DIETARY LAW

any of the prescriptions as to what may or may not be eaten under particular conditions. These prescriptions and proscriptions are sometimes religious; often they are secular; frequently, they are both. This article surveys the variety of laws and customs pertaining to food materials and the art of eating in human societies from earliest times to the present. It will be seen that behaviour in respect to foodwhether religious, secular, or bothis institutionalized behaviour and is not separate or apart from organizations of social relations. By an institution is meant here a stable grouping of persons whose activities are designed to meet specific challenges or problems, whose behaviour is governed by implicit or explicit rules and expectations of each other and who regularly use special paraphernalia and symbols in these activities. Social institutions are the frames within which man spends every living moment. This survey explores the institutional contexts in which dietary laws and food customs are cast in different societies; the attempt will also be made to show that customs surrounding food are among the principal means by which human groups maintain their distinctiveness and help provide their members with a sense of identity. Other points of view about food customs cover a wide range. What may be labelled an ecological approach suggests that food taboos among a group's members prevent over-utilization of particular foods to maintain a stable equilibrium in the habitat. Recently, investigators of such customs have been exploring the hypothesis that they provide an adaptive distribution of protein and other nutrients so that these may be evenly distributed in a group over a long period instead of being consumed at one time of the year. The ecological approach also suggests that many food taboos are directed against women to maintain a low population level; this seems to be an adaptive necessity in groups at the lowest technological levels, in which there is a precarious balance between population and available resources. There are also psychological approaches to food customs. Psychoanalytic writers speculate that food symbolizes sexuality or identity because it is the first mode of contact between an infant and its mother. This point of view is most clearly exemplified in ideas that attitudes toward food, established early in life, tend to shape attitudes toward money and other forms of wealth and retentiveness or generosity. According to Claude Lvi-Strauss, a French anthropologist, the categories represented in food taboos enable people to order their perceptions of the world in accordance with the principle of polarities that govern the structure of the mind. Thus, they aid in maintaining such dichotomies as those between nature and culture or between man and animal. Additional reading General works include Donald E. Carr, The Deadly Feast of Life (1971), a popular account of food habits and nutritional behaviour; Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966), a definitive source; and Craig McAndrew and Robert B. Edgerton, Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation (1969), an exploration of the ways people are expected to behave under the influence of alcohol in different cultures.The following discuss food customs and dietary laws in tribal societies: Raymond Firth, We, the Tikopia: A Sociological Study of Kinship in Primitive Polynesia (1936); Meyer Fortes, Pietas in Ancestor Worship, Jl. R. Anthrop. Inst., 91:166191 (1961), reprinted in Man in Adaptation, vol. 3, The Institutional Framework, ed. by Yehudi A. Cohen, pp. 207226 (1971); and Margaret Mead, The Mountain Arapesh, vol. 2 (1970).The basic sources for Judaism and Christianity are, of course, the Old Testament (especially Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14, and the prophets) and the New Testament (especially Acts, Luke, Mark, and Romans). See also Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture, 4 vol. (192640); and Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog, Life Is with People (1952, reprinted 1962), on the shtetl.The following Islamic sources may be consulted: the Qu'ran; Ameer Ali, Mohammedan Law, 5th ed., 2 vol. (1929); and Charles C. Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam (1933).Sources on Indian systems include Louis Dumont, Homo hierarchicus, essai sur le systme des castes (1967; Eng. trans., Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications, 1970); Edward B. Harper (ed.), Religion in South Asia (1964), especially Harper's Ritual Pollution As an Integrator of Caste and Religion, pp. 151196; Edmund R. Leach (ed.), Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon, and North-west Pakistan (1960); David G. Mandelbaum, Society in India, 2 vol. (1970); McKim Marriott, Caste Ranking and Food Transactions: A Matrix Analysis, Structure and Change in Indian Society, ed. by Milton B. Singer and Bernard S. Cohn, pp. 133171 (1968); Kenneth K.S. Ch'en, Buddhism: The Light of Asia (1968); and Charles Norton Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism: An Historical Sketch, 3 vol. (1921).For the dietary laws and customs of Japan and China, see Robert N. Bellah, Tokugawa Religion (1957); George De Vos and Hiroshi Wagatsuma (eds.), Japan's Invisible Race: Caste in Culture and Personality (1966); Kenneth K.S. Ch'en, Buddhism in China (1964); and Arthur F. Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History (1959).