WI Sacred Pigs?
- Thread starter The Vet
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David S Poepoe
Banned
Weren't they used most of the times to consume waste?
I would guess that such a culture would consider bacon to be food of the gods. However doesn't that happen today anyway?
Valdemar II
Banned
The animal symbolising Frey was a golden boar, we need a Germanic culture where Frey become the dominating god. The problem with that are that Frey was a fertility god widely worshiped among peasants, but he had little popularity among the nobility. So we need a stable Norse peasant republic, a place where agriculture are dominating (so not Island). Frey also seem to have been most popular among Swedes and Danes.
archaeogeek
Banned
What about Frisia doesn't decline and remains united as a republic? Or am I confusing it with the tiny Dithmarschen...
I believe Islam and pigs don't exactly get along together very well. Unless I'm suffering from some misconception.
Keenir
Banned
there are Islamic groups who don't mind eating pork.
also, the injunction against pork (for everyone else) is "only eat it if there's nothing else."
The Mabinogion is an ancient collection of Welsh folk tales that fairly obviously consists of a body of pagan myth that acquired a Christian veneer during the middle ages.
This is relevant because one of the legends tells how the mortal hero Pwll, Prince of Dyfed does a service for Arawn, lord of Annwn (a fairly obvious analogue of Pluto or Hades). Arawn's gratitude for this takes the form of a gift of the first pigs to be seen in Wales, and this divine origin seems to have the result of making pigs seem "special" for the rest of the cycle (a later story features a war between Dyfed and the northern kingdom of Gwynedd for possession of the pigs).
So to get pigs to continue to be seen as sacred animals you need either a surviving Welsh pagan tradition (borderline ASB, IMHO) or (rather more likely) for the pagan tradition to survive long enough and be strong enough for the idea of pigs as sacred to be syncretised into at least the local version of Christianity.
Dunno how fundamentally likely either option is, but at least pigs were sacred once
This is relevant because one of the legends tells how the mortal hero Pwll, Prince of Dyfed does a service for Arawn, lord of Annwn (a fairly obvious analogue of Pluto or Hades). Arawn's gratitude for this takes the form of a gift of the first pigs to be seen in Wales, and this divine origin seems to have the result of making pigs seem "special" for the rest of the cycle (a later story features a war between Dyfed and the northern kingdom of Gwynedd for possession of the pigs).
So to get pigs to continue to be seen as sacred animals you need either a surviving Welsh pagan tradition (borderline ASB, IMHO) or (rather more likely) for the pagan tradition to survive long enough and be strong enough for the idea of pigs as sacred to be syncretised into at least the local version of Christianity.
Dunno how fundamentally likely either option is, but at least pigs were sacred once
But in Soviet Russia pigs eat You! (and drink your vodka)
As someone who has dealt with feral pigs, they will shrug off hits from a 30-06, charge you, then fall over dead 5-minutes later. I can see how boars were found on coats of arms in Midieval Europe and were symbols of pagan gods. Ever seen a boar spear, nuff said.
The Islamic prohibition against pork, I believe, comes from the Jewish prohibition. This is based on the pig being considered an unclean animal, not sacred.
Right, but if a culture already has a taboo against consumption of pork yet has a lot of pigs running around, perhaps the pig could become a sacred animal based on those circumstances.