Cultural References To Pigs - in Religion

In Religion

• In Nordic Mythology, "Gold-Bristle" or "Gold-Mane" was Freyr's golden boar, created by the dwarves Brokk and Sindri as part of a challenge. His shining fur is said to fill the sky, trees, and sea with light.

• In ancient Egypt pigs were associated with Set, the rival to the sun god Horus. When Set fell into disfavor with the Egyptians, swineherds were forbidden to enter temples. According to Herodotus, swineherds were a kind of separate sect or caste, which only married among themselves. Egyptians regarded pigs as unworthy sacrifices to their gods other than the Moon and Dionysus, to whom pigs were offered on the day of the full Moon. Herodotus states that, though he knew the reason why Egyptians abominated swine at their other feasts but they sacrificed them at this one; however, it was to him "not a seemly one for me to tell".

• In Hinduism the god Vishnu took the form of a four-armed humanoid with the head of a boar named Varaha in order to save the Earth from a demon who had dragged it to the bottom of the sea.

• In Buddhism the goddess Marici is often depicted riding in a carriage hauled by several pigs.

• In ancient Greece, a sow was an appropriate sacrifice to Demeter and had been her favorite animal since she had been the Great Goddess of archaic times. Initiates at the Eleusinian Mysteries began by sacrificing a pig. Pig were also sacrificed to Aphrodite.

• The pig is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. Believers in Chinese astrology associate each animal with certain personality traits (see: Pig (zodiac)).

• In keeping with Leviticus 11:7, the dietary laws of Judaism (Kashrut, adj. Kosher) forbid, among other kinds of meat, the eating of pork in any form, considering the pig to be an unclean animal (see taboo food and drink). From the strict reading to the relevant Torah passage, pork is as forbidden as the flesh of any other unclean animal, but probably due to extensive use of pork in modern days, abhorrence of pork is far stronger and emotional in traditional Jewish culture than that of other forbidden foods.

• The Old Testament prohibits the consumption of pork: "Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch, they are unclean to you."(Leviticus 11:7-8); also, in the book of Deuteronomy: "And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you. Ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass."(Deuteronomy 14:8). A similar prohibition is repeated in the Bible in the book of Isaiah, chapter 65 verse 2-5. Among Seventh-day Adventists and some other denominations, the eating of pork is prohibited. Most Christians believe that the eating of pork is not prohibited, according to the teachings of the New Testament. In Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and other, older Christian groups, pigs are associated with Saint Anthony the Great, who is known as the patron saint of swineherds.

• The eating of pork is also sinful in Islam (see Haraam). The Qur'an prohibits the consumption of pork in no less than 4 different places. It is prohibited in 2:173, 5:3, 6:145 and 16:115. "Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah."

• In Haitian Vodou, Ezili Dantor, the lwa of motherhood, is associated with the black Creole Pig of Haiti, her favorite animal sacrifice.

• In Judaism and Islam, pigs are the unclean and inedible animals par excellence, the animal that is central to the concepts of treif and haram. In De Specialibus Legibus, Philo of Alexandria, a first century Jewish writer, relates that pigs were lazy scavengers, the embodiment of vice. Philo also argued that since pigs will eat the flesh of human corpses, that men should abstain from eating them so as not to be contaminated.

• The ancient Romans practiced a sacrifice called the suovetaurilia, in which a pig, a ram, and a bull were sacrificed, as one of the most solemn acts of the Roman religion.

• The Celts also had a god of swine called Moccus, who under Roman occupation was identified with Mercury. In Celtic mythology, a cauldron overflowing with cooked pork was one of the attributes of The Dagda. In the tale of Culhwch and Olwen from the Welsh Mabinogion, the Twrch Trwyth was a prince whom God turned into a boar on account of his wickedness.