Talk:Scottish pork taboo

message: This goes way off-topic toward the end. --70.18.54.9 07:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No it doesn't. It's putting the whole thing in context. --MacRusgail 14:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

message: From what I can tell, only one person has made the claim that there was a Scottish Pork Taboo - this Donald A. MacKenzie, apparently a scholar of mythology in the early twentieth century. Aren't there any other scholars who've studied this? Sites like this  don't fill me with confidence. --Nydas 21:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The site doesn't fill me with confidence either, but some of the authorities quoted such as Dean Ramsay strike me as "kosher" (!) --MacRusgail 18:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the article on British Israelism is right, then it started to take off during the C18th, the same time most of those quotes are from. They might just be a product of their time. The quotes are mostly second-hand as well - an un-named 'old Scottish gentleman',   "I have often heard that the Scots will not eat it", patriotic songs. It has the whiff of an old urban legend about it.--Nydas 20:34, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tagged for verification. Apart from Donald A. MacKenzie (who probably deserves an article) and a tiny handful of fringe theorists, there seems to be no other information on this supposed 'taboo'. Where is the interest from contemporary, mainstream historians? Where is the archeological evidence? Where are the reliable first-hand accounts from those who actually practiced this taboo? See the Celtic toe AfD for a similar example. --Nydas 18:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've never heard of this, but I am intrigued. If nothing else happens, I'll try verify this (i.e. check out the article, and see what sources are used) when I get access to  big library next month. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 22:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Verifiability

message: MacKenzie should be called a theorist, because as the Scott quote above proves, the concept hardly originates with him. --MacRusgail 16:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that this article still claims it as MacKenzie's idea. Did he time travel back to speak to Walter Scott about it? --MacRusgail (talk) 18:03, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: MacKenzie again!

message: It turns out that Trevelyan refers to the taboo as well. An awful lot of people must have time travelled to MacKenzie's time to hear about his "assertion".--MacRusgail 15:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where? And which Trevelyan?--Nydas 17:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further evidence against MacKenzie invention 

message: This can be proved or disproved by checking the frequence of pig bones among Scottish archeological digs.
Are there such studies?
--Error 01:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there is any dispute even by MacKenzie that pigs have been eaten since antiquity in Scotland, only that there was a dislike of them in some quarters, bordering on taboo. --MacRusgail 14:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He says it was a fierce taboo, not merely bordering on one.--Nydas 08:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's MacKenzie's view. As I have said before, this article is not solely about MacKenzie, and will be rewritten to reflect that soon. --MacRusgail 16:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: MacKenzie is the only scholar to have studied this 'phenomenon'. Sifting through centuries of literature for a few lines and quotes of questionable origin is original research. --Nydas 20:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No it isn't. Many of these quotes have already been sifted through by other people and are therefore not original research. At least they would be references, unlike the majority of Wikipedia's "popular culture" articles. The fact that Sir Walter Scott had already researched this supposed tendency long before MacKenzie counts for something.--MacRusgail 09:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Who else but MacKenzie has sifted through them? No-one. Scott hadn't 'researched' it, he make an oblique reference to it in a work of fiction, hardly a reliable source.--Nydas(Talk) 10:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Scott researched his historical novels before writing them, and the reference is also in a factual footnote on the subject. While Scott can be accused of various biases, he was not without acclaim as an historian, as for example his biography of Napoleon was. That was hardly a work of fiction, although no doubt some fiction encroached on it, as it does in all historical works.--MacRusgail 11:07, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no such note in the Project Gutenberg text linked above, which includes them. Number of note, please. Septentrionalis 00:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Do a text search for 'swine' and it comes up eventually.--Nydas(Talk) 10:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, it's a footnote to Malagrowther's speech, not an endnote: Footnote: The Scots, till within the last generation, disliked swine's flesh as an article of food as much as the Highlanders do at present. It was remarked as extraordinary rapacity, when the Border depredators condescended to make prey of the accursed race, whom the fiend made his habitation. Ben Jonson, in drawing James's character, says, he loved "no part of a swine." Septentrionalis 18:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archeology

message: This topic has been niggling me - and I ended up looking round a bit. First I found an article which argues against the taboo idea, but suggests it's not just DA Mackenzie's bee-in-the-bonnet. (The Riddle of the Scottish Pig, by Eric B. Ross, in BioScience, Vol. 33, No. 2. (Feb 1983), pp. 99-106.) 
"In the years of the eighteenth century and probably earlier, swine were rarely raised in Scotland, particularly in the Scottish Highlands, and subsequent writers have gone so far as to postulate the operation of a taboo on the eating of pork. Unfortunately there is almost nothing known today about local sentiments of that era, and we have only the intellectual rationalizations of educated writers who all too easily found an explanation for the scarcity of pigs in the assumption that a 'foolish prejudice' was at work."
It looks as if the author is going to explain it all "in terms of the historical and ecological conditions of the Scottish Highlands" and cultural materialism, but I've only skimmed through the article. 
He refers to several other writers who mention this prejudice/superstition/taboo including
Smout - A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830, p 132, -  "a universal superstitious prejudice". 
Then in the Scotsman archives there's a letter (8th October 1921) from Dr. W. Mackay Mackenzie, a historian arguing against DA Mackenzie, but agreeing there has been anti-pork prejudice on and off, in some areas - but no full taboo - gives examples pro and con pork prejudice, including historical refs to herds of pigs, pork eating etc. - and suggests economic factors from about 1500 contributed to people's prejudices. He also led me to these:
*"The deep rooted prejudice against swine's flesh is now removed: most of the farmers rear some of that species, which, not 30 years ago, they held in the utmost detestation"  (Ardchattan, County of Argyle. Account of 1791-99, volume 6, page 177)
*"The people of this part of Scotland had formerly a superstitious prejudice against swine; but now there are a number reared and fed in this parish."(Lesmahago, County of Lanark. Account of 1791-99, volume 7, page 426)
*"As the prejudice against eating swine's flesh is in a great measure overcome, a considerable number of pigs is reared here." (Kiltearn, County of Ross and Cromarty. Account of 1791-99, volume 1, page 265)
*"the country people still retain some prejudice against pork; but it is wearing out gradually."( Longforgan, County of Perth. Account of 1791-99, volume 19, page 497)
WMM's letter also quotes this book:
The historie of Scotland / wrytten first in Latin by Bishop Jhone Leslie, and translated in Scottish by James Dalrymple ... 1596 
*"As swyne flesh is uset in uthir countries, of quhilke our cuntrie peple has lytle plesure."
So - you learn something new every day.  --HJMG 17:20, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Brilliant research, HJMG. Are you going to integrate your findings into the text? And good work finding out more about Donald Alexander Mackenzie as well.--Nydas(Talk) 18:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I second Nydas' compliment. I think that the article has to be balanced. Some info on the anti-argument would be good. --MacRusgail 18:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, thanks to you, I have now heard of this "taboo". I find Mackenzie a bit wacky (hope my POV is under control), but it's interesting that a good number of people agree on a "prejudice". --HJMG 12:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

text: And there's a problem with Mackenzie's theory from the other end: the initiates of Attis and the Great Mother abstained from pork for a period before their ceremonies, not year around. (Julian, 5:177b). Septentrionalis 23:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Very good rewrite, HJMG. I'd say that this article is just about as good as it's likely to get. On another note, I came across another Mackenzie book whilst working - his account of the First World War. Flipping through it, it seems like a very poor book. Glaringly one-sided and simplistic, it's basically British Empire propaganda. He says that the war had a silver lining; bringing the peoples of the empire closer together. Hmm, not exactly.--Nydas(Talk) 15:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other writers 

message: I noticed that in the following section;
Other writers referring to a prejudice against pork
That there are spelling errors which are in the quote.
Bishop John Lesley's History of Scotland talks of "our cuntrie peple" having "lytle plesure" in pork in the 1570s. [7]
Is there a reason for this or is just an oversight? Thanks. Sirtrebuchet 20:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Using Ockham's Razor, I'd suggest that the fact that Bishop Lesley lived centuries ago, and that it was translated in 1596, probably explains why the spellings are so odd. :) --MacRusgail 17:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So should it be fixed or left alone? I think it looks a bit odd..... Thanks. Sirtrebuchet 23:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I think it's better to retain the old spelling, since a fluent English speaker should be able to make it out. Also if there is any ambiguity with the spellings, as there sometimes is, it's best to leave that. --MacRusgail 15:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  misspellings? 

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thread_title: [[WP:FOOD|WikiProject Food and drink]] Tagging

message: I don't think it all descends from celtic mercenaries from galatia because this mercenaries came from France and anyway if a scotsman says the scots don't like pork  i have to believe him otherwise we should not believe in anything more  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.1.35.186 (talk) 18:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Celtic mercenaries