i8 Donald A. Mackenzie — Scottish Pork Taboo 



he divided the hoof and be cloven-footed, vet he cheweth not 

 the cud ; he is unclean to you." 



As we have seen, Julius Csesar found that the Ancient 

 Britons tabooed the hare (5, v, 12). No one can seriously 

 suggest therefore that the lingering- prejudice against hares 

 and rabbits in the Highlands and elsewhere is of early 

 Christian origin. Those who contend that the prejudice 

 against pigs is connected with the cloven hoof, overlook the 

 fact that there existed in Scotland a breed of pigs which had 

 undivided hoofs. '* I have lately seen," wrote Mr. Robert 

 Henderson, the Annan farmer, in 181 1, '^ hogs of a black 

 colour, at the Earl of Moray's, at Dennibirsel, that have close 

 feet like a horse, instead of being cloven-footed" (13,25) 



The theory that the Scottish prejudice against pork arose 

 from a desire to observe strictly the Mosaic law in this connec- 

 tion is evidently of comparatively recent origin. To the 

 masses of the early Christians the Bible was a closed book. 

 Even although translations in English and Gaelic had been 

 available, few could read. There were illiterates, too, even 

 among the clergy as Scottish historians have shown. Evidently 

 the Biblical explanation of the Scottish pork taboo is a 

 secondary one, originally urged by some pious patriot who 

 tried to account for the persistent hatred of the pig in his 

 native land. The fact that one of the old Gaelic names of the 

 pig, in " O'Davoren's Glossary," is deil, may here be noted. 

 In the Lowland Scots dialect " deil " is " devil." 



The Finns, like the early people of Scotland, tabooed pork. 

 In their case a Biblical origin for the prejudice has never been 

 suggested. The Skrifter (1910) of the Norwegian Society of 

 Sciences, contains an article on the '' Primary Source of Lapp- 

 landish Mythology." We are informed that " Finns do not 

 eat swine because these are their horses when they fare in 

 their spiritual troll visions to light against other Finnish 

 sorcerers (Ganfinnir). Those who eat or have eaten sw^ine 

 have then no horse, and become vanquished " (35, 15). Here 

 we seem to meet with the pig avatar of a deity of the ancient 

 folk. 



The ancient pork taboo still survives in a part of Greece 

 among a people of non-Hellenic origin whose ancestors must 

 have eflFected an intellectual conquest of the pork-eating 

 Achaean intruders, as did the pork-hating Anatolians of the 

 intruding Celts who settled in Galatia and the pork-hating 

 people of Scotland of the earliest Celtic intruders. 



