What could I do to stop my people from learning animal husbandry?

Question

I am writing a novel that involves a person born every few hundred years with the ability to tame animals. The other people never learn their secret. What could I do to make sure that the others never learn how to? Here is some information, in case it helps.

• The power is not true domestication, just taming.
• This happens about once every five hundred years or so
• It requires these things:

Friendly e.g., the animal must not be inherently driven to be aggressive towards humans

Feedable e.g. the animal must have food habits that are easy enough to sustain

Fecund e.g. the animal must be able to have easy-to-sustain reproductive habits

Family-Friendly e.g. the animal must be able to follow a family structure, no matter how loose this may be, because a sense of belonging is essential for this.

• the novel is set in a time period that is a mix of all three eras of the Stone Age
• the people have advanced hunting tactics, and have access to large amounts of meat such as steppe mammoths, dodo birds, Irish Elk, aurochs, etc.
• the people are of species in the Homo genus and others:
• Homo Neanderthalensis
• Homo Sapiens
• Homo Floresiensis
• Australopithecus Afarensis
• note the absence of a [reality check] tag
• all these species are living at the same time, and generally coexist peacefully. To recap my question: Every two to five hundred years, an individual is born to one of the tribes that has the power to tame animals. This person lives just as long as any other person, BUT: the other people do NOT discover how to do it

What can I do to make sure that others do not pick up this knowledge?

EDIT: simplified to be easier to understand

Answer 1

The chosen one has better pheromones than the general population.

After a few decades of being hunted, the animals have learnt that the smell of a human approaching is bad news. When they smell human, they try to run, or try to hide. If a human corners them and is nice to them, they just panic / freeze until they get a chance to escape, and then suffer PTSD for the rest of their days.

A human hand offering food smells like a death trap, and the animals will flee to save their own lives.

Humans are good hunters so can throw spears further than their smell travels, for many animals smelling humans means it's already too late to flee and they have to hide. Bathing isn't that common, but with a lack of deodorant the pheromones return quickly even when bathed.

Your hero doesnt have the pheromone that the animals have keyed into. They can offer food to the animal without the animal panicking, and make friends, etc.

Or, related. Your hero doesn't wear animal skin.

Humans hunt and kill animals, eating them, and skinning their hides to make clothing. They've developed leather softening techniques and dyes and can make some nice fashion.

Your hero is allergic to one of these chemicals or dyes, or perhaps allergic to leather in general, so can't wear leather. They have to make clothing from weaving fibres instead.

When a normal human approaches an animal, the animal smells the decaying flesh of its brothers, and runs away traumatised from the whole experience, exactly the same as I would if you killed my family and wore their skin as clothing.

Your hero doesn't dress in the skin of their families, so the animals are willing to give them a shot.

Because of the skill of the leatherworkers - leather clothing looks great, is extremely comfortable, and is easy to make in a huge variety of outfits. The woven non-leather clothes are not immediately noticeable as different, and because of the time involved in weaving, woven clothes are so much more expensive than leather ones, and unless you're allergic to leather, no-one will be wearing entirely non-leather.

Answer 2

It doesn't work.

If only a few people once or twice in a milenium can tame animals will manage anything, they will never manage to tame enough to get more than the occasional 'fancy pet' when one of these humans is around. As a result, humans will never actively manage to tame and domesticate animals in greater numbers. Domestication is totally impossible.

Humans will still be Cattesticated

On the other hand, one species will make itself at home in the human homes without being asked to. And as they cohabit, they make humans accept their presence by eating the vermin that eats human food. But at the same time, this species will simply ignore any active attempt to domesticate them. Instead, it is they who start to bend humans around their soft little paws, making them do their bidding by giving them shelter and cleaning their fur. After they subjugate humans so easily, they'll be venerated as gods. Humans will build a town in their name. For some generations, their overlordship will be absolute, and they will never forget this, and humans will always remember that they are superior beings. The name of the subjugating overlord species is - obviously - CAT, and as it's a principle, they will cattesticate the human - and for the matter any species - in any world.

Answer 3

You just want a plausible and consistent rationale for having a single person able to tame animals? And others unable to learn how to do this even when shown the Tamer's example?

Make it so normal humans excrete a pheromone that unsettles animals. It could be as simple as a strong stink! Your "Tamer" is a genetic mutant, that lacks the ability to produce that pheromone.