In the wild, pigs are one of the cleanest animals...humans confine them to small areas which dirty quickly. If you want to know the taboo on pigs, send me an email and I'll tell you. It has to do with protein/food.
"In the wild, pigs are one of the cleanest animals...humans confine them to small areas which dirty quickly. If you want to know the taboo on pigs, send me an email and I'll tell you. It has to do with protein/food."
A number of FReepers emailed me so, here goes.
In ancient times it was always feast-or-famine, people routinely starved to death. Mothers would have to select which child to save, etc.
Human and pig gastrointestinal systems are almost identical, pigs eat the same thing we eat...unlike horses, cows and sheep that can digest celluose (hay,grass, etc)...we, and pigs cannot digest cellouse. Imagine in a village that is starving some guy has a pig...the food required to feed that pig could feed ten starving humans. This always caused problems for the village elders and the holy men. So, at some point, the holy men decided to declare pigs unclean/unfit to eat and decided that God told them to say this. And, from there it made it's way into the Holy books.
BTW, horses are only as 25% as efficent as cows in converting cellouse into energy.
Now about India and the Holy cow. Something similar occured but it was necessary to keep the oxen/cows to plow the fields once the famine (usually weather related) passed. So, to keep people from eating the oxen/cows, the Holy men went to work again.
Now, about the (Holy) Aztec,Inca,Mayan habit of having ritual massacres at the top of pyramids...it has it's roots in starvation too. Many have often wondered why they never invented the wheel...it's pretty simple. There wre on large draft animals there. In fact, the only animals they ever domesticated were the hampster and turkey...a severe lack of protein existed in the whole region. (no animals to eat) So, the Holy men go to work again and decide that the Gods would be happy if X number of people were sacrificed. There was a whole network/industry of people processing and dividing out the 'meat' from these sacrifices once their heart was ripped out and they were thrown down the steps of the pyramid. (Insiders got the best cuts to eat).