Pig

:This article is about the broader pig genus. For the most familiar species, see Domestic pig. {{otheruses}}

Cultural references to pigs

• In ancient Greece, a sow was an appropriate sacrifice to Demeter and had been her favorite animal since she had been the Great Goddess of archaic times. Initiates at the Eleusinian Mysteries began by sacrificing a pig.
• The pig is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. Believers in Chinese astrology associate each animal with certain personality traits. See: Pig (Zodiac).
• Magical transformation of humans into pigs has been used as a key plot device in fantasy storytelling - from the Ancient Greek epic Odysseus, in which the hero's ship's crew is turned into pigs by Circe; to Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001) in which the heroine's parents are turned into pigs.
• Zhu Bajie is a famous part human, part pig, literary character from the Chinese novel Journey to the West.
• The English language abounds with unflattering references and idioms involving pigs. Pigs are commonly associated with greed ("as greedy as a pig"), obesity, gluttony ("to pig out") and sloth ("a lazy pig"). Likewise, a hog is someone or something that monopolizes time, resources, or processes, e.g. a road hog or server hog. Pigs are also associated with dirtiness ("this room is a pigsty"); the latter probably comes from their habit of wallowing in mud. The perennially soot-covered character in the Peanuts comic strip is named Pig-Pen.
• "Pig" is also used as a derogatory slang term for a police officer in more than just the English language.
• "Male chauvinist pig" was a derogatory term adopted by the women's liberation movement in the 1960s to describe men who appear to believe that males are superior to females.
• "Pig" (slang) is a word used to refer to one's friend or buddy, similar to the slang dog or dawg. "Pig" is more commonly used when a female is addressing a friend, usually female, as many females find the term dog or dawg derrogatory. Use of this term originated in Northern California (Millbrae, California to be exact), but has spread to Southern California.
• Muslims are forbidden to consume animal blood by The Koran, and thus pork. But the wider cultural assumption that pigs are 'unclean' ("rijis") and offensive animals to depict in visual art and sculpture, appears to be a widespread folk myth with no foundation in Koranic scripture. Inayat Bunglawala, Secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain commented in the press http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,907627,00.html in 2003 that: "there is absolutely no scriptural authority for this view. It is a misunderstanding of the Koranic instruction that Muslims may not eat pork."
• Pig iron is so named because the molten newly-smelted iron was once poured into molds resembling rows of suckling pigs.
• Song of Pig
• American footballs were originally made from pig skin and are often called pigskins.
• The familiar piggybank got its name and shape as a result of a pun on the word pygg, a type of clay commonly used to produce household items in the 18th Century.
• The noise that a pig makes is usually represented as "oink" in the English language but in many different ways in other languages – for instance, chrum (Polish), hunk (Albanian), hulu (Mandarin Chinese), nøff (Norwegian) and so on. See oink for a fuller list.
• Pigs feature heavily in the artwork and stage shows of the rock band Pink Floyd.