[PW] Swine Herders

[Hadden, Robert L ERDC-TEC-VA]

Dear Michael:
	There are numerous references to herds of swine, and to their boss,
called the swineherd or swineherder, similar to the person who herds sheep,
called a shepherd or shepherder. The "German shepherd" is a nice doggy,
unless aroused, that herds sheep and guards the flock, but the
"schweinehunde" is not literally a dog that herds swine, but is a double
insult to other people in German.
	Another famous reference to herds of swine is taken from the eighth
chapter of St. Matthew, when Jesus threw the demons out of a person and into
a herd of swine, who then ran and leaped off a cliff to their death: 
	28And when he was come to the other side into the country of the
Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs,
exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. 
	 29And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee,
Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time? 
	 30And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine
feeding. 
	 31So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us
to go away into the herd of swine. 
	 32And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went
into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently
down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. 
	 33And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city,
and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils. 

	As to "Indian Language", do you mean Hindi or perhaps Cherokee? I'm
not sure that Native Americans ever domesticated pigs, but only hunted them
in the wild. Wild pigs usually don't herd, but do have transient groups of
family with young that scrounge about for mast in the woods. Climb a tree and
hope you don't fall into the middle of group of wild boars, or you'll get
your butt all sliced up. "Tuskers love tushes" as they used to say about
razorbacks.
	In rural India today, semi-feral pigs are allowed to roam the
streets, as they did in ancient Israel, and eat the feces and other human
waste and garbage that is thrown out from the house and into the gutters.
This is not only disgusting to watch, but this makes them ritually unclean,
as it did to many other cultures of the Middle East. In these countries, pigs
are/were not herded. The swine herd mentioned in the Biblical reference
above, probably refers to some gentiles or non-Jews who live in the country,
and thus they were also considered unclean (swine-goyim?) since they herded
swine, and presumably, ate them.

Lee

R. Lee Hadden
Geospatial Information Library (GIL)
Topographic Engineering Center
ATTN: CEERD-TO-I (Hadden)
7701 Telegraph Road
Alexandria, VA 22315-3864
(703) 428-9206
Robert.L.Hadden at usace.army.mil

See some of my writings, both online and on paper, at my author page at:
http://www.librarything.com/author/haddenrobertlee

-----Original Message-----


Message: 2
Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:18:23 -0500 (EST)
From: "Michael Maziekien" <mmaziekien at bccls.org>
Subject: [PW] Idioms about pigs
To: list at project-wombat.org
Message-ID: <3246.192.168.66.10.1204301903.squirrel at webmail.bccls.org>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

Good afternoon!

I'm looking for a bit of idiomatic information here... I've come across the
phrase "like pigs in a pen," and I'm trying to find if there's a specific
meaning and origin to this. Does anyone know of any pig-related idioms in any
language which denote a herd mentality?  I'm especially interested to know if
there are any such idioms in the Indian language.

This is my first time asking a question through Project Wombat, and I hope
I'm composing this properly... I'd really appreciate any help you can offer!

Thank you, and hope all's well,

Michael Maziekien