, the twelve tribes, the prophet Moses, and King David; and the Old Testament prophet Amos, who was a shepherd in the rugged area around Tekoa. In the New Testament, angels announced the birth of Jesus to shepherds.

The same metaphor is also applied to priests, with Roman Catholic, Church of Sweden, and Anglican bishops having the shepherd's crook among their insignia (see also Lycidas). In both cases, the implication is that the faithful are the "flock" who have to be tended. This is in part inspired by Jesus's injunctions to Peter, "Feed my sheep", which is the source of the pastoral image in Lycidas. The term "Pastor", originally the Latin word for "shepherd", is now used solely to denote the clergy of most Christian denominations.

The 5th-century Ravenna mosaic illustrates the concept of The Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd is one of the thrusts of Biblical scripture. This illustration encompasses many ideas, including God's care for his people and his discipline to correct the wandering sheep. The tendency of humans to put themselves into danger's way and their inability to guide and take care of themselves apart from the direct power and leading of God is also reinforced with the metaphor of sheep in need of a shepherd.

Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, prided himself in being part of a rich tradition of prophets who found their means of livelihood as shepherds.

Sikhism also has many mentions of shepherd tales. There are many relevant quotations, such as "We are the cattle, God almighty is our shepherd."

This concept has also been used frequently by critics of organized religion to present an unflattering portrayal.

See also Pashupati, Dhangar, Kuruba.

In popular culture

The shepherd, with other such figures as the goatherd, is the inhabitant of idealized Arcadia, which is an idyllic and natural countryside. These works are, indeed, called pastoral, after the term for herding. The first surviving instances are the Idylls of Theocritus, and the Eclogues of Virgil, both of which inspired many imitators such as Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender. The shepherds of the pastoral are often heavily conventional and bear little relation to the actual work of shepherds.

"The Shepherdess" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau; note that the bare feet are clean, despite her occupation.

Shepherds and shepherdesses have been frequently immortalized in art and sculpture. Among the best known is the neoclassical Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen's Shepherd Boy with Dog.[citation needed]

In the Latin American literary classic "Empire of Dreams" (Yale, 1994) by Giannina Braschi, shepherds invade the city of New York in a pastoral revolution.

The shepherd, in such works, appears as a virtuous soul because of his living close to nature, uncorrupted by the temptations of the city. So Edmund Spenser writes in his Colin Clouts Come home again of a shepherd who went to the city, saw its wickedness, and returned home wiser, and in The Faerie Queen makes the shepherds the only people to whom the Blatant Beast is unknown.

Many tales involving foundlings portray them being rescued by shepherds: Oedipus, Romulus and Remus, the title characters of Longus's Daphnis and Chloe, and The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare. These characters are often of much higher social status than the characters who save and raise them, the shepherds themselves being secondary characters. Similarly, the heroes and heroines of fairy tales written by the précieuses often appeared as shepherds and shepherdesses in pastoral settings, but these figures were royal or noble, and their simple setting does not cloud their innate nobility.[6] In Hans Christian Andersen's "The Shepherdess and the Sweep" (1845), the porcelain shepherdess carries a gilt crook and wears shoes of gilt as well. Her lover is a porcelain chimney sweep with a princely face "as fair and rosy as a girl's", completely unsmudged with soot.

The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth is the story of a flight from Germany to England undertaken by a young Vampire pilot one Christmas Eve.

Biographies of David Ben-Gurion published in the early years of Israel emphasized his having been a shepherd immediately after his arrival in the country in the 1900s. Later, however, historians concluded that he had been involved only very briefly in this profession and was not good at it.

See also

         

References

  1. ^ Coupe, Sheena (gen. ed.), Frontier Country, Vol. I, Weldon Russell, Willoughby, 1989, ISBN 1-875202-00-5
  2. ^ Pemberton, P. A., Pure Merinos and Others, ANU Archives of Business & Labour, Canberra, 1986, ISBN 0-86784-796-4
  3. ^ Chisholm, Alec H., The Australian Encyclopaedia. 8. Sydney: Halstead Press. 1963. p. 103
  4. ^ Outback magazine, "Outback Story", Issue 62, Jan/Dec 2009
  5. ^ Gospel of John 10:11
  6. ^ Lewis Seifert, "The Marvelous in Context: The Place of the Contes de Fées in Late Seventeenth Century France", Jack Zipes, ed., The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, pp. 920–1, ISBN 0-393-97636-X

External links


Translations:

Shepherd

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - hyrde, fårehyrde
v. tr. - hyrde, vogte, genne, føre, gelejde

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    kød- og kartoffelmospie

Nederlands (Dutch)
schaapherder

Français (French)
n. - berger
v. tr. - escorter, guider

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    hachis Parmentier

Deutsch (German)
n. - Schäfer, Schafhirt
v. - hüten

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    Auflauf aus Hackfleisch mit einer Schicht Kartoffelbrei darüber

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - βοσκός
v. - ποιμαίνω, (μτφ.) χειραγωγώ, ποδηγετώ

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    πίτα με κιμά και πουρέ

Italiano (Italian)
pastore

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    pasticcio di carne

Português (Portuguese)
n. - cão pastor (m)
v. - guardar, conduzir, guiar

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    torta de carne e batatas

Русский (Russian)
пастух, пастушок, персонаж пасторали, пастырь, пасти, проводить, присматривать, держать под наблюдением

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    "пастушья запеканка"

Español (Spanish)
n. - pastor
v. tr. - pastorear, guiar (la grey espiritual)

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    pastel de carne y patatas

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - herde, fåraherde
v. - vakta, valla, fösa, driva som en boskapsskock

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
牧羊者, 指导者, 牧师, 牧羊犬, 看守, 指导, 领导

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    肉馅马铃薯饼

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 牧羊者, 指導者, 牧師, 牧羊犬
v. tr. - 看守, 指導, 領導

idioms:

  • shepherd's pie    肉餡馬鈴薯餅

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 양치기, 목사, 지도자
v. tr. - (양을) 지키다, (사람, 군중 등을) 안내하다, 감시하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 牧羊者, 指導者, 牧師
v. - 飼う, 導く

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ألراعي, ألكاهن (فعل) يرعى ألقطيع أو ألرعيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮רועה צאן‬
v. tr. - ‮רעה, הוביל‬


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