Why did pigs become infused with so much, often contradictory symbolism?
>>5064373That pig is more educated snd sexually active than you.
>>5064373I just happened to read pic last month, which actually brings this point up and (to my amateur perception) seems to have provided a pretty solid answer: historically speaking, the pig's role in human society was both celebrated and reviled.>in a preindustrial context, the purpose of livestock is to upcycle biomass less useful to humans into more useful forms, such as labor, food, and materials like hide, wool, and horn>pigs can eat basically anything, which makes them very economical for this>you can raise a pig on whatever you've got to hand (kitchen scraps, spoiled food, waste collected from local industries like bakers and brewers), then at the start of winter, you take a hammer to your fleshy piggybank and get a big supply of nutrient-dense, easily preserved food to tide you through the harsher months>they'll even supplement what you give them by rooting around in the ground looking for more stuff to eatthat's all well and good, but:>pigs can eat basically anything, but they WILL eat basically anything, including all the things you really don't want them to eat: as if stealing food at every opportunity isn't bad enough, on rare occasion records exist of a loose pig unearthing a recently buried corpse from a graveyard or attacking small children, which is no doubt related to the apparent general trend of pigs being legally confined to sties and swinecotes>their rooting around in the ground, though otherwise beneficial, can be very damaging if they do it in the wrong place like gardens>pigs are filthy and do not smell good; contrary to how pop history loves to present the middle ages (getting literally everything wrong in the process) people did actually have nosesSo from this perspective, the pig is incredibly useful (if not critical at times) as a winter food source, but in life does absolutely no good whatsoever.
>>5064543good post
>>5064373This is a good post: >>5064543 and despite taking place in medieval Europe the points introduced are fairly universal all over the world. The pig is simply a perfect animal when it comes to converting inedible organic matter (sometimes even literal human shit) into edible meat. I don't know how true this is anymore, but there's a common modern historical belief that the only reason Semitic peoples turned on the pig was economic purposes. During the bronze age it was fairly universal to sacrifice animals to the gods; the meat would then be roasted and eaten by the priests, whatever left over trickling down to the poor. The pig used to be an ideal animal for this sort of thing, but with the advent of irrigation, better crop systems, and more domestic animals (chickens, sheep, goats), things changed. The pig became less appealing, perceived as a dirty lower-class poverty food not fit "unclean" for temple provisions. Furthermore, the pig wasn't as economically useful: it didn't produce a renewable food source like milk, nor an export commodity like wool, so palace governments encouraged the shift to other livestock. I think your cultures "distance" from this idea basically determines how you feel about pigs. Pigs are such a phenomenally popular farm animal they've been independently domesticated half a dozen times, but I think the introduction of other animals, and their associated byproducts, dulls the novelty.
>>5064543more context, there were laws pertaining to untended pigs, you could slaughter them and the owner of the pig had to pay you
>>5064543I still find it interesting how pigs were used for rotovating fields via their rooting and are still pretty viable today. They even eat a lot of weeds. If it weren't for care and food upkeep costs they seem like an upgrade to rotovators or the tried and true pickaxe with shovel
>>5064638>I don't know how true this is anymore, but there's a common modern historical belief that the only reason Semitic peoples turned on the pig was economic purposesIt's more likely down to the high risk of disease and illness as in the middle east there are a lot of pigs that carry pathogens in their stomach tract, so from a historical point of view there was a real risk of becoming ill to a grave degree which then led to the idea of pig meat being impure or cursed
>>5064678yeah, if you dont cook your pork chop all the way like a stupid retard, if you get food poisoning and die because you didnt cook your food correctly, or butcher it in a way that taints the meat, congratulations on your darwin award, you deserve it.and no it was entirely economical, pig eat up a lot of resources that are better served into cattle and goats for milk or chickens for eggs
>>5064678Anon you're quoting. I've heard that reason before, but I SEVERLY doubt it due to the fact that:A. The geographical determinate nature of it. Pigs have been raised in southern China and across South East Asia for thousands of years; in infinitely more hot & humid climates that are rife with parasites, diseases, and they never developed this taboo. B. It's an anachronism. No Semitic culture, or really any society or culture until the almost the age of sail, understood any correlative association with parasites or diseases with meat consumption. They all thought it was bad air, spirits, or in some cases plant matter. These two qualities make me think it's the sheep/cattle argument.
>>5064373The zutted.com incident
>>5064543Coming back to this topic: another advantage of the pig I forgot to mention is that a sow is able to farrow two litters of piglets per year, with this practice being recommended in the period by writers such as Walter of Henley.More generally, the point I cannot stress enough here is that the pig's value is innately contradictory, in that these same traits making it so popular as livestock are simultaneously the ones gaining its negative reputation.In addition to the aforementioned practical problems pigs cause, their nature of being an aggressively voracious eater and prolific breeder (despite all the utility it provided) made them an easily recognizable cultural icon for rapacious hedonism and material excess; their uncleanliness of morality is matched only by their uncleanliness in hygiene, with that famous affinity for getting covered in mud.
>>5064373Because middle easterners can't into hygiene. It's the root cause of many of their retarded beliefs
On one hand, I would like a kunekune or vietamese pot belly in my back garden going >SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEevery morning to the point that my autistc neighbor screams in pain because of her sensory processing difficulties.On the other hand, I would also want a small pond to fit a catfish or a bunch of koi that I feed everday by shoveling feed into their gobs like aquatic pigs.
>>5064543>in life does absolutely no good whatsoeverYour greentext contradicts this.
>>5064638>During the bronze age it was fairly universal to sacrifice animals to the gods; the meat would then be roasted and eaten by the priests, whatever left over trickling down to the poor. The pig used to be an ideal animal for this sort of thing, but with the advent of irrigation, better crop systems, and more domestic animals (chickens, sheep, goats), things changed. The pig became less appealing, perceived as a dirty lower-class poverty food not fit "unclean" for temple provisions. Furthermore, the pig wasn't as economically useful: it didn't produce a renewable food source like milk, nor an export commodity like wool, so palace governments encouraged the shift to other livestock.Problem is that the palace economies all but disappeared 1700 BC. And while pigs had a somewhat poor reputation, short of specific priesthoods, nobody was banned from consuming pig. Not amongst the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Hittites, the Sumerians, Babylonians or Egyptians.The ones who came up with the ban were the Canaanites, nomads who by definition didn't have palaces, yet alone palace economies.You'll note that pigs aren't typically kept by nomads anywhere, however. They're just not suited to the nomadic lifestyle.And that ban - probably a xenophobic reaction to the Egyptians and the pre-bronze age collapse inhabitants of the levant having pigs - was then kept as the canaanites settled down and became Israel and Judah.Tellingly, the people who then adopted the ban were the also largely nomadic Arabs, while the largely settled Greco-Romans abandoned it.
