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Pigs in culture

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Pigs are a frequent source of reference in many aspects of culture at large.

Pigs have inspired many idioms, and are frequently referenced in culture.

Pigs in mythology and religion

In Judaism and Islam, pigs are the unclean and inedible animals par excellence, the animal that is central to the concepts of treif and haram. In De Specialibus Legibus, Philo of Alexandria, a first century Jewish writer, relates that pigs were lazy scavengers, the embodiment of vice. Philo also argued that since pigs will eat the flesh of human corpses, that men should abstain from eating them so as not to be contaminated.[1]

Pork-eating cultures have had a more benign view of pigs. The sign of the Pig is one of the Earthly Branches, or zodiac signs, in Chinese astrology. In Greek mythology, Demeter was the goddess of pigs.[2] The ancient Romans practiced a sacrifice called the suovetaurilia, in which a pig, a ram, and a bull were sacrificed, as one of the most solemn acts of the Roman religion.

The Celts also had a god of swine called Moccus, who under Roman occupation was identified with Mercury. In Celtic mythology, a cauldron overflowing with cooked pork was one of the attributes of The Dagda. In the tale of Culhwch and Olwen from the Welsh Mabinogion, the Twrch Trwyth was a prince whom God turned into a boar on account of his wickedness.

Magical transformation of humans into pigs has been used as a key plot device in fantasy storytelling - for example the Ancient Greek epic The Odyssey, in which the hero's ship's crew is turned into pigs by Circe. Val Kilmer's character Madmartigan in Ron Howard's Willow is transformed into a pig along with other men.

During both the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition, the inquisitors sometimes referred to the targets (often Jews) as "marranos", which literally means "pigs." This was doubly insulting to these Jews due to the fact that pigs are not a kosher animal in the Jewish religious tradition and are forbidden to eat (see also: History of the Marranos in England).

Pigs in folklore

  • In European folklore, there is a widespread belief that pigs are intensely frightened by mirrors.[citation needed] In many countries, a feast has formed around slaughtering a pig.
  • In Germany, pigs are known as a symbol for good luck. Marzipan pigs are a popular confectionery, especially as a gift on New Year's Eve.
  • In 1880's New York, a tradition developed of sharing a peppermint-flavored, hard candy pig with one's family after Christmas Dinner, with the hope that it would bring health and prosperity throughout the next year.
  • Fisherman in North East England regarded pigs as harbingers of bad luck. Pigs would not be carried on boats: a fisherman seeing a pig on his way to work would turn round and go home. This even extended to a prohibition of the word "pig" on board a vessel. This is why the animals were referred to, across the North East, as "gissies".

Pigs and people

  • Pigs are often used to comment on the human condition. Winston Churchill said that "Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal."
  • A number of schools (elementary, middle, and high schools) and universities have adopted pig or pig-related mascots. The most notable in the USA is the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, whose mascot, the razorback (Sus scrofa) makes them the only university or major sports team in the United States with a porcine mascot.
  • Pig iron is the intermediate product of smelting iron ore with coke, and is subsequently worked into steel or wrought iron. It takes its name from the resemblance of the channel into which it is poured with a sow suckling her piglets.
  • The Ken Burns documentary, The Civil War, quotes U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as saying, "Too many pigs. Not enough tits," in reference to the number of people asking him for government jobs.
  • The phrase "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," refers to dressing something up (often a political issue), but not changing its underlying nature.
  • The idiomatic phrase "when pigs fly" (or 'pigs might fly') refers to something that is unlikely to ever happen. Though its origins are much older, its popularity is reinforced by such popular references as in the Lewis Carroll poem The Walrus and the Carpenter and Pink Floyd's album Animals.
  • The English language abounds with unflattering references and idioms involving pigs. Pigs are commonly associated with greed ("as greedy as a pig") and obesity, gluttony ("to pig out"). Likewise, a hog is someone or something that monopolizes time, resources, or processes, e.g. a road hog or server hog. Pigs are also associated with dirtiness ("this room is a pigsty"); the latter probably comes from their habit of wallowing in mud. The perennially soot-covered character in the Peanuts comic strip is named Pig-Pen.
  • "On the pig's back" is an Irish expression meaning to be in a fortunate situation, or living an easy or luxurious lifestyle. The saying has given its name to an Irish rewards website, Pigsback.com, and was parodied in Black Books, with main character Bernard Black drunkenly slurring nonsensically that he and Manny Bianco are "on the pig's back, charging through a velvet field".
  • "In a pig's eye" is a rhyming slang expression meaning, "That's not true." ("Pig's eye" rhymes with "lie".) There are also variants to this saying, such as "In a pig's bottom."
  • "Sweating like a Pig" to denote sweating profusely. This sounds illogical, as pigs have ineffective sweat glands, but the term is derived from the iron smelting process. After pouring into runners in sand, it is allowed to cool and is seen as resembling a sow and piglets - Hence "pig iron". As the pigs cool, the surrounding air reaches its dew point, and beads of moisture form on the surface of the pigs. "Sweating like a pig" indicates that the pig has cooled enough to be moved in safety.
  • "Eating like a Hog" refers to the subject having poor tablemanners.
  • The Missouri folklorist Max Hunter collected a number of pig-related idioms:
"It's plain as a pig on a sofa"
"Clumsy as a hog on ice"
"Content as a dead pig in the sunshine"
"Wild as a peach-orchard hog"
  • Another pig-related idiom from England is "buying a pig in a poke" (buying a piglet in a sack) which means committing yourself to something without carefully inspecting it first (in order to verify that it actually is what it was described as being).
  • Thrifty (if not fussy) sausage-makers were said to use "everything but the squeal".
  • The term "slicker than a greased pig" refers an event that went well without any setbacks. The term "greased pig" can also refer to something that is difficult to obtain.
  • "Pigs Get Fat. Hogs get Slaughtered" means those who work hard will get what they deserve but those who try to gain something for nothing will not get very far.
  • The phrase "pig's ear" means a useless object. To make a (total) pig's ear of something means to (totally) mess it up. To attempt to "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" means to try in vain to make something good out of something worthless or inherently bad.
  • The expression "pig's arse" is an Australian colloquialism, signifying disbelief. It was popularized by the TV show Rubbery Figures.
  • "As happy as a pig in mud" is used to signify someone is very happy.
  • A Bosnian expression for being uncomfortable in a situation is "Feeling like a pig in Teheran."
  • "Bleed like a stuck pig" is a phrase used to describe profuse bleeding, originating from a hog slaughtering technique whereby the pig is stabbed in a main artery, usually with an anticoagulant on the device used for stabbing, and dies by bleeding profusely. "Squealing like a stuck pig" is a phrase used to describe squealing, a variation of the "bleed like a.." phrase which is technically inaccurate because pigs must be unconscious during slaughter in order to avoid cruelty and because the stress will cause glycogen depletion in the muscles, damaging some or all of the meat.
  • "Do not cast your pearls before swine" is a phrase of Biblical origin which instructs one not to share something of value with those who will not recognize its value.
  • “Sucking Hind Teat(it)” refers to being in a tenuous or unsavory position. It is commonly used during a poker hand or tournament, but may be appropriate in a variety of situations. The phrase is based on the fact that the anterior teats on a sow are considered to be more desirable then the posterior. Aside from the milk being richer on the anterior teats, the posterior sucker must face the likelihood of being bumped off. When a new piglet approaches, it will usually wedge between the first and second position. The ensuing re-sequencing ejects the posterior pig into the waste vent area, thereby interrupting its access to the nutritional resource.

Literature and film

  • In the Saw films, the symbolism of pigs was used as a motif of an implicit theme relating to the dark side of human nature.
  • The movie Razorback is about a killer hog/razorback.
  • In the Guy Ritchie movie Snatch the character Brick Top claims that Pigs can be used as a means for disposing dead bodies, and that is the origin of the term "As greedy as a pig"
  • The movie Layer Cake features a scene in which pigs are devouring remains of a human corpse to dispose of any possible evidence of murder
  • Arthur Leung's poem What the Pig Mama Says is about a pig mama's feeling about her three children being killed.[3] It won the 3rd (global) of the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition 2008.

Music, television and art

Pigs on Parade at the Lexington Barbecue Festival
  • Arnold Ziffel was a popular recurring character on the CBS television series, Green Acres. He was often portrayed as having exceptional intellegence (watching tv, going to school, engaging in conversation with most Hooterville humans, except Oliver Douglas) and was treated as the real son of townsfolk, Fred and Doris Ziffel.
  • Homer Simpson calls the pig a "wonderful, magical animal" in The Simpsons episode "Lisa the Vegetarian", unaware that bacon, ham and pork chops are all from the same animal. And in The Simpsons Movie, Homer Simpson adopts a pig and calls it "Spider-Pig". In an episode made after the movie, the couch gag shows Homer referring to Spider-Pig as his "summer love".
  • The fictional character Wizpig is the main villain in Diddy Kong Racing.
  • Porco Rosso is a porcine fighter pilot in the comic book of the same name.
  • There is a children's nursery rhyme which designates the toes as pigs; the first line of which is "This little piggie went to market...."
  • The video game Beyond Good and Evil features an anthropomorphic pig named Pey'j as one of the main characters.
  • The video game Hogs of War is based upon World War I but instead features anthropomorphic pigs with human characteristics than actual people.
  • In the Legend of Zelda series, the main antagonist, Ganon, has the ability to transform into a pig or boar-like deity, a metaphor for his thirst for power and greed.
  • Arnold, a protagonist of the animated TV series Hey Arnold! owns a pet pig named Abner, voiced by the show's creator Craig Bartlett
  • In the manga Naruto, Tsunade has a pet pig named Tonton. Tonton has the ability to track other things by her sensitive sense of smell.

See also

References

  1. ^ Philo of Alexandria, De specialibus legibus, lib. 4, ch. 17-18
  2. ^ See Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough, ch. 49, "Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals"
  3. ^ [What the Pig Mama Says]
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