Part I: Evolution, Taxonomy, and Domestication50
I discovered that the domestic pigs on the island were perceived,
valued, and utilized by islanders primarily as-pigs (full of vital-
ity) in contrast to as-pork (dead meat). Encountering privy-pigs
for the first time on this island, and then contemplating the
conditions of their captivity there, and on pig–human relations
world wide and throughout history, I suddenly became awak-
ened to the importance of the intrinsic value of life through their
example. I was forced to examine my basic assumptions about
human food-ways in space and time and how it was that I came
to perceive pigs-as-pork in the first place.Site and Situation
Cheju Island is an isolated and long-inhabited dormant volcano
in the northern reaches of the East China Sea. Soon after my
arrival, I discovered thousands of functioning privy-pig struc-
tures attached to escape-proof corrals each containing one
or two privy-pigs. Most of these structures were crudely con-
structed (as seen in Figure 5.1A). Their archetype, I eventually
learned, had remarkable provenance and antiquity as well as
distant origins.Cheju Island Privy-pig Trait-complex Origins
Functioning pigsty-privies are no longer extant on Cheju Island.
They suffered a swift extinction by a draconian government
decree which banned them during the 1970s. How long were
these functioning pigsty-privies an integral part of the produc-
tive subsistence Cheju Island peasant landscape before being
outlawed? DNA tests of pig bones excavated from island sites
occupied 2000 years ago reveal the presence of both wild and
domestic pigs. Thus, pig domestication on the island was prac-
tised more than 2000 years ago (Kim et al. 2011). Productive
pig–human proximity and relations on Cheju Island can be char-
acterized as initially predator–prey relations, as was characteris-
tic of early pig–human relations throughout Paleolithic Eurasia.
Chinese T’ang dynasty (618–906 AD) histories relate that as
early as 316–317 CE the tribal chief of Cheju Island (then called
‘T’amna’) paid tribute at the Chinese court. These visitors were
described as follows: ‘The people [of T’amna] follow humblecustoms. They wear boar skins [my italics] and live in leather
houses. In winter they live in caves’ (T’angso, circa 661–663 CE).
We can deduce from these events and descriptions that
T’amna envoys visiting China at that time were recurrent visi-
tors bearing tribute. They had ample opportunity during these
tribute missions (and, therefore, early on in the evolution of their
own productive subsistence agricultural systems) to observe
and experience the Han Chinese pigsty–privy structures already
in place. We can assume here for discussion purposes that they
respected the wisdoms of their hosts and adopted pigsty-privy
practices on Cheju Island. They seem to have imported their
breed of privy-pig from China (Choi et al. 2014).More Empirical Observations
The straw-covered privy structures I encountered are on the
left in Figures 5.1A and 5.1B. The pig shelter is on the right in
the rear of the pen in Figure 5.1A (although the model has no
apparent pig shelter in its architecture). The pig in Figure 5.1A
stands with its fore-hooves in its crude, stone-hewn food dish
while waiting in expectation of the next food delivery. There was
invariably one bowl per pen.
I observed rural Cheju Islanders tossing all manner of
unused organic wastes toward the food bowls. The alert and
perpetually hungry omnivorous pigs voraciously consumed
everything offered. Islanders had to train piglets to eat human
faeces, and human faeces seemed to be the main diet of these
privy-pigs. A reader of some of my earliest published researches
on the Cheju Island privy-pigs reported:
Nemeth points out the consequences for archaeological interpre-
tations of the American mindset that considers pigs only as food.
He shows that on Cheju Island in Korea, even though pigs may
eventually be eaten, they functioned in the recent past as trans-
formers of human waste into fertilizers as well as meat, with the
pigsty–privy an important part of the ecosystem. Furthermore, in
considering the role of pigsty-privies in the ecosystem of disease,
rather than being an unsanitary practice that promoted illness,
they helped keep some endemic parasites in check. This example
of the need to extend our notions about pigs is especially usefulFigure 5.1 (A) A typical traditional
pigsty–privy architecture on Cheju
Island (photographed by David J.
Nemeth in1973). (B) Photograph of
an Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE)
glazed miniature model of a pigsty–
privy, excavated from a Chinese royal
tomb (Shaanxi History Museum in
Xi’an, China, photograph by John Hill)..00712:31:35