Dietary law
religion
Main
any of the prescriptions as to what may or may not be eaten under
particular conditions. These prescriptions and proscriptions are
sometimes religious; often they are secular; frequently, they are both.
This article surveys the variety of laws and customs pertaining to
food materials and the art of eating in human societies from earliest
times to the present. It will be seen that behaviour in respect to
food—whether religious, secular, or both—is institutionalized behaviour
and is not separate or apart from organizations of social relations.
By an institution is meant here a stable grouping of persons whose
activities are designed to meet specific challenges or problems, whose
behaviour is governed by implicit or explicit rules and expectations of
each other and who regularly use special paraphernalia and symbols in
these activities. Social institutions are the frames within which man
spends every living moment. This survey explores the institutional
contexts in which dietary laws and food customs are cast in different
societies; the attempt will also be made to show that customs
surrounding food are among the principal means by which human groups
maintain their distinctiveness and help provide their members with a
sense of identity.
Other points of view about food customs cover a wide range. What may
be labelled an ecological approach suggests that food taboos among a
group’s members prevent over-utilization of particular foods to maintain
a stable equilibrium in the habitat. Recently, investigators of such
customs have been exploring the hypothesis that they provide an adaptive
distribution of protein and other nutrients so that these may be evenly
distributed in a group over a long period instead of being consumed at
one time of the year. The ecological approach also suggests that many
food taboos are directed against women to maintain a low population
level; this seems to be an adaptive necessity in groups at the lowest
technological levels, in which there is a precarious balance between
population and available resources.
There are also psychological approaches to food customs.
Psychoanalytic writers speculate that food symbolizes sexuality or
identity because it is the first mode of contact between an infant and
its mother. This point of view is most clearly exemplified in ideas that
attitudes toward food, established early in life, tend to shape
attitudes toward money and other forms of wealth and retentiveness or
generosity. According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, a French anthropologist,
the categories represented in food taboos enable people to order their
perceptions of the world in accordance with the principle of polarities
that govern the structure of the mind. Thus, they aid in maintaining
such dichotomies as those between nature and culture or between man and
animal.
Nature and significance
There are no universal food customs or dietary laws. Nor are food
customs and dietary laws confined to either preliterate (“primitive”) or
advanced cultures; such regulations are found at all stages of
development. Nevertheless, different types of regulations in respect to
food are characteristic of groups at different levels of cultural or
socio-technological development.
Each society has attached symbolic value to different foods. These
symbolizations define what may or may not be eaten and what is desirable
to eat at different times and in different places. In most cases, such
cultural values bear little relationship to nutritive factors. As a
result, they often seem difficult to explain. Moreover, dietary customs
and laws are resistant to rational argument and change. For example,
experts from health and nutritional agencies find it difficult to
persuade mothers to give cow’s milk to children in societies in which it
is looked upon as undesirable. Such customs and laws also prevent people
from adopting alternative foods during periods of shortage. During and
after World War II, some Indians refused to eat Western wheat and rioted
and died rather than accept it.
Nature and significance » Food as a material expression of social
relationships
Cutting across dietary laws and customs is the more general association
of food and drink with those social interactions that are considered
important by the group. In many societies the phrase “We eat together”
is used by a man to describe his friendly relationship with another from
a distant village, suggesting that even though they are not neighbours
or kinsmen they trust one another and refrain from practicing sorcery
against each other. Among the Nyakyusa of Tanzania, “for conversation to
flow merrily and discussion to be profound, there must be . . . ‘the
wherewithal for good fellowship,’ that is, food and drink—and very great
stress is laid on sharing these.” In Old Testament times, almost every
pact, or covenant, was sealed with a common meal; eating together made
the parties as though members of the same family or clan. Conversely,
refusal to eat with someone was a mark of anger and a symbol of ruptured
fellowship. Eating salt with one’s companions meant that one was bound
to them in loyalty; references to this are found in the New Testament.
Such sentiments, however, are not confined to tribal or ancient
cultures. In Israeli kibbutzim (communal settlements), the communal
dining room is a keystone institution, and commensality is one of the
hallmarks of kibbutz life. The decline of communal eating and the
increasing frequency of refrigerators, cooking paraphernalia, and
private dining in kibbutz homes is regarded by some observers as a sign
of the imminent demise of kibbutzim. In many U.S. communes there is a
single facility for cooking and dining. Dinners must be taken
communally; private dining is taken as a signal that one is ready to
leave the group.
The provision of food and drink, if not actual feasting, is
characteristic of rites of passage—i.e., rites marking events such as
birth, initiation ceremonies, marriage, and death—in almost all
traditional cultures and in some modern nontraditional groups as well.
The reason for this is that these events are regarded as being of
importance not only to the individual and his family but also to the
group as a whole because each event bears in one way or other on the
group’s continuity.
Furthermore, food and drink are almost universally associated with
hospitality. In most cultures, there are explicit or implicit rules that
food or drink be offered to guests, and there are usually standards
prescribing which foods and drinks are appropriate. Reciprocally, these
sets of rules also assert that guests are obligated to accept proffered
food and drink and that failure to do so is insulting. In many
societies, there are prescribed ritual exchanges of food when friends
meet. Food is thus one of the most widespread material expressions of
social relationships in human society.
Nature and significance » Regulations about the quantity of food and
drink consumed
It is extraordinarily rare for cultures to condone gluttony, the
conventional exaggerations of the eating behaviour of the ancient Roman
elite notwithstanding. Most people cannot afford to be gluttons. There
are more examples of the other extreme, asceticism, though these too are
infrequent.
A clear-cut example of gastronomic asceticism is provided by Indians
of the U.S. Northeast, such as the Mi’kmaq (Micmac), Innu (Montagnais),
and Ojibwa. It was an ideal among them to eat sparingly. Preparation for
this attitude began in early childhood with short fasts of a day or two,
culminating in the puberty fast; the latter lasted about 10 days, during
which time the child was isolated in a tiny wickiup without food or
water. The puberty fast also had important religious significance.
During the fast, the child had to supplicate the deities for a vision
(easily induced under such conditions), which came in the form of a
supernatural figure, usually in animal shape; this was to become his
guardian spirit.
Rules pertaining to drink are even more varied. Tribal groups
throughout the world (except in Oceania and most of North America) knew
alcohol; in each case, this led to the adoption of rules concerning its
use.
Although a high intake of alcohol always has physiological effects,
people’s comportment is determined more by what their society tells them
is the way to behave when consuming alcohol than by its toxic effects.
In many societies, drinking is an established part of the total round of
social activities. Robert McC. Netting, a U.S. anthropologist, observed
that the Kofyar of northern Nigeria “make, drink, talk, and think about
beer.” All social relations among them are accompanied by its
consumption, and fines are levied in beer payments. Ostracism takes the
form of exclusion from beer drinking; they “certainly believe that man’s
way to god is with beer in hand.” Their beer, however, is weak in
alcoholic content and is quite nutritious, and they rarely consume
European beer and never distilled liquor. Among Central and South
American peasants, men are allowed or required to drink themselves into
a state of stupefaction during religious celebrations (fiestas); though
this drinking is frequent and heavy, it does not appear to result in
addiction. Representative of the other extreme are the Hopi and other
Indian tribes of the U.S. Southwest who have banned all alcoholic
beverages (and almost all narcotics), asserting that these substances
threaten their way of life.
Most cultures, however, prescribe moderation in drinking. In ancient
Mesopotamia, beer played an important role in temple services and in the
economy; but the code of Hammurabi—the monument of law named after the
king of Babylon—strictly regulated tavern keepers and servants (these
places were supposed to be avoided by the social elite). Similar
patterns obtained in ancient Egypt. The ancient Greeks sought to
attribute their intellectual and material culture to the introduction of
vine and olive growing. The use of wine was quite general in biblical
times; it belonged to the category of indispensable provisions listed in
the Old Testament in the Book of Judges (chapter 13) and the First Book
of Samuel (chapters 16 and 25). Wine was no less important in New
Testament times; in Revelation to John (chapter 6) it is said that only
wine and oil are to be protected from the apocalyptic famine. Wine is
also frequently used in biblical imagery. In both Testaments, however,
wine is both praised and condemned.
Nature and significance » Use of food in religion
The most widespread symbolic use of food is in connection with religious
behaviour. In fact, eating and drinking are minimal elements in most
religious behaviour and experience, whether in eating, sacrifice, or
communion. According to many anthropologists, there are essentially two
reasons for this. First, religion is one of the systems of thought and
action by which the members of a group express their cohesiveness and
identity. Implicitly or explicitly, the members of every cultural group
assert that its unity and distinctiveness derive from the deity or
deities associated with it. Religion is a tie that binds. But no
symbolic activity in human society stands alone and without material
representation. Like all other symbolizations of institutional
relationships, those of religion must also have substantial form. Food
and drink—and their ingestion—are among the most important substances of
religion.
The second reason, closely related to the foregoing, is that one
element of dogma in every religion is the definition of polluting, or
supernaturally dangerous, objects or personal states. Just as there is
no objective or scientific connection between the nutritive qualities of
different foods and the symbolic values attached to them, there is no
objective relationship between an object or a personal state and its
definition as polluting. Cultures vary in the objects and states that
are defined as defiling, such as saliva, sneezing, menstruation, killing
an enemy in warfare, a corpse, parturition, but cutting across these is
the belief held in every religion that there are foods and drinks that
are polluting or defiling.
As Mary Douglas, a British anthropologist, has suggested in her
analysis of the religiously sanctioned food taboos in Leviticus (chapter
11) and Deuteronomy (chapter 14), Purity and Danger, concepts of
pollution and defilement are among the means used by preliterate or
tribal societies to maintain their separateness, boundedness, and
exclusivity; thus, these concepts and rules contribute strongly to the
sense of identity—the social badges—that people derive from
participation in the institutions of their firmly bounded or
encapsulated groups. More concretely, when a person proclaims his
affiliation with and allegiance to a particular group that he regards as
his self-contained universe and beyond whose margins he sees danger,
threat, and alienation, he simultaneously invokes—explicitly or
implicitly—the many badges of his social identity; these include the
totem (i.e., the emblem of a family or clan) that he may not eat, the
foods that are regarded as defiling, the drinks that he must avoid, the
sacred meals in which he participates, and the other rituals associated
with his exclusive group. He thereby asserts his separateness from
people in all other groups—usually referred to in pejorative terms—and
his identification with the members of his own group. Food customs are
not always formalized, however; they are sometimes cast in terms of
preference. Americans, for example, unless they are members of ethnic or
religious groups that have their own dietary laws, often shun the
“exotic” foods of alien cultures; but these avoidances are not phrased
in religious or other institutional terms.
Laws and customs at different stages of social development
Although there are dietary laws and customs in all societies, groups
differ in this regard in two important ways: in the range or extent of
foods that are defined as polluting or tabooed and in conceptualizations
of the consequences resulting from violations of these laws and customs.
In comparing societies, however, it must be remembered that the range of
variability among them is so great that it would be necessary to list
hundreds of societies and their customs to get a complete and detailed
picture of their food customs and laws. For purposes of both economy and
conceptual coherence it is necessary to group societies into levels, or
stages, of social and technological development and to compare these; in
this approach, individual societies are regarded as special or
particular exemplary cases of the general class of the level of
development in which the groups are found or classed.
Laws and customs at different stages of social development »
Hunter-gatherers
The earliest cultural level that anthropologists know about is generally
referred to as hunting-gathering. Hunter-gatherers are always nomadic,
and they live in a variety of environments. Some, as in sub-Saharan
Africa and India, are beneficent environments; others, such as those of
the Arctic or North American deserts, are harsh and dangerous.
Encampments of hunter-gatherers are usually small (generally fewer than
60 persons) and are constantly splitting up and recombining. An
important rule among almost all hunter-gatherers is that every person
physically present in a camp is automatically entitled to an equal share
of meat brought into the group whether or not he has participated in the
hunt; this rule does not usually extend to vegetables or fruits and
nuts.
It may be thought that hunter-gatherers who live in habitats of
scarcity and in which hunting is dangerous would try to make maximum use
of all potentially available food; they are, however, also characterized
by customs and beliefs that proscribe certain foods or at least limit
their consumption. Many Alaskan Eskimo groups, for instance, make a
sharp distinction between land and sea products; the Eskimo believe that
products of the two spheres should be kept separate, maintaining that
land and sea animals are repulsive to each other and should not be
brought together. Thus, for example, before hunting caribou (a spring
activity), a man must clean his body of all the seal grease that has
accumulated during the winter; similarly, before whaling in April, the
individual’s body must be washed to get rid of the scent of caribou.
Weapons used for hunting caribou should not be used at sea; implements
used at sea, however, may be used to hunt caribou. If these rules are
violated, the hunter or whaler will be unsuccessful in his food quest;
the consequences of this, of course, can be dire.
In addition, the Eskimo observe food taboos in connection with
critical periods of the individual’s life and development. Among the
most outstanding of these are the food taboos that a woman is subject to
for four or five days after giving birth. She may not eat raw meat or
blood and is restricted to those foods that are believed to have
beneficial effects on the child. For example, it is felt that she should
eat ducks’ wings to make her child a good runner or paddler. Because the
Eskimo are often beset by food shortages, they sometimes have to eat
forbidden foods. In such cases, there are several things that a person
can do to neutralize the taboo. He first rubs the forbidden food over
his body and then hangs the meat outside and allows it to drain. Another
act that is regarded as particularly efficacious is to stuff a mitten
into the collar of his parka with the hand side facing outward; it is
believed that the harmful effects of the taboo food go into the mitten
and travel away from him.
There are, of course, other food avoidances observed by the Eskimo,
but these examples will suffice to illustrate the basic principles of
dietary customs and laws among hunter-gatherers. First, the taboos are
always thought to have magical consequences for the individual;
observing them will assure health and strength, violating them will
result in illness and weakness for the person or, in the case of a
parturient mother, for her child. Second, food taboos are generally
associated with critical periods during the life cycle, as in pregnancy,
menses, illness, or dangerous hunts. Third—and this is true of almost
all societies, not only those of hunter-gatherers—in every group’s
system of thought there are categories or types of foods that are
regarded as dangerous, defiling, or undesirable. At first glance, these
rules and customs seem arbitrary and capricious, but evidence is
accumulating that there are rational elements in them. Although it would
be difficult in the present stage of knowledge to apply this principle
to every dietary taboo or custom in every society, it seems that
prohibitions are placed on those foods that are the most difficult and
dangerous to procure. Sometimes, however, these foods are also highly
prized.
Laws and customs at different stages of social development » Corporate
kin groups
With the development of corporate kin groups in social history, largely
(but not exclusively) as an accompaniment of horticultural cultivation,
a significant change occurred in the role of food in institutional life.
Underlying the development of corporate kin groups was the development
of the notion of exclusive rights to territory claimed by a group of
kinsmen. This exclusive territoriality was probably designed, in large
measure, to protect investments of time and effort in particular plots.
The solidarity and sense of kin-group exclusiveness implicit in a
corporate kin group grew out of kin-group ownership of the land and the
individual’s reliance on interhousehold cooperation in his productive
activities. Such groups quickly evolve insignia, rules, and symbols that
represent their ideals of exclusivity and inalienability of social
relations; food plays an important role in this. Hence, taboos are
thought to have consequences for the group as a whole rather than for
the individual alone.
Another significant accompaniment of the development of corporate kin
groups is the elaboration of initiatory rites, which mark an
individual’s transition from childhood to full membership in his
community or kin group; they confer citizenship in the fullest sense of
the term. Such events are celebrated by feasts, reciprocal exchanges of
food, and food taboos, in addition to the ceremonial rituals themselves.
Preparations for these feasts sometimes occupy the group for several
months, especially when it is necessary to acquire from relatives and
friends the animals that will be slaughtered and eaten, because it is
rare for one family, or even one village, to own enough animals for a
proper feast. They lay the groundwork for one of the basic rules of the
group into which the individual is being initiated, namely, that the
distribution of food (and interhousehold cooperation in its acquisition)
is one of the most significant ways in which he and the members of the
group are knit together.
Feasting is also an integral element of religious assemblages and
ritual in these societies, as are offerings to deities, whether spirits
or ancestors. Because one of the main purposes of religious activity is
to symbolize the solidarity of the group, food is used as a material
representation of this cohesiveness. Additionally, it is believed in
almost all tribal societies, whether or not they are characterized by
corporate groupings, that all plant and animal foodstuffs are made
available to man through the beneficence of the gods. Man’s relationship
with the deities in tribal societies is always, in part, an economic one
involving the deities’ provision of food. A gift from the gods must be
balanced by a reciprocal gift to them from their adherents. In prayer,
men thank their deities for these gifts; in sacrifice and offerings,
they offer gifts to their deities.
Laws and customs at different stages of social development » Chiefdoms
The next major social and political developments in human history are
the appearance of institutions in which political and economic power is
exercised by a single person (or group) over many communities. Often
referred to as chiefdoms by anthropologists, this development signalled
a process evident today throughout the world, namely, the steady growth
of centralized power and authority at the expense of local and
autonomous groupings.
Political authority in chiefdoms is inseparable from economic power,
including the right by rulers to exact tribute and taxation. One of the
principal economic activities of the heads of chiefdoms is to stimulate
the production of economic surpluses, which they then redistribute among
their subjects on different types of occasions, such as feasts in the
celebration of religious ceremonies and rites of passage of members of
chiefly families, and during periods of famine. The accumulation of
these surpluses requires conservation policies. Because techniques of
food preservation were poorly developed in preliterate chiefdoms, the
heads of chiefdoms often adopted the policy of placing taboos—often
phrased in religious terms—on different crops or areas where food could
be gathered or hunted, forbidding the consumption of such foods until
the prohibitions were lifted. These taboos, however, were not
exclusively for the purpose of conservation; they were also occasionally
designed to underwrite higher standards of living for the chiefs
themselves. For instance, in some Polynesian societies, as in Samoa,
fishermen were required to obey a taboo that a portion of their catch
must be given to the chief. The penalties for violating such taboos were
supernaturally produced illness or other misfortunes.
Laws and customs at different stages of social development » Complex
societies
As societies became increasingly complex, heterogeneous, and divided
along lines of caste, class, and ethnic affiliation, their dietary
customs became correspondingly less uniform because they mirrored these
divisions and inequalities. Although these distinctive customs are
almost always placed in the context of religious belief and practice,
according to many anthropologists, the dietary observances in everyday
behaviour are primarily shaped by economic and social considerations;
moreover, observances at the village level rarely correspond directly to
formal prescriptions and proscriptions.
The dietary laws and customs of complex nations and of the world’s
major religions, which developed as institutional parts of complex
nations, are always based on the prior assumption of social
stratification, traditional privilege, and social, familial, and moral
lines that cannot be crossed. Taboos and other regulations in connection
with food are incompatible with the idea of an open society.
Nevertheless, complex nations were characterized by caste organizations
that, in almost all cases, religion helped to legitimate. Caste systems,
in addition to their other characteristics, are supported by deeply felt
fears of pollution or contamination as a result of unguarded contact of
the more “pure” with those who are less “pure.”
Although there is no doubt that the development of caste is linked to
some form of occupational separation in a society, which, in turn, leads
to the development of ideas concerning the separation of unclean persons
from the ordinary or of the ordinary from the superpure, there is
considerable controversy over the origins of caste systems. Regardless
of the origins, however, the separation of castes is always mirrored in
rules for eating that, when breached, represent a threat to the social
order and to the individual’s sense of identity. There is also a
question among scholars whether or not caste is unique to India.
Nevertheless, in Japan as well as India, eating together implies social
and ritual equality, as it does in the United States, where, unlike
Japan and India, food-related caste behaviour has not been
institutionalized in religion (largely because of the U.S. history of
religious freedom, which has promoted religious diversity). In India and
Japan a person who cooks for another and serves his food must be equal
or superior in rank to the recipient of the food; only in this way can
the latter avoid pollution. By contrast, in the caste system of the
United States before the civil-rights movement, a black might cook and
serve food to, but not eat with, whites. Violation of these eating
taboos constitutes defiance of caste, and observance of the etiquette is
evidence of the acceptance of caste.
Rules and customs in world religions » Judaism
Perhaps the best known illustration of the idea that the dietary laws
and customs of a complex nation and its religion are based on the prior
assumption of social stratification or, at least, of a sense of
separateness, is provided by Judaism as spelled out in the Mosaic Law in
the Old Testament books of Leviticus (chapter 11) and Deuteronomy
(chapter 14). Prohibited foods may not be consumed in any form: all
animals—and the products of animals—that do not chew the cud and do not
have cloven hoofs (e.g., pigs, horses); fish without fins and scales;
the blood of any animal; shellfish (e.g., clams, oysters, shrimp, crabs)
and all other living creatures that creep; and those fowl enumerated in
the Bible (e.g., vultures, hawks, owls, herons). All foods outside these
categories may be eaten.
Rules and customs in world religions » Judaism » Interpretation of
Jewish laws
Mary Douglas has offered probably the most cogent and widely accepted
interpretation of these laws in her book Purity and Danger. She suggests
that these notions of defilement are rules of separation; they symbolize
and help maintain the biblical notion of the separateness of the Hebrews
from other societies. A central element in her interpretation is that
each of the injunctions is prefaced by the command to be holy and that
it is the distinction between holiness and abomination that enables
these restrictions to make sense. “Holiness means keeping distinct the
categories of creation. It therefore involves correct definition,
discrimination, and order.” The Mosaic dietary laws exemplify holiness
in this sense. The ancient Hebrews were pastoralists, and cloven-hoofed
and cud-chewing hoofed animals are proper food for such people; hence,
Douglas maintains, they became part of the social order and were
domesticated as slaves. Pigs and camels do not meet the criteria of
animals that are fit for pastoralists. As a result, they are excluded
from the realm of propriety. Douglas notes that there is remarkable
consistency in Mosaic dietary laws. The Bible “allots to each element
its proper kind of animal life. In the firmament two-legged fowls fly
with wings. In the water scaly fish swim with fins. On the earth
four-legged animals hop, jump, or walk. Any class of creatures which is
not equipped for the right kind of locomotion in its element is contrary
to holiness.” People who eat food that is “out of place,” as it were,
such as four-footed creatures that fly, are themselves unclean and are
prohibited from approaching the Temple.
There is, however, another dimension to Old Testament food customs.
In addition to expressing their separateness as a nation—membership in
which was ascribed by birthright—Israelite food customs also mirrored
their internal divisions, which were castelike and were inherited.
Though the rules of separation referred primarily to the priests, they
also affected the rest of the population. The priest’s inherent
separateness from ordinary men was symbolized by the prescription that
he must avoid uncleanness more than anyone else. He must not drink wine
or strong drink, and he must wash his hands and feet before the Temple
service. Explicit in Old Testament prescriptions is that an offering
sanctifies anyone who touches it; therefore, often the priests alone
were permitted to consume it.
These rules symbolizing the priestly group’s castelike separateness
also validated a system of taxation benefitting them, couched in terms
of offerings, sacrifice, first-fruit ceremonies, and tithes. The
religious rationalization of taxation is illustrated in the Old
Testament by the first-fruits ceremony. Fruit trees were said to live
their own life, and they were to remain untrimmed for three years after
they were planted. But their fruits could not be enjoyed immediately:
God must be given his share in the first-fruit ceremonies. These first
fruits represent the whole, and the entire power of the harvest—which is
God’s—is concentrated in them. Sacrifice is centred around the idea of
the first-fruits offering. Its rationalization was that everything
belonged to God; the central point in the sacrifice is the
sanctification of the offering, surrendering it to God. Its most
immediate purpose was to serve as a form of taxation to the priests;
only they were considered holy enough to take possession of it.
Rules and customs in world religions » Judaism » Elaboration of the
Jewish laws
After the exile of the Jews from Palestine following the conquest by
Rome in the 1st century ad, a remarkable elaboration in their dietary
laws occurred, probably as a result of the Jews’ attempts to maintain
their separateness from nations into whose midst they were thrust. Many
customs evolved that have taken on the force of law for those Jews who
have sought to maintain a traditional way of life. For example, the
Bible does not prescribe ritual slaughter of animals, yet this practice
has taken on the same compulsion as the taboo on pigs and camels; a
permitted food (e.g., cattle, chicken) that has not been ritually
slaughtered is now regarded to be as defiling as pork. Similarly, one of
the hallmarks of the Passover holiday in Judaism is the eschewal of all
foods containing leaven, the consumption only of foods that have been
designated as “kosher for Passover,” and the use of special sets of
utensils that have not been used during the rest of the year. But these,
too, are postbiblical customs that have been given the force of law; the
Bible prescribes nothing more than eating unleavened bread during the
Passover season.
Further elaborations on the Mosaic Law in regard to food can be
observed in the dietary customs of certain groups of modern Jews in
their daily lives. In the pre-World War II eastern European Jewish
community (or shtetl), behaviour in regard to food not only included the
biblical prescriptions and proscriptions but, in many ways, resembled
the behaviour of people in the corporate communities of tribal
societies. The major life crises were celebrated by feasts or other uses
of food. Wine and other foods were integral parts of circumcision
ceremonies and of a boys’ attainment of ritual majority (Bar Mitzwa).
Weddings were also celebrated with huge feasts that required weeks, if
not months, of preparation, and guests were seated at the wedding feast
according to their social rank. Following the wedding celebration, grain
was sprinkled on the couple’s heads, apparently to promote fertility.
Those who visited mourners were to eat hardboiled eggs or other circular
food because roundness symbolizes mourning.
Aside from the daily requirements of following the Mosaic dietary
laws, which apply to everyone, the heaviest burden for maintaining these
observances falls on the women; their ritual and secular statuses are
always inferior to the men’s. It is the task of the housewife to be sure
that meat and dairy foods are not mixed, that ritually slaughtered meat
is not blemished, and that cooking equipment and dishes and utensils for
meat and dairy are rigidly separated. The only personal states of ritual
pollution relating to food in shtetl culture also refer only to women.
For instance, a woman who has not been ritually cleansed after her
menses must not make or touch pickles, wine, or beet soup. If she
violates this customary rule, it is believed that these foods will
spoil.
A further illustration of the idea that dietary rules and customs are
inextricably associated with the maintenance of group separateness is
provided by one sect of Jews in the United States, those who refer to
themselves as Ḥasidim (Pious Ones). These people live in self-contained
enclaves; most of them are immigrants from the shtetl. In addition to
preserving their distinctiveness from surrounding non-Jewish
communities, they are equally devoted to preserving their
distinctiveness vis-à-vis other Jews; no matter what their degrees of
piety, the latter are regarded by Ḥasidim as nonreligious.
This is clearly reflected in their behaviour in regard to food. The
Ḥasidim assert that the larger Jewish community (and its rabbis) do not
meet Ḥasidic standards and qualifications in the manufacture,
preparation, handling, and sale of food; even non-Ḥasidic ritual
slaughterers are classed with assimilated Jews who do not observe
dietary laws at all. Hence, their food products are regarded as
forbidden, and Ḥasidim consider only their own products as permissible
for consumption. Even neutral foods, such as vegetables, are defined as
nonkosher if handled by a non-Ḥasid since there is always the suspicion
that it may come into contact with nonkosher—and thus
contaminating—matter. Thus, for instance, only milk that they designate
as “Jewish” can be used; only noodles prepared by someone from the
Ḥasidic community may be consumed because there is the suspicion that
eggs with a drop of blood (which are forbidden) may have been used in
the noodles’ preparation; only approved sugar may be used; and even
paper bags that hold food come under these restrictions because only a
member of the community is above the suspicion that forbidden matter has
been included in the glue that is used in manufacturing the bags.
The extremity of Ḥasidic strictures with regard to food has to be
viewed in the context of their setting in the United States and not only
in the light of their Jewish sources. The Ḥasidim regard the growing
secularization of U.S. life as the greatest threat to the perpetuation
of the ancient tradition of Judaism; their extremism is the wall they
have erected to stave off this danger of threatened assimilation.
Rules and customs in world religions » Black Muslim movement
Until relatively recently, the separatism of African Americans was
underwritten by an intricate combination of law and custom. The attempt
of the United States government to achieve an integration of blacks and
whites in daily social, economic, and political life was viewed by some
African Americans as a threat to their social identity. Ideologies
designed to legitimate the maintenance of their social identity began to
develop, especially after the desegregation decision of the Supreme
Court in 1954, the most notable of which is that of the Nation of Islam
(the Black Muslims). In their attempt to separate themselves from the
larger aggregate of African Americans, as well as from the rest of U.S.
society, the Black Muslims sought to develop a separate social identity
by adopting a set of symbols to which they attached particular meanings.
A person’s membership in the group depended not only on assuming a
Muslim name but also on eating certain foods and avoiding the use of,
for example, alcohol and tobacco. Forbidden foods include meats and fish
proscribed by the Bible and Qurʾān and also more than a dozen vegetables
that were staples in the slave diet.
Rules and customs in world religions » Islām
Islāmic dietary laws—as spelled out in the Qurʾān—also illustrate their
relationship to the establishment of a sense of social identity and
separateness. Muḥammad, the founder of Islām, was among other things a
political leader who welded a nation out of the mutually warring tribes
of Arabia. His religious ideology legitimated the unification of these
autonomous tribes and his own paramount rule over them. The main
religious tenets of Islām were derived from Judaism and early
Christianity, and it is clear from the Qurʾān that Islām was intended to
encompass all aspects of life.
Muḥammad apparently knew more about Judaism than about Christianity,
and many of his strictures in the Qurʾān were explicit in establishing
distinctions between Arabs and Jews. This is evident in his dietary
regulations, which borrow heavily from Mosaic Law. Specifically,
Muḥammad proscribed for Muslims the flesh of animals that are found
dead, blood, swine’s flesh, and food that had been offered or sacrificed
to idols. The most radical departure of Qurʾānic from Mosaic dietary
laws was in connection with intoxicating beverages. Though Jews frown
upon alcoholic beverages, they do not forbid them, and wine is an
important element in many rituals and feasts; Muḥammad, however,
absolutely forbade any such beverages.
Specific departures from Mosaic and Christian dietary rules
notwithstanding, Islām represents a more fundamental removal from all
other major religions: what is polluting, forbidden, and enjoined for
one person in Islām applies equally to all. Islām’s sharpest contrast in
this regard is to the religions of India. This difference is highlighted
by the fact that Muslims of all social statuses in an Indian village eat
freely with each other, worship in the same mosques, and participate in
ceremonies together.
Rules and customs in world religions » Christianity
Christianity did not develop elaborate dietary rules and customs. This
probably grew out of the controversy between the Judaizing and
Hellenizing branches of the church during the earliest years of
Christianity over whether or not to observe Mosaic food laws. The
Council of Jerusalem settled on the formula that meat offered to idols,
blood, and things strangled must be abstained from, thus freeing the
Gentiles in all other respects from the law. The apostle Paul’s position
on the matter, however, was that “nothing is unclean in itself”; and it
was thus that the New Testament repudiated the entire body of laws of
purity, especially those pertaining to food. Jesus is said to have
declared that defilement could not be caused by any external agent. The
apostle Peter’s vision of the sheet lowered from heaven and containing
all types of animals that the divine voice pronounced clean and fit for
food provided the church with a mandate to abandon the Old Testament
food laws.
Food, however, in terms of the Last Supper and the Eucharist, plays
an important role in Christianity. As told by the early Christians,
Jesus foresaw his death and performed a simple ceremony during a last
meal to bring home the significance of his death to the Twelve: he broke
a loaf into pieces and gave it to them saying, “Take this, it is my
body.” After they had eaten, he took the cup of wine and said, “This is
my blood.”
During the 1st century ad, Christian communities developed into
self-contained units with an organized life of their own. When they were
beginning to see themselves as a church, they held two separate kinds of
services: (1) meetings on the model of the synagogue that were open to
inquirers and believers and consisted of readings from the Jewish
scriptures and (2) agapē, or “love feasts,” for believers only. The
latter was an evening meal in which the participants shared and during
which a brief ceremony, recalling the Last Supper, commemorated the
Crucifixion. This was also a thanksgiving ceremony; the Greek name for
it was eucharist, meaning “the giving of thanks.” This common meal
gradually became impracticable as the Christian communities grew larger,
and the Lord’s Supper was thereafter observed at the conclusion of the
public portion of the scripture service; the unbaptized withdrew so that
the baptized could celebrate together.
Thus, from the very inception of Christianity, food and beverage has
symbolized that religious experience is not purely personal but also
communal. Moreover, differences in interpretation of the Lord’s Supper
have provided some of the contrasts among the major Christian churches.
The opposing views of Roman Catholics and Protestants over whether the
Eucharist bread is changed in substance or is a symbol of the flesh of
Christ is an example of the role of food as a representation of
religious differences within Christianity.
The rituals of the Eucharist provide the clearest examples in the
Christian churches or confessions of the relationship between social
stratification and food behaviour. Christianity, unlike Judaism or
Hinduism and other Asian religions, was never tied to a caste system;
correspondingly, it repudiated the entire body of purity–pollution laws
of the Old Testament. Christianity was, however, part of the early
European social system that was based on clear-cut separations of social
classes. Religious food customs in Christianity, most notably in the
Eucharist, reflect this.
The first Christian churches developed alongside the most rigid
social stratification in European history, with elaborate notions of
class authority and superiority and subordination. The separation of
those in authority from the masses of ordinary people is mirrored in the
Roman eucharistic ritual in which the sacrament’s celebrant—the
officiating priest—partook of the bread and wine first and then served
only the bread to those of the faithful who wished it.
With the Reformation during the 16th century, which was (among other
things) an overthrow of the traditional social order, a slight but
important change in the eucharistic ritual was introduced, reflecting
the weakening—but not the abandonment—of stratification and its
attendant hierarchies of authority. In many Protestant confessions the
officiating minister also partook of the bread and wine first, then
served it to the congregation. In the Presbyterian ritual, the minister
partook first and then served it to the elders who then served the
people. Although this continued to reflect a system of stratification,
it was a radical departure from the Roman rule that only the officiating
priest could serve everyone. These rules for both Roman Catholics and
Protestants are gradually changing in the 20th century.
Until relatively recently, the most notable dietary law in
Christianity was the Roman Catholic prescription to abstain from eating
meat on Friday. This ban was lifted as part of the modernization of
Roman Catholicism that was begun during the reign of Pope John XXIII. In
Roman Catholic abstinence meat is forbidden, but there is no restriction
on the amount of food eaten; fasting means that the quantity of food is
also restricted. Historically, there have been several categories of
fasts. The 40 days of Lent have traditionally been a period of
mortification, including practices of fast and abstinence; the rules,
however, have been greatly modified in recent years. Ember Days—a
Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at each of the four seasons—seem to be
survivals of full weekly fasts formerly practiced four times a year.
Vigils are single fast days that have been observed before certain feast
days and other festivals. Rogation Days are the three days before
Ascension Day and are marked by a fast preparatory to that festival;
they seem to have been introduced after an earthquake about 470 as
penitential rogations, or processions, for supplication.
Also important in the Christian complex of fasting is that associated
with monastic life. Mortification is seen as essential to the practice
of asceticism, and, in many rules of monastic life, fasting is regarded
as one of the most efficient exercises of mortification.
Rules and customs in world religions » Religions of India
It is in the religions of India that one can most clearly observe the
principles outlined above concerning the relationship between dietary
laws and customs and the existence of social stratification, traditional
privilege, and social, familial, and moral lines that cannot be crossed.
Hinduism provides the best example, although the same principles also
obtain in the religions of Jainism and Sikhism.
Food observances help to define caste ranking: Brahmins are the
highest caste because they eat only those foods prepared in the finest
manner (pakkā); everyone else takes inferior (kaccā) food. Pakkā food is
the only kind that can be offered in feasts to gods, to guests of high
status, and to persons who provide honorific services. Food is regarded
as pakkā if it contains ghee (clarified butter), which is a very costly
fat and which is believed to promote health and virility. Kaccā is
defined as inferior because it contains no ghee; it is used as ordinary
family fare or as daily payment for servants and artisans. When food
serves as payment for services (e.g., barbering), the quality of the
food depends on the relative ranks of the parties to the transaction;
the person making the payment gives inferior food, such as coarser
bread, to a lower ranking person performing the service. Performance of
a service denotes that a person is ready to accept some kind of food,
and giving food denotes an expectation that a service will be performed.
Members of subordinate castes pick up the dirty plates of members of
superior castes, as at village feasts. Food left on plates after eating
is defined as garbage (jūṭhā); it is felt to have been polluted by the
eater’s saliva. This garbage may be handled in the family by a person
whose status is lower than the eater’s, such as a wife. Such food may be
fed to domestic animals; among humans outside the family it can only be
given to members of the lowest castes, such as sweepers. The highest
Brahmins do not accept any cooked food from members of any other caste,
but uncooked food may be received from or handled by members of any
caste. Nor will such Brahmins accept water across caste lines. Cow’s
milk is ritually pure and cannot be defiled, but a Brahmin will not
accept milk from an untouchable—a member of the lowest caste groups—lest
it has been diluted with water.
Water is easily defiled, but, if it is running in a stream or
standing in a reservoir, it is not polluted even by an untouchable in
it. Water in a well or container, however, is defiled by direct or
indirect contact with a person of low caste. Thus, a ritually observant
Brahmin will not allow a low-caste person to draw water from his well,
although this rule is lapsing, possibly because of the introduction of
plumbing and the removal of water from the list of scarce resources.
In the general Hindu system of purity–pollution, meats are graded as
to their relative amount of pollution. Eggs are the least and beef the
most defiling; but the highest caste Brahmins avoid all meat products
absolutely. Also, certain strong foods (e.g., onions and garlic) are
thought to be inappropriate to Brahminical status. Alcohol too is
prohibited; it is not considered polluting in itself, but the
prohibition seems related to the Brahminical value of self-control.
Alcohol’s manufacture and trade is confined to members of lower castes.
People who eat at each other’s feasts hold equal rank. People who eat
at every house in a village occupy a very low status, and refusal to
take food from another constitutes a claim to higher caste rank. More
generally, givers of food outrank receivers. This, however, is a
definition of collective, not of individual, rank. If a member of one
caste gives food to a member of a second, all members of the first caste
are regarded as higher than a third, even if there is no direct
transaction between the first and third castes. Thus, the behaviour of
every person in a village has consequences for the entire village.
In actual practice, however, there is not an automatic enactment of
these formal rules in village life; instead, they vary considerably
according to local conditions. For instance, one of the formal rules of
Hindu religious caste organization is that vegetarians outrank meat
eaters, because contact with killed animals is regarded as polluting.
Nevertheless, McKim Marriott, a U.S. anthropologist who has investigated
village caste relationships, has found instances in which meat eaters
outrank vegetarians. He concludes from his observations that it is caste
rank—mostly in terms of the kinds of work that people in different
castes do—that determines purity and pollution. In daily social
relations this sometimes means that a caste of sufficiently high status
may not be demeaned by receiving food from a lower caste if the latter
is not too far below and if the proper food and vessels are used.
Status is rarely immutable over long stretches of time. In most
societies, people who occupy low status try to exploit every opportunity
to improve their position, and, Marriott found, Indian villagers are no
exception. Because food in this culture is one of the principal indices
of rank, it is used as a pawn in manoeuvres for social mobility.
Specifically, members of a low caste will try to gain dominance over
persons in another by feeding them, although the latter cannot be too
far above the upwardly mobile group. There is no direct way of forcing a
higher group to accept food; one of the techniques most often used is
for the lower caste to threaten to withhold services unless a heretofore
slightly higher caste receives food from the former. Such mobility, as
noted earlier, affects not only the two castes concerned but also all
other groups in the village, and the manoeuvring involves everyone in
the community.
Marriott’s emphasis on occupation (and, therefore, rank) as the
determinant of food customs has not been accepted by all students of
Indian society. He continues to leave some aspects of caste behaviour
unexplained, such as the extreme statuses of Brahmins and untouchables,
to say nothing of the existence of the total caste system itself and the
mechanisms by which it is maintained. These problems have yet to be
worked out. In any case, there can be no doubt that concepts of
pollution and purity in regard to food in India, as everywhere else, are
governed by a systematic set of rules analogous to a language’s grammar
and that applications of the rules are logical and consistent within the
grammatical framework. Observations of daily village life do not
contradict this concept of the codification of food rules; they only
suggest that earlier “grammars” may have been too narrowly conceived.
Rules and customs in world religions » Buddhism
Buddhism is, perhaps, the most difficult religion to discuss in terms of
dietary laws and customs because it does not have any unity; its
tradition has a complex history, and individual believers are
characterized by varied faiths. Though Buddhism originated in India, it
also diffused to—and had a great impact on—Ceylon, Tibet, China, and
Japan. In each case, it was reshaped to conform with local conditions,
especially those of social stratification. For example, most of the
countries of Southeast Asia have caste systems in which there are
outcastes or untouchables; Buddhism has been important in supporting
such systems. Specifically, untouchability and the occupation of
butchering animals tend to go together both in Buddhism and in many of
the countries of Southeast Asia. But Burma, where Buddhism is the
dominant religion, is an exception; having no caste system, Burmese
society has not made butchering a basis of untouchability.
Buddhism developed its own class distinctions, most notably between
the monastic elite and the lay devotees. The social and political ethic
of the laity was based on a merit-making ethic that was geared primarily
to the urban mercantile and artisan classes. Thus, Buddhism claimed from
its inception to be a Middle View (Mādhymika), opposed equally to the
extremes of sensuousness and indulgence and of self-mortification. This
Middle View was exemplified in the “five precepts”: no killing,
stealing, lying, adultery, or drinking of alcoholic beverages. These
precepts were translated into an ethic of moderation in diet. A person
must allay his hunger so that he may practice the religious life.
Buddhism holds that man is weak and helpless by himself; thus it sees
the purpose of religious action as bringing a return from the deities.
Deriving from this is the practice of holding ritual vegetarian feasts
for large numbers of monks, a noble patron, or for the benefit of a
departed soul to promote health and longevity. Another Buddhist custom
is the issuing of a prohibition against killing animals to end a drought
or to speed the recovery of a sick emperor. According to the Vedic
treatise the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, food, when enclosed in the body, is
linked to the body by means of the vital airs. The essence of food is
invisible. Food is the highest of all things that can be swallowed, and
food and breath are both gods.
The prohibition of killing animals is more stringent in Buddhism than
the injunction against eating them. Buddhism allows pure flesh to be
eaten if it has not been procured for eating purposes or if the eater
has not supposed it to be. The sin is upon the slayer, not the eater.
This notion has been used in India and Japan to justify the outcasting
or untouchability of butchers.
Rules and customs in world religions » Religions of China
China is an example of the proposition offered above that religion alone
does not give rise to eating rules; instead, religion serves to
legitimate customary patterns of behaviour and social relations that
emerge out of economic (especially occupational) and political
relationships. Although China was under strong Buddhist influence, the
Chinese never developed the institution of untouchability or outcaste.
Indeed, Buddhism did not really penetrate China until after the
beginning of the 2nd century ad; during the previous century, Buddhism
was confined to foreigners in the northern commercial cities.
Before 200 bc (the approximate beginning of the Han dynasty), Chinese
culture was based on a rather elaborate system of social stratification
in which mobility was rare and difficult. It was, in other words, a
relatively closed social system, if not feudal. During this time, there
were restrictions on the consumption of food: beef, mutton, and pork
were to be eaten by an emperor; beef by feudal lords; mutton by
high-ranking state ministers; pork by lower ministers; fish by generals;
and vegetables by commoners (who probably could not afford meat or fish
anyway). Officials, in fact, were known as “meat eaters,” and it was
generally only the aged commoners who were allowed to eat meat.
During this time, military affairs and sacrifices were considered the
two most important things in the state. Sacrifice was inseparable from
veneration of the ancestors, and almost no ceremonies were conducted
without sacrifice and offerings. These ceremonies were integral features
of daily life and, as a result, foodstuffs became associated with the
moral code that was based on maintaining fixed social and political
relationships. God and ancestors were often referred to as those “who
are sacrificed to,” and disobedience to them was believed to result
automatically in catastrophe. Ceremonies marking important personal
transitions (e.g., initiation to adulthood and marriage) were held in
the ancestral temple and were accompanied by feasts and sacrifices to
the ancestors.
Ancestral veneration and the ethos of religiously validated
legitimate authority remained as integral features of Chinese culture
until the most recent years. Religious belief and observance
notwithstanding, however, Chinese culture underwent a drastic change
with the establishment of the Han dynasty. Most notably, the social
class system was opened up—at least ideally—by the adoption of the
principle of recruitment for public office; in later dynasties, this was
expanded into the well-known system of written examinations, of grading
officeholders by merit, and other features of the famous Chinese civil
service. Correlated with the removal of the barriers to social mobility
and establishment of the principle of ideally open recruitment to the
civil service, the pre-Han food restrictions disappeared. This was also
the time of Buddhism’s greatest thrusts into Chinese thought and life.
Food continued to occupy an important social and religious place in
villages, at least until the establishment of the People’s Republic of
China. For instance, marriage ceremonies traditionally last four days;
the highlight of each day’s celebration is a feast or sacrifice to the
ancestors, sometimes both. Feasts and sacrifices are also important
features of funerals, some of which are marked by two feasts in one day.
These ceremonial occasions often work considerable economic hardship on
families, forcing many of them into debt.
Yehudi A. Cohen
Rules and customs in world religions » Religions of Japan and Korea
Japan and Korea exhibit many of the same characteristics with respect to
food customs as India, though with much less elaboration, and thereby
the same relationships to Buddhism, though in an opposite direction.
These relationships to Buddhism are also highlighted by contrasting
Japan and Korea with China. Whereas post-Han China placed emphasis on
achieved status and on personal superiority rather than on
considerations of race or blood as a basis of social position, Japan and
Korea (and also Tibet) established and continued a system of hereditary
status and outcasting. As in India, therefore, the Japanese and Koreans
considered pollution to be a hereditary taint; Buddhism played a major
role in the legitimation of this ideology.
Outcastes in Japan traditionally were referred to pejoratively as eta
(literally, “pollution abundant”). The accepted usage now is burakumin
(meaning “hamlet people”), although this term has also taken on
pejorative connotations. They are discriminated against in employment
and intermarriage, live rurally or in slum conditions, have the lowest
educational levels in the nation, and often suffer from malnutrition. In
the past they were required to wear special clothing, slippers, and
hairstyles; to stay away from other households; to remain in their own
hovels at night; and to prostrate themselves before higher-caste people.
The history of the Japanese caste system in respect to food customs
gives important clues to its origin. Among the ancient Japanese, meat
was included in the diet, and the flesh of animals, fishes, and birds
was offered to the gods as sacrifice. The flesh of ox, horse, dog,
monkey, and fowl was prohibited, but that of deer, rabbit, and pig was
not. During the 8th century ad the Japanese began to depend mostly upon
plant rather than animal foods. In Japan’s limited territory, it is
understandable that cattle were raised for plowing and other
agricultural work rather than for meat and milk. In 741 a law was passed
forbidding the killing of cattle and horses, the latter being necessary
for military as well as productive purposes. This provided a conducive
atmosphere for Buddhist influences in the 6th and 7th centuries
(primarily from China and Korea) that stressed the abhorrence and ritual
impurity of blood and death.
Buddhism, however, was only one of several sources of outcasting
slaughterers and butchers. During the 8th century, Shintō—the only
indigenous religion of Japan—began to stress concepts of uncleanness as
things that are displeasing to the gods: wounds, disease, death,
menstruation, and childbirth; and this too contributed strongly to the
development of eta status. It was apparently about this time that the
belief developed in Japan that a person’s association with blood and
death changed his nature; this contamination not only carried over to a
man’s descendants but was thought to be communicable. It was apparently
also at this time that Japanese cuisine began to favour fish (especially
raw fish) as a staple source of protein.
Important in this connection is that occupational specialization
began to flourish in Japan during the 9th and 10th centuries; by this
time, Buddhism was widespread in Japan. Traditional occupational roles
became spheres of monopoly; in the face of competition from economically
specialized groups who forced them out, people dealing with
slaughtering, butchering, and tanning began to form guilds. This was
rationalized by Buddhist and Shintō ideas that occupations associated
with animal slaughter and processing (confined to eta) should be
separated from the general body of commoner and slave occupations.
During the Heian period (794–1185), communities whose members were
engaged in occupations related to death and animal products were forced
outside the normal society, and they thus came to form the main body of
outcastes in Japan. Increasingly, the latter were outcasted and
considered untouchable, a pattern that reached its heights in the
Tokugawa period (1603–1867). By the 17th century, the idea
developed—supported by Shintō and Buddhism—that eating the flesh of all
animals caused pollution for 100 days. After the mid-19th century,
though, largely because of the emerging influence of Western cultural
habits, meat consumption began to be more widespread in Japan, and among
some Japanese the consumption of beef became associated with progress
and enlightenment.
Soon after the Meiji Restoration (1868) the caste system and the
legal discrimination against the eta were abolished. Outcasting,
however, dies slowly. Though the egalitarian ideologies of modern
industrialization are incompatible with caste, outcasting tends to
remain in Japan and, alongside it, some of the food customs associated
with the caste system. As in India, eating together (along with marriage
and social visiting) between untouchables and members of normal society
is disdained. In many parts of Japan, especially in traditional
villages, the diet remained largely vegetarian until after World War II,
when the consumption of meat and other Western dietary practices rapidly
increased. Even the consumption of milk, which had been considered
unclean, became common.
Yehudi A. Cohen
Ed.
