Animals history in society

Animals History in Society Your Name Course and Section Professor’s Name October 1, 2024 Essay 1: Cultural Taboos Against Eating Certain Animals Introduction Interdictions regarding the utilization of certain animals have been of significant interest to scholars in theoretical discussions of cultural food taboos. These diets that vary across societies have roots in powerful religious, economic, and social beliefs that dictate a society's interaction with food and the natural setup. These taboos are significant in defining not only food choices, which define the boundaries of people's acceptable consumption but also act as an integral part of the social classification of a given people, as well as maintaining social and religious distinctions, thus supporting a given community's hierarchical structure. Thus, food taboos have always defined some group or another, whether religious or economic, or ideological assumptions about purity and impurity. Thus, in Lesser Beasts, Mark Essig offers a convincing account of why specific societies exclude this particular animal and which factors made the pig an object of adoration and a staple food at the same time. His work looks more than at the social-religious aspect of such a ban; it also considers the social-historical perspective of why pork became an issue. In this essay, I will not only present the conclusion of Essig's theories but also bring theories and more examples from the lectures and discussions on this subject to explain why these food taboos are so complicated. Essig's Argument on Pork Prohibition In his book Lesser Beasts: A History of Pork, Mark Essig breaks down the history of humanity and pigs, and this chapter specifically is about how pig meat- pork- has been cherished or loathed depending on the society. Essig continues to posit that the prohibition of pork in other cultures, such as the Jewish and the Muslims, is mainly cultural, particularly in aspects of religious and cultural perceived purity, cleanliness, and pollution. In his estimation, pigs were considered unhygienic animals because of the company they kept, living in proximity to people, and their diets, feeding on human excrement's leftovers. Analyzing the situation, he concluded that pigs were considered untidy mainly because they freely roamed near human dwellings and ate almost everything, including human excrement and scrap leftovers. Such spatial proximity does more than erase the boundary between human and animal habitats: it leads to the acknowledgment of pigs as inedible and unacceptable animals. According to Essig, such connections with dirt put pigs into the category of the undesirable in numerous religions, as they equated cleanliness and morality where codes of eating were integral to purity concepts. Nevertheless, pigs were seen differently in other cultures like ancient Italy and China. Pork in these cultures was valued and considered a starchy staple food because pigs, compared to other animals, are nutritional, easy to breed, and domesticate. The contrast of views of the two societies regarding the use of pork in their diets is because the societies' dietary restrictions are versatile and transformative due to social, environmental, and practical factors. Other Theories on Food Taboos Apart from Essig, many other scholars have researched why food taboos exist in people's lives and provide other explanations that add depth to the topic. Another view that can also be considered brilliant is Mary Douglas, an internationally recognized anthropologist who has argued about purity and danger regarding ethnicity. In Douglas's con tables of food, it is essential to highlight that those taboos are not simply chosen but are rather firmly associated with a society's category of purity and impurity (Essig, 2015). Douglas discussed her finding that animals are not easily classified in the natural taxonomy. For example, food animals such as pigs are impure because, for example, they have cloven hooves but do not chew cuds. Since these animals are between clean and unclean, they are excluded in societies where purity, especially about religious or moral dietary laws, is upheld. This theory provides a secondary, symbolic, and structuralist perspective on why, among other associated animals, pigs, for example, are perceived to be appropriate for consumption or not in societies that place much premium on ritual purity. Another theory of origin can be traced to cultural materialism, which anthropologist Marvin Harris most evidently articulates. According to Harris, food taboo is more of an economical and environmental view of how people feed themselves rather than going for religious or symbolic notions of eating and feeding. In his considerations concerning cultural taboos, Harris postulated that the ban on pork intake belongs to extended practical and ecological reasons and not only semiotic ones; this is especially true for those living in the hot desert climate. Unlike other cattle, including sheep and goats, pigs need much water and grain to be raised. Again, where resources such as water are scarce in the desert, rearing pigs to feed on would have been very expensive and unprofitable for subsistence farming. It is for these reasons of economic unprofitability that, according to Harris, the wiping out of this animal culturally and religiously from societies like the Middle Eastern ones happened with time. This theory offers an environmental perspective on food taboos and demonstrates how a scarce environment influences cultural practices and eating prohibitions. Case Studies of Animal Food Taboos The prohibition of pork is among many other restrictions that various societies place on particular animals, depending on certain cultural, religious, and environmental factors. Various animal food taboos worldwide present profound ethnophilosophical views of the concerned global community. For example, in Hindu culture, cows are considered sacred animals, so beef is prohibited. This is not just a matter of discrimination of food but also pronounced by religious faith, more specifically the Hindu faith, as the latter holds life in high esteem (Fan, 2024). Prevalent are examples of non-violent characters, such as the cow who is helpful as the producer of milk and as a participant in agriculture and does not have to be killed to be consumed (Kelleher, 2017). This animal's sanctity is religious but also social and ethical. When it comes to animal rights and agricultural practices in India, the beef ban remains a taboo. This example also shows how religious beliefs influence the list of approved foods and the whole paradigm of interactions between humans and animals within the culture. Neither do Western societies see it socially acceptable to consume animals that people generally consider pets, such as dogs. Even though most people in the Western world consider dogs to be faithful and wise friends, South Koreans and the Chinese use dogs as foo...