Those who were too poor to offer a pig on this day
baked cakes of dough, and offered them instead. This can hardly be
explained except by the supposition that the pig was a sacred animal
which was eaten sacramentally by his worshippers once a year.
The view that in Egypt the pig was sacred is borne out by the very
facts which, to moderns, might seem to prove the contrary. Thus the
Egyptians thought, as we have seen, that to drink pig's milk
produced leprosy. But exactly analogous views are held by savages
about the animals and plants which they deem most sacred. Thus in
the island of Wetar (between New Guinea and Celebes) people believe
themselves to be variously descended from wild pigs, serpents,
crocodiles, turtles, dogs, and eels; a man may not eat an animal of
the kind from which he is descended; if he does so, he will become a
leper, and go mad. Amongst the Omaha Indians of North America men
whose totem is the elk, believe that if they ate the flesh of the
male elk they would break out in boils and white spots in different
parts of their bodies.
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