"Who would have expected, for example, that an explanation of the image given in The Book of the Dead, of Seth as a black pig that burned out the left eye (the lunar eye) of Horus, would be found in the New Hebrides--in the identification of the black body between the waxing and waning crescent tusks of a boar with the "new" or "black" invisible moon at the time of its apparent death? The flesh of swine is, of course, tabu in Malekula: not eaten under any circumstances by women, and by men only as communion food in connection with the sacrifice, when only male pigs are consumed. The whole art of herding swine, therefore, is holy, having nothing to do with secular, materialistic economics. And as the distinguished Egyptologist Adolf Erman has pointed out in his comment on the passage of The Book of the Dead which explains why the pig is "an abominable thing to Horus," the eating of pork was avoided in ancient Egypt too, because of this identification of the black pig with Seth, who not only put out the lunar eye of Horus but also brought about the disappearnace of Osiris.

Frazer in The Golden Bough has discussed further implications of this avoidance:

'The Egyptians are generally said by Greek writers, to have abhorred the pig as a foul and loathsome animal. If a man so much as touched a pig in passing, he stepped into the river with all his clothes on, to wash off the taint. To drink pig's milk was believed to cause leprosy to the drinker. Swineherds, though natives of Egypt, were forbidden to enter any temple, and they were the only men who were thus excluded. No one would give his daughter in marriage to a swineherd, or marry a swineherd's daughter; the swineherds married among themselves. Yet once a year the Egyptians sacrificed pigs to the moon and to Osiris, and not only sacrificed them, but ate their flesh, though on any other day of the year they would neither sacrifice them nor tast of their flesh. Those who were too poor to offer a pig on this day baked cakes of dough, and offered them instead. This can hardly be explained except by the supposition that the pig was a sacred animal which was eaten sacramentally by his worshippers once a year.'

Concerning the Jewish avoidance of the flesh of the pig, Frazer remarks that there too the attitude is ambiguous:

'The Greeks could not decide whether the Jews worshipped swine or abominated them. On the one hand they might not eat swine; but on the other hand they might not kill them. And if the former rule speaks for the uncleanness, the latter speaks still more strongly for the sanctity of the animal. For whereas both rules may, and one rule must, be explained on the supposition that the pig was sacred; neither rule must, and one rule cannot, be explained on the supposition that the pig was unclean. If, therefore, we prefer the former supposition, we must conclude that, originally at least, the pig was revered rather than abhorred by the Israelites. We are confirmed in this opinion by observing that down to the time of Isaiah some of the Jews used to meet secretly in gardens to eat the flesh of swine and mice as a religious rite. Doubtless this was a very ancient ceremony, dating from a time when both the pig and the mouse were venerated as divine, and when their flesh was partaken of sacramentally on rare and solemn occasions as the body and blood of gods. And in general it may perhaps be said that all so-called unclean animals were originally sacred; the reason for not eating them was that they were divine.'