Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches

"No matter how extraordinary human behaviour – in our own culture or elsewhere – there’s always an explanation for it. That’s what Marvin Harris argues very persuasively in Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture . It really opened my eyes. In the cow section, for example, he explores why starving peasants in India today don’t go and kill the sacred cows and eat them. After all, the Rig Veda gives long descriptions of horse and cow sacrifices and meat eating in the India of 2,000 years ago. So Harris looks at why vegetarianism first took root in India and why cows came to be held sacred. It was essentially due to high population density at a time of food scarcity: cows are simply a more efficient way of turning grass into food. Plus they pull ploughs, they provide fertiliser in the form of dung and, in a good year, maybe a bullock too. He looks at more apparently mysterious behaviour too. In the potlatch ceremony practised by some Native Americans, a clan chief would call a gathering and effectively give away the clan’s possessions. Why? Partly as a show of strength but partly to encourage his people to produce a surplus and to redistribute wealth where it’s needed. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Conspicuous consumption therefore does have a purpose. Producing a surplus – and consuming it, even wastefully in good years – can arguably contribute to food security. It’s surprising how little attention agronomists have given this problem but there is general agreement that around 130 per cent of a population’s nutritional requirements is sufficient to guarantee food security. Yet today, surplus levels have risen to about 190 per cent in the US and between 160 and 190 per cent in Europe. Add on what we feed to livestock and it rises to between 350 and 400 per cent in the richer countries."