The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-01-05
srPERsrIrIONs ABOUT Food.
,,,,oSt Everything Worth Eating
Has at one Time or Another Been
TabOOed-

ii55en fruit, but forbidden meats and
,..-etabIes For one reason or another
,,.7nle have resolutely refused to eat any
snf all kinds of flesh, fish, fowl, fruits
ana giants. Thus. the apple, the pear the
strawberry, the ounce, the bean, the on
ion. the leel5, the asparagus, the wood
pecker. the pigeon, the goose. the deer
+be hear. the turtle and the eel-these. TO
name only a few eatables' have been
welded as if unwholesome or positively
INJURIOUS to health and digestion.
As We know, the Jews have long had
an hereditary antipathy to pork. On the
other hand swine's flesh was highly es-
teen1ed by the ancient Greeks and Rom
ans This fact is revealed by the refer
ences to pig as a dainty bit OF food At the
great festival held annually in honor OF
Demeter roast pig was the piece de re-
sistance in the bill of fare, because the
mig was the sacred animal Of Demeter.
Aristophanes, in 1.-The Frogs" makes one
nj the characters hint that some of the
others smell of roast pig" These peo-
ple undoubtedly had been at the festival
known as the ThesmorphOria) and had
eaten freely of roast pig. Those who took
mart in another Greek mystery or feSti-
val known as the Eleusinia) abstatned
from certain food, and above all from
Again, as we all know, mice are esteem
ed in China and in some parts of India.
But the ancient Egyptians. Greeks, and
Jews abhorred mice and would not touch
mOuse-meat- Rats and field-mice were
sacred in old Egypt, and were not to be
eaten on this account. so, too, in some
PARTS of Greece, the mouse was the sa-
cred animal of Apollo, and mice were fed
in his temples The chosen people were
forbidden to eat THE weasel, and the
mouse, and the tortoise after his kind"
These came under the designation of I'M
clean animals, which were 10 be avoided.
But people have abstained from eating
kinds of flesh which could not be called
unclean. For example, the people Of
Thebes, as Herodotus tells us, abstained
CHI haf &c he wit IN
mutton chops? Then, the ancients used
TO abstain from certain vegetables. In
deed. the Romans sneered at those Egyp-
tians who did not dare to eat onions, leeks
or garlic. And yet the Romans them
ssVes were superStitious about what
they ate, or what they should avoid eat
10 his Roman Question: Plutarch asks
why do the Latins abstain strictly from
the flesh of the woodpecker?" In order
20 answer Plutarch's question correctly
it is necessary to have some idea of the
peculiar custom and belief called totem
ism" There is stage of society in which
people claim descent from and kinship
with beasts, birds, vegetables, and other
objects This object, which is totem, -
or family mark. they religiously abstain
from eating. The members of the tribe
are divided into clans or stocks, each of
which takes the name of some animal,
plant, or object as the bear, the buffalo,
the woodpecker, the asparagus, and so
forth. No member of the bear family
would dare TO eat bear meat, but he has
Even the marriage law is based on this
belief, and no man whose family name is
Wolf may marry a woman whose family
In a general way it may be said that
almost all our food prohibitions spring
from the extraordinary custom generally
called totemism. Mr.. Swan, who was a
missionary for many years in the Congo
Free State, thus describes the custom:
III 1 were to ask the Yeke people why
they do not eat zebra flesh, they would
reply, chijila, i. e., 1T is a thing to which
we have an antipathy;' or better, ut is
one of the things which our fathers taught
US not to eat" 1t seems the word Bash
ilang" Iseans the people who have an
natipathy to the leopard the "Bashi-
LAMBDA" those who have an antipathy to
the dog" ana the Bashilanzefu, those
who have an antipathy to the elphant"
in other words, the members of these
stocks refuse to eat their totems, the
zebra, the leopard, or 1.-the elephant, from
which they take their names.
The surval of antipathy to certain foods
was found among people as highly civ
llized as the Egyptians. the Greeks and the
Romans. Quite a list or animals whose
flesh was forbidden might be drawn up.
For example, in old Egypt, the sheep
could not be eaten in Thebes nor the
goat in Mendes, nor the cat in Bubastis,
nor the crocodile at Ombos, nor the rat,
which was sacred to Ra, the sun god.
However, the people of one place had no
scruples about eating the forbidden food
of another place. And this often led to
religious disputes and bad blood.
among the vegetables IaDOOed as tOOd
by the Egyptians may be mentioned the
onion, the garlic and the leek. Lucan
says that the inhabitants of Potassium
adOred the onion. According to Pliny,
and the onion. Juvenat pokes fun at
those who thought it sin to eat them.
ne eXclaims: Surely very religious
nation, and a blessed peace, where every
garden is overrun with gods!'
The surviValS of totemism among the
ancient Greeks are very interesting. Fam
a mir % lie and nj Flf HHTar
not uncommon. One Athenian gems, the
IoXidae, had for its ancestral plant. the
asparagus. We may be sure that this
plant was tabooed as food to every man,
woman and child of the IoXide.
one Roman gems, the Piceni, took a
Woodpecker for its token and every men,
Der OF this family refused, of course, to
eat the flesh of the Woodpecker. In the
same way as the nations of the Congo
Free State, the Latins had an antipathy
10 certain kinds of food However, an
animal or plant forbidden in one place was
eaten without any conjunction in an
other place. These local rites in Ro-
man times says Mr.. Lang, caused civ
il brawls, for the customs of one town
naturally seemed blasphemous to neigh
hors with different sacred animal Thus
when the people of dogtown were feed
ing on the fish called oxyrrhyncus, the
CITIZENS of the town which revered the
o1yrryncus began to eat DOGS. Hence
arose riot" The antipathy of the Jews
70 pork has given rise to quite different
explanations The custom is probably a
relic of totemistic belief That the I'M
clean animals-animals not TO be eaten
such as the pig, the mouse, and the wea-
sell were originally totems of the chill
eren of Israel, Prof. Robertson Smith
believes is shown by various passages IN
me Old Testament.
When animals and plants ceased to be
held sacred they were endowed WIFI
sundry magical or mystic properties. The
apple has been supposed to possess pecu,
ar virtues, especially in the way OF
health THE relation of the apple tc
health, says Mr.. Conway, lis traceablt
70 Arabia. Sometimes it is regarded as
bane. In Hessia it is said an apple
must not be eaten on New Years day, as
IL viii produce an abcess. But generally
II Is curative. In Pomerania it. is eater
On Easter morning against fevers; II
Mestphalia (mixed with saffron) against
9aundice; while in Silesia an apple is
seraped from top to stalk to cure diar-
rhoea- and upward to sure costiveness.
According to an old English fancy, II
eeIHy one who is suffering from wound II
lhe head should eat Strawberries, it vii
ERad to fatal results. In the south OF
england the folk say that the devil puts
ms ms cloven foot upon the blackberries OF
Iuchaelmas day, and hence none should
pe gathered or eaten after that day. or
sne other hand, in Scotland the peasants
say mat the devil throws his cloak over