Sacrificial Hogs

The rows of hogs laid out on racks at large sacrificial offerings or other temple activities on Taiwan certainly leave a deep impression on anyone who has seen them.

Despite being immobile, the hogs still cut awesome and imposing figures. Their mouths are stuffed with pineapples or tangerines and their backs are covered with big red cloths to add to the festive atmosphere.

By a play on words in Taiwanese, pineapples stand for prosperity, while tangerines symbolize auspiciousness. Red, the most commonly used color at Chinese celebrations, represents the sacred at temple gatherings. It shows that the animal is no ordinary creature but "a hog among hogs."

Curiously enough, after a sacrificial hog is slaughtered, the bristles along its spine from the top of the head down are often left intact, giving it something like a punk hairstyle. This practice, too, is intended to show that its status is quite different from that of other hogs.

Popularly called chu-kung or "bull hogs," sacrificial hogs are the most impressive offerings seen at religious sacrifices on Taiwan. In some areas a hog may be offered just once every five years, because raising them is no easy task. Although Taiwan has a highly developed livestock industry that can raise hogs with great economic efficiency, the extra-large size of sacrificial hogs means that they require handling on an in dividual basis and the kind of treatment that may best be described as "waiting on them hand and foot."

To begin at the beginning, the first step is selecting a piglet with "future development potential," something that only an experienced eye can detect. The work gets tougher as the animal grows up. A clean sty with mosquito netting, a blanket for the winter, and an electric fan in summer all go without saying, and baths and massages are further services that the owner must provide. Its diet consists mainly of sweet, salty, and oily balls of rice, with fruit in the summer. After it grows so fat it has difficulty moving about under its own weight, the owner has even more worries and cares. If it should have an untimely accident before it can be offered up to the gods, wouldn't all the efforts have been in vain?

Sacrificial hogs offer us a chance, I think, to reflect a bit on the art of living of modern man. The painstaking process of raising them, in which expense is no object, would be inconceivable in ordinary hog raising, which is aimed at economic efficiency, but religious or spiritual values can never be measured in terms of economic efficiency. If someone tried to determine the value of one of these hogs on a so-much-per-pound basis, wouldn't the owner be incensed?

As huge as the hogs are, they still have their limitations, which hog raisers are constantly trying to push back. And just as the Olympic Games represent a challenge to man's physical abilities, the raising of sacrificial hogs continually advances toward new records.

"Manufactured" through a meticulous and laborious process, sacrificial hogs still do not avoid the fate of being slaughtered, but they are used in a ceremonial rite before being divided up among the people involved and served in a big banquet shared with the gods. That is the aesthetic concept of "one-time use," a concept that is quite prevalent in the thinking of today's consumers!

[Picture Caption]

The red robe it wears in honor of the spirits shows that this is a "hog among hogs."