Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1906-02-22
CONDEMNED AS FOOD
NEARLY EVERYTHING WORTH EAT
ING HAS BEEN UNDER "A BAN.

Z S1 tNSi HAS BEEN SUNQEt a BAN.
From the Days of Adam There HAS
Been Not Only Forbidden Fruit, but
j Forbidden Meats and Vegetables
The Peculiar Belief OF ssTotemism.''
From the days Of Adam and Eve to
the present time there has been not
only forbidden fruit, but forbidden
meats and vegetables. iFors one rea-
son or another people have resolutely
refused to eat any and all kinds Of
flesh. fish, foNA, fruits and plants.
Thus the apple, the pear, the srawDer-
~, the ounce, the bean, the onion, the
Ieek, the asparagus, the Woodpecker.
the pigeon, the goose, the deer. the bear,
the turtle and the eel these, to name
only q few eatables, have been avoid
ed as If unwho1esome or positively in
furious to health and digestion.
Il AS we, all know, the Jews have long
had a hereditary antipathy to pork. On
the other hand, swine's flesh was high
" esteemed by the ancient Greeks and
Romans. This fact Is revealed by the
many references to pig as dainty bit
Of food. At the great festival held am
uually in honor Of Demeter roast pig
was the piece de resistance In the bill
of fare because the pig was the sacred
animal Of Demeter. Aristophanes In
'"The Frogs" makes one of the char
acters hint that some OF the others
..'smen of roast pig" These people un-
doubtedly had been at the festival,
known as the Thesmophoria, and had
eaten freely Of roast pig. Those who
took part in another Greek mystery or
festival, known us the Eleusinia, abb
stained from certain food and. above
all, from beans.
\ Again. as we all know, mice are es-
teemed 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 ae-.
count. So. too, In some parts OF Greece,
the mouse was the sacred animal OF
Apollo, and mice were fed In his tenn
pies. The chosen people were forbid
den to eat .sthe weasel and the mouse
and the tortoise after his kind. These
came under the designation Of unclean.
But people have abstained from eat
ing kinds OF flesh which could not be
called unelean. For example, the people
OF Thebes, as Herodotus tells US, abb
stained from sheep. What Is the mat
ter with mutton chops7 Then. the an
clients used to abstain from certain
vegetables. Indeed, the Romans sneer-
ed at those Egyptians who did not dare
to eat onions. leeks or garlic, and yet
the Romans themselves were superst-
ttous about what they ate or what they
should avoid eating. T. ss.S.s5s IS
In his Roman Questions" Plutarch
asks, why do the Latins abstain
strictly from the flesh OF the woodpeck-
erf'' In order to answer Plutarch's
question correctly 1t Is necessary to
ihave some idea Of the peculiar custom
and belief called ..totemisn - There 10
la stage or society in which people claim
descent from and kinship with beasts.
birds. vegetables and other objects.
This object, which Is q 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 ami
! NAL, plant or object, as the bear the
buffalo. the woodpecker. the asparagus,
and SO forth. No member Of the bear
i family would dare to eat bear neat,
hut he has no objection to eating buff
faio steak. Even the marriage law is
based on this belief, and no man whose
family name is Wolf may marry wo-
man whose family name Is also Volt.
In q general way 1T may be said that
almost all our food prohibitions spring
from the extraordinary custom gen
Ieraily called totemism. Mr.. Swan, who
i was missionary for. many years in
the Kongo Free State, thus describes
the custom: II I were to ask the Yeke
! people why they do not eat zebra flesh
they would repiy, s s. Chi Hal e., Tt Il
Ia thing to which NE have an antipa,
thy Of. better, .If Is one of the things
which our fathers taught us not to eat
!, $50 It seems the word abashilangs
means s'the people who hare an an
ltipathy to the leopard:" the .basha
diamba," 'sfhose who have an antipathy
to the deg and the ..bashilanlanzefu,'
those who have an antipathy to thu
Elephant In other words, the mem
lbers OF these stocks refuse to eat theil
totems. the zebra. the leopard and The
elephant. from which they take theil
Inames. b 81
i The survival OF antipathy to certain
foods was found among, people al
highly civilized as the Egyptians. The
Greeks and the Romans. Quite Ifs
Il of animals whose flesh was forbidden
might be drawn up. For example, Il
Old Egypt the sheep could not be eater
In Thebes, nor the goat N Mendes. moi
the cat In Bubastis. nor the crocodile
at Ombos, nor the raj, which was sa
cred to IA, the sun god However, TIL
people Of one place had no scrupie.
about eating the forbidden food of an
tpfher place, and this often led To re
Hgious disputes and bad blood.
Among the vegetables tabooed ii