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“The Natural History of ‘Babe’ - the Pig”, including excerpts from “In the Company of Animals” by James Serpell, “The Source of Life”, Choice magazine, fascinating information on porcine ancestry, modern conditions, and the mystical Druid tradition and porcine connection to Goddess worship. |
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The Mystical Tradition of `Babe’ – the Pig by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm (The Druid Animal Oracle– Working with the sacred animals of the Druid tradition)
Boar – Druid name Torc representing - The Warrior Spirit, Leadership, Direction
In the Celtic tradition, the boar symbolizes raw power, which is often destructive but which can be used and channeled by the hero – the warrior. Many terrifying and magical boars are depicted in the old tales. In the Irish Book of Invasions there is the Orc Triath, a huge and destructive boar. In the Fionn Cycle of stories there is Formael- massive and vicious, he kills fifty soldiers and fifty hounds in a single day. In the Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen, two boars play a central role. Ysgithyrwyn, Chief Boar, and Twrch Trwyth must both be defeated by the hero Culhwch (“pig-run”). The comb is a symbol that has been associated with the boar for thousands of years. The ancient rock-carvings in Scotland depict both combs and mirrors beside boars, and these symbols provide the clue that the boar is in fact sacred to the Goddess-despite the fact that it can also symbolize the aspect of male aggression and sexuality. The Jungian Erich Neumann suggests that “The Great Mother is the sow that farrows and the boar that kills.” The terrifying and destructive Irish boar Formael confirms this association with the feminine when we read that he has neither ears nor testicles. And in Scotland women would traditionally give birth at the Boar Stone, placing their bare feet on the stone to absorb its power. The theme of the boar as secretly or inwardly feminine is further confirmed when we learn that the White Boar of Marvan, in Irish tradition, acted as muse to his master – inspiring him to write music and poetry. The boar’s wildness and destructiveness were used by the Celts to arouse their fierceness and to terrify their enemies. The boar was used as an emblem on helmets, and as a mouthpiece on battle-horns. The snarling open mount of the boar’s-head trumpet found in Grampian held an articulated wooden tongue which would vibrate when blown – undoubtedly making a horrendous and frightening noise. The boar was also depicted on swords and bronze shields, and here these images are used to invoke the power of the boar to protect the warrior and to instill in him its supernatural vigor and fierceness.
Sow – Druid name Muc representing - Generosity, Nourishment, Discovery
The pig is sacred to the Goddess, the providing and nourishing aspect of divinity, and as such it is often depicted in the old tales as a magical beast, which is constantly reborn. The pig as a gift from the gods or the Goddess was clearly recognized by the Celts. The Celts had enormous herds of swine which were allowed to forage in the woods, keeping down unwanted shrubs and undergrowth. In the spring and autumn they were turned on to the fields to manure and break up the soil. Because of the pig’s importance to the Celtic way of life, it was honoured and respected, and was also used ritualistically. At a burial site of Skeleton Green in Hertfordshire male pigs were found buried with the men, while the women were buried with birds. The pig represents the Goddess, and in parts of the Scottish highlands a brood-sow is termed Seanmhair-grandmother. As evidence that Druids was perhaps originally Goddess-centred, Druids were referred to as “piglets” and the Goddess was sometimes pictured as a sow. One of the early Welsh Triads, The Three Powerful Swineherds of Britain, talks of the sow Henwen, the White Ancient, who gives birth to a wolf-cup, an eagle, a bee, a kitten and a grain of wheat. Henwen was said to possess great wisdom, having eaten the nuts which had fallen from the beech- a sacred tree of the Druids symbolizing ancient knowledge and tradition. Also within Welsh mythology, Ceridwen, responsible for the initiation and transformation of Gwion Bach into the magical bard Taliesin, is known as the goddess of pigs and barley. She manifest sometimes as a pig, her neophytes being addressed as piglets, and her worshipers as swine. A pig is completely omnivorous- eating virtually anything it finds. But this lack of discrimination is balanced by the pig’s ability to find hidden treasure, and pigs have been used to discover truffles and other fungal delicacies for centuries in Britain and Europe. The ability of pigs to discover the earth’s secrets is one of the reasons why the pig is so important in the Druid tradition. Both male and female pigs are sacred to the Goddess- the sow representing her life-giving aspect, the boar symbolizing her life-taking aspect.
Excerpt from “The Source of Life” by Sarina Damen
Intensive Pig Farming `A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast' - Proverbs xii, 10
Today’s animal products are neatly packaged and wrapped, their sterile presentation seemingly devoid of any relationship to the suffering and slaughter of a recently living creature, so the consumer seldom makes the conscious connection between the living creature and the ingredients of the family's meal. Of those who do stop to consider that a lamb, pig or calf has died to become a component of their diet, most are unaware that the idyllic farms of yesteryear, where an animal could enjoy life in comparative freedom and pleasant surrounds until their eventual slaughter are being speedily (and in the case of pigs and chickens, almost totally) replaced by animal production areas which more closely resemble a factory assembly line. Factory farms, as these intensive animal production operations have been termed, allow the maximisation of profits through the optimum usage of available space. As a consequence of these new procedures, intensively farmed animals live a miserable, inadequate life from birth until the time of slaughter. These creatures suffer from mental and physical illnesses because of the systems used to increase human profit and meet consumer demand. Intensive farming is the method of choice employed by the Australian pig industry. Although pigs have generally been perceived as unclean and unintelligent creatures, scientific studies have shown that these animals have a higher level of intelligence than most dogs and horses, and that they avoid fouling their living space if at all possible. Pigs show the same capacity to feel fear, pain, contentment and affection, yet factory farming exposes them to conditions which could only be considered cruel or inhumane if imposed upon companion animals who exemplify similar natures. Pigs are often kept in narrow stalls in long sheds, their living space so small that they cannot turn around or take more than one step forward or backwards. Over-eating induced by boredom, anxiety and depression, and an appetite encouraged by drugs such as HOG-CRAVE frequently results in these creatures' skeletons buckling under their unnatural, excessive weight. In combination with the painful lesions developed as a consequence of standing on metal slats or concrete flooring, many pigs attempting to relieve the pain by contorting their posture eventually become crippled from the strain.
`I have a friendly feeling towards pigs generally, and consider them the most intelligent of beasts, not excepting the elephant and the anthropoid ape... I also like his attitude towards all other creatures, especially man. He views us from a ...sort of democratic standpoint as fellow-citizens and brothers, and takes it for granted, or grunted, that we understand his language, and without servility or insolence he has a natural, pleasant, camarados-all or hail-fellow-well-met air with us.' - W.H. Hudson, Naturalist.
Farrowing crates (stalls in which sows give birth) are often so restrictively small, that the larger animals frequently do not have enough room to rest their heads on the concrete floor. These creatures only alternative is to lay their head on the drinker. To do this they must endure the constant dripping of water on their heads. Some pigs are also tethered by a small length of chain to further restrict their movement. Some piggeries do not ensure that those assisting at the birth of piglets wear gloves. As a result of this unhygienic practice it is not uncommon for sows to die slowly and painfully from septicaemia.
`Forget the pig is an animal. Treat him just like a machine in a factory. Schedule treatments like you would lubrication, breeding season like the first step in an assembly line, and marketing like the delivery of finished goods.' - Hog Farm Management (USA).
Due to the harsh, unnatural conditions these sensitive intelligent creatures must suffer, pigs are literally driven mad. The resultant neurotic behaviour includes the chewing of bars and chains, the waving of heads back and forth, and trying to bite off each other's tails. The pork production engineer's solution to the latter problem is to cut off their tails. Tail-docking is performed when the pig is two days old. After the procedure, which causes the piglets severe pain, their rear end bleeds profusely. Often unqualified farm hands perform tasks such as giving iron injections, tail-docking and teeth clipping - another procedure which is performed two days after birth without anaesthetic and which causes extensive bleeding and sometimes death. Stalls at some piggeries are coated with lime to help prevent scour (diarrhoea). The lime frequently comes into contact with the animals irritating the skin of the sows' udders and causing the piglets skin to peel. It is not uncommon for piglets to die from this condition. A number of piggeries have also become notorious for their physical abuse of animals - treatment which ranges from the kicking of sows in the udder to transfer them to farrowing crates, to beating them with iron bars:
`The sow had been beaten and was bleeding from one eye. Her back was lacerated, bruised and bleeding. She was in a stressful, terrified state and was breathing rapidly. Over the next two weeks I observed the sow. She lost the sight of her injured eye.' `There was a sow...which was lame in the back legs. The handler tried to move her by kicking her to the hind quarters and head. The sow tried frantically to move but with limited success. She was screaming. He was swearing. He then got in front of her and began pulling and twisting her ears, swearing at her and becoming increasingly frustrated, and the sow more and more distressed. He then kicked her in the head and swore again. He walked off and came back with a steel hook used to drag dead pigs. He put the hook up the sow's vagina and dragged her. She screamed and tried desperately to move. This lasted 30 seconds until the sow reached a position where she wasn't in his way. I later checked her and she was bleeding from the vagina.'
Piglets who are not kept for breeding purposes are slaughtered at about six months of age having lived their short lives in semi-darkness (to keep the animals inactive and thus cut down on feed costs) in small wire cages. Their deaths are frequently as barbaric as their short lives have been. Pigs require stunning from seven to ten seconds to ensure death or unconsciousness before being processed (boiled, cured, cut up and sold), but due to the pressures of time and profit many animals are only stunned for two to three seconds. Live pigs are therefore frequently dropped into vats of boiling water (a process used to soften their skin and help remove their bristles). As a result the animals drown or are boiled alive, screaming in fear and agony, until eventually silenced by death. This accent on profit to the exclusion of compassion has also led to the development - through improved breeding stock and technological advances in genetics, drug and hormone treatments - of the transgenic pig which is said to grow 15% faster and produce flesh with a lower fat content (therefore the term `new-fashioned pork' equates with the development of a `new-fashioned pig'). Although these pigs will effect a quicker turnover and thus increased profits, scientists involved in the creation (or mutation) of this new type of pig `regret' that these animals suffer from abnormalities including arthritis, lack of co-ordination in the legs and a susceptibility to stress. Crammed in stalls and frequently forced against their own nature to stand in their own excrement, pigs are fed a diet that often features their own manure, along with drugs to induce faster growth and deal with stress related illnesses. These farming methods do not make for a healthy or ethical ingredient to the human diet.
`The animal world is a manifestation of God's power, and demands respect and consideration. The desire to kill animals, unnecessary harshness and callous cruelty towards them, must always be condemned.' - Pope Pius the Twelfth
A Happy Ending For Some Pigs Below are pictured a few lucky pigs that were rescued from the factory farming system to live out their happy lives in a loving and healthy environment.
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