The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-02-05
TABOOED AS FOODS
THE PECULIAR CUSTOM AND BELIEF
CALLED "TOTEMISM.n

''--.S ~ 1"tS".
Almost Everything Worth Eating Has Mt
One Time or Another Been Under tho
Ban-A Frequent Cause OF Religious Dis
putes and the Display of Bad Blood.
In recent issue of Tho Evening Post
the writer noted some superstitions about
bread. Not less curious and interesting is
tho folklore which has clustered around
the various articles of food.
From tho days of Adam and Evo to the
present time there has been not only for
hidden fruit, but forbidden meats and
vegetables. For ono reason or another
people have resolutely refused to eat any
and all kinds Of flesh, fish, fowl, fruits
and plants Thus, the apple, tho pear
the strawberry, tho ounce the beam tho
onion, the leok, the asparagus, the wood
pecker, the pigeon, tho goose, tho deer, the
bear, the turtle and the eel-these, to name
only few eatables, have been avoided as
II unwholesomo or positively Injurious to
health and digestion.
AS we NIL know, the Jews have long
had hereditary antipathy to pork. On
the other hand, swines flesh was highly
esteemed by the ancient Crooks and Ro.
mans. This fact is revealed by the many
references to pig MS dainty bit of food.
AT the great festival held annually in hon.
or OF Demeter, roast pig was tho piece de
resistance in the bill of fare, because the
pig WAS the snored animal of Demcter.
Aristophnnes, in 1.-THE Frogs" makes one
of the characters hint that some of tho 9th
ers "smoll Of roast pig" These people I'M
doubtedly had been at the festival (known
as the Thesmophoria) and had eaton freely
yafrS Nkn- H. u
other Greek mystery or festival (known as
the Eleusinia) abstained from certain food
and above all, from beans.
Again, rs we all know, mice are cs-
teemed in China and In some parts of In
dia. But the ancient Egyptians, Greeks
and Jows abhorred mico and would not
touch mouse meat. Rats and field mice
wero sacred in old Egypt, and wero not to
be eaton on this account. So, too, in some
parts of Greece, the mouse was tho sacred
animal Of Apollo, and mico were fed in
his temples. The chosen people were for
hidden to cat tho weasel, and the mouse.
and the tortoise after his kind" These
came under the designation Of unclcan
animals, which were to be avoided
But people have abstained from eating
kinds OF flesh which could not be called
unclean. For example, the people of
Thebcs, as Herodotus tells us, abstained
from sheep. What Is the matter with NUT
ton chops2 Then, the ancients used to alb
stain from certain vegetables. Indeed the
Romans sneered at those Egyptians who
did not dare to cut onions, locks or garlic
And yet tho Romans themselves were SUI
perstitious about what they ate or what
they should avoid eating.
In his Roman Questions" Plutarch
asks "Why do the Latins abstain strictly
frnff hn nf fhn
order to answer Plutarch's question cor
rectly it is necessary to have some idea of
the peculiar custom and belief called "to-
temism." Thore is stage of society in
which people claim descent from and
kinship with beasts, birds, vegetables and
other objects. This object, which ts a
"totem," or family mark, they religiously
abstain from eating. The members of the
tribe are divided into clans or stocks, each
of which takes tho name of some animal,
plant or object, as the bear, tho buffalo.
the woodpockcr, the asparagus, and SO
forth. No member of tho bear family
would dare to eat bear moat but no has no
objection to eating buffalo steak Even
the marriage law is based on this belief.
and no man whose family name is Wolf
may marry q woman whose family name
is also Wolf.
In general way it may be said that al
most all our food prohibitions spring from
the extraordinary custom generally called
totemism. Mr.. Swan, who was q mission.
ary for many years in the Kongo Free
State, thus describes the custom: If
were to ask the Yoke people why they do
not cat zebra flesh, they would reply,
ohijila-i. e., at is thing to which we
havo ON antipathy," or, better, It is one
of the things which our fathers taught us
not to cat" So it seems the word sbash-
ilnng' means "the people who have an
antipathy to the leopard" tho "bashi-
LAMBDA, those who have an antipathy to
tho dog" and the Observation-Disclosures,
"those who have an antipathy to the eie-
plant" In other words, the members of
these stocks refuse to eat their tote,ns, the
zebra, tho leopard and the elephant, from
which they take their names.
The survival Of antipathy to certain
foods was found among people as highly
civilized rs tho Egyptians the Greeks and
the Romans. Quito list Of Dpimals whose