March 30, 2007

• Taboo or Not Taboo

  Cultural taboos have fascinated me since I was a child.  I first heard the word in a movie.  There, it described an island that the quaint and exotic natives of a neighboring island were warning the intrepid American hero to avoid.  Of course, our hero was headed to that taboo island already and wasn’t about to let some cowardly superstitious natives deter him.  Also of course, he was soon to have some hair-raising adventures on the taboo island, barely escaping with the treasure and his life, else the movie would have had no plot and its macguffin would have taken it nowhere.

  I really don’t recall what thought process led me to inscribe this question on my list of potential blog topics during my recent mouseless interval:  “When did we stop eating dogs?”  That’s why I write things down.  I forget them otherwise.  Ideas are perishable goods.

  As I was rereading my list today, I asked myself who that “we” is that I referred to above.  If I’m talking about my own ancestors, my ancestry is so mixed that the question is unanswerable.  As recently as four generations back, I have some Lakota ancestors who probably considered a pot of puppy stew to be a real comfort on a chilly day, and some of their present-day full-blood relatives on the rez still do.  I’d probably have to look a little farther back on the European branches of my family tree.  It is written that Washington and his men at Valley Forge ate cat meat, and an ancestor of mine seven generations back was at Valley Forge during that harsh wartime winter, but the histories and diaries say nothing of them eating any dogs.

  If by “we” I mean humanity, it’s a silly question.  Some of us are eating dog meat as I write these words and as you read them.  It’s not even a sensible question to ask about Americans, because there are lots of us, both indigenous and immigrant, who still enjoy an occasional canine meal.  Still, I was curious about the history of the taboo, so I took my search to Google.  The web references I found are more geographical than historical.  I did not learn when it became infra dig in Europe to roast Rover or feed Fido to the family.  I did learn that in some places where dog meat is taboo, it’s considered okay to eat cats and horses.

  Personally, if I were going to feel squeamish about eating any critter at all, I guess I’d probably feel equally squeamish about horses, cats, dogs and some other species with whom I have had personal relationships.  But as I sit here and search my mind and soul, I can’t really find even a single squeam or qualm about eating any wholesome, non-toxic, undiseased, dead food.  I have a problem with live food, especially if it wiggles going down, and I’d have to be starving before I’d kill a friend for food.  Philosophically, I think that any carnivore ought to be willing to kill the meat he or she eats, and I have fished and hunted wild game.  I have also slaughtered and butchered domestic animals.  I come from a family of country folk, farmers and fishers, not city people.

  There are many city people, and probably more than a few country folk, who think of eating cats and dogs as a form of cannibalism.  I don’t want to go into the animal rights issues or the ethical vegan thing, but I should probably mention cannibalism while I’m on this topic.  I think of long pig as strictly starvation rations, and I’d be more comfortable with slicing off a chunk of my own ample flesh for consumption than with killing a companion.  I’d have no problem with eating the already-dead flesh of disaster victims to survive in a situation such as that of the Donner Party in the winter of 1846-’47 or the Andes plane crash in 1972.  But let’s get back to dog food.

  In my searches today, I learned that Koreans are probably the most frequent eaters of dog meat.  Asian lore has it that dog meat is yang, so it’s mostly a male dish, especially in Vietnam.  It’s also mostly a winter dish, because yang foods are heat-producers.  Elsewhere, as with all taboos, whether one is comfortable with eating dog meat is a matter of culture.  In the Philippines, most of the dog eaters live in the northern regions.  In the U.S., most of them are either Native Americans or Asian immigrants.

  The photos below are by Ira Morenberg.  The first one doesn’t bother me…

  

  It’s messy, but it’s just meat and I have dealt with messier messes of moose, pig, duck, and other meats.  The next photo, however, does bother me because the dogs are crammed into such a small crate and I don’t know how long they were subjected to those conditions. 

  

  On the farms and ranches where I’ve lived, and when I raised ducks and rabbits in my greenhouse here, the livestock’s living conditions were as clean and comfortable as I could make them and the methods of slaughter were as humane as any killing can be.  Likewise with hunting wild game.   I don’t necessarily equate killing with cruelty, but maybe that’s crazy.  It’s a cultural thing, I guess.

  Some related links I found:

  weird-meat-master-list
  The Politics of Dog
  the_taboo_of_horses_for_food
  deliciousdogs.com

   

  • 3:49 pm
  • 4 Comments