the plight of the pig

Diving Pig by Michael Sowa

Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man.

Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal.

Winston Churchill

Let's face it, the poor pig really does get a bad rap. Quite unfairly, pigs have become synonymous with all kinds of negative attributes, especially greed, gluttony, and uncleanliness.

This isn't a new thing. In Judaism and Islam, pigs are the epitome of unclean and inedible animals, the animal that is central to the concepts of treif and haram. Philo of Alexandria, a first century Jewish writer, pronounces pigs lazy scavengers, the embodiment of vice. The prohibition against eating pigs in the Ancient Middle East may have stemmed from the fact that pigs were the only animals that competed with humans for the same food stuff, since cows and sheep ate grass. It was likely a socio-political move into practicality through the ancient religious leaders of the two faiths in order to maintain the food supplies for the region.

In ancient Egypt, pigs were associated with Set, the rival to the sun god Horus. When Set fell into disfavor with the Egyptians, swineherds were forbidden to enter temples. According to Herodotus, swineherds were even a kind of separate sect or caste, which only married among themselves.

my great-great-grandfather,
Palestine Hanna and his pig

Taking it a step further, the nasty attributes ascribed to pigs have often led to critical comparisons between pigs and humans. There are tons of idioms that refer to the negative qualities traditionally ascribed to pigs. They are commonly associated with greed in various forms. Pigs are also associated with dirtiness, probably related to their habit of wallowing in mud. Even the untidy little Peanuts character was called Pig-Pen. How many times have you heard someone called "swine"?

Here are just a few piggy idioms I came up with:

• Eat like a pig
• Pig out
• Sweat like a pig
• Bleed like a pig
• Squeal like a pig
• Greedy as a pig
• Road hog
• You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig
• When pigs fly
• 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
• Too many pigs. Not enough tits. (Abraham Lincoln)
• Buy a pig in a poke
• In a pig's eye
• Slicker than a greased pig
• Make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
• Don't cast your pearls before the swine
• Pig's arse (Australian, expressing disbelief)
• On the pig's back (Irish, signifying living easy)

A few interesting little bits of pig folklore:

• In European folklore, there is a widespread belief that pigs are intensely frightened by mirrors.
• In many European 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.
• Fishermen 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".

All this to say, cut the piggies some slack. They're not such a bad animal. Actually, they are quite intelligent. Research was done with pigs in the 1990s. One of the experiments was to train the pigs to move the cursor on a video screen with their snouts. When the pigs used the cursors again, they were able to distinguish between scribbles they already knew, and scribbles they were seeing for the first time. The pigs learned this skill as fast as the chimpanzees.

All species of pig are smarter than dogs, and capable of abstract representation. “They can hold an icon in their mind, and remember it at a later date,” says Professor Stanley Curtis of Penn State University, who discovered that pigs dominate at video games with joy sticks. Curtis goes on to say, “Pigs are able to focus with an intensity I have never seen in a chimp.” The studies also showed:

• Pigs lead complex social lives that behaviorists once believed to be true only of primates.
• Mother pigs sing to their piglets while they are nursing.
• They excel at video games that would be hard for a young child, and sometimes better than the primates.
• Pigs dream.
• Pigs have a good sense of direction, and can find their way home from long distances.

So, next time someone calls you a pig, feel free to take it as a compliment.