Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ruminants and little else. (One can take these observations further, and note that, by and
large, the nomadic, cow-eating cultures whose people lived under a big sky, veered towards
monotheism, whereas the pig-eating forest dwellers of South East Asia remained faithful
to pantheistic cosmologies that saw spirits and ancestors lurking behind every tree. But that
is beyond the scope of this topic.)
The distinction between sedentary pig cultures and mobile cow cultures starts to become
muddied when the nomads reach the point where they can go no further and are forced to
settle. The Aryans who colonized India, pushing the Dravidians down to the bottom third
of the subcontinent, brought their cow culture with them, and as one account puts it, they
(which I have yet to see challenged), the population became sedentary and increased to the
point where beef eating on any widespread scale was unsustainable. Pigs were not viable
because Indian agriculture, much of it on dry rainfed soils, was more dependent upon ox-
en for ploughing than Chinese paddy, and so a cattle population had to be maintained in
a country which is notoriously short of grazing lands. The solution, which developed as a
result of Buddhist influence, was to keep the cow, but to forbid eating it, not because it was
'unclean' like the Semites' pigs, but because it was 'sacred'.
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In Africa, these problems do not seem to have occurred because there were wide areas
of uncultivable grazing land and populations rarely attained the level where there were
severe restrictions upon meat consumption. Prior to the arrival of European colonialists,
nomadic and semi-nomadic cow-herding tribes followed established patterns of movement
and observed customary rights and regulations which maintained some degree of ecolo-
gical stability - but the cows, the tribes, and with them Islam, never permeated sub-Saha-
ran Africa, probably because tsetse fly prevented their advance. Pig-rearing was practised
patchily amongst sedentary populations, perhaps because Islam and the Saharan belt pre-
vented them spreading from Asia, and perhaps because settled tribes could acquire animal
protein either by hunting bushmeat, or by trading with nomads.
It was in the temperate climate of Europe that pig culture and cattle culture were to meet
and combine. Much of Europe was wooded, and therefore highly suitable for pigs. Oak,
beech, hazel and chestnut trees all provided nutritious mast (nuts) to fatten them on. But
where the woodland was cleared away, grass grew - extremely good grass in many places,
especially where the Atlantic Ocean washed the land with regular doses of light rain. Cattle
thrived on these pastures, as well as sheep, which provided the wool to keep people warm
through cold damp winters. And oxen were needed to plough the arable fields, many of
which were heavy and clayey.
For two or three thousand years pigs, cattle and sheep (as well as horses, goats and chick-
ens) seem to have thrived side by side with each other in Europe, and often complemen-
ted each other. Sheep, which grazed the rougher land, manured arable land that the oxen
