The Unholiest of Contests: Taiwan's Pig of Gods (POG)
Animals: Tradition - Philosophy - Religion
from All-Creatures.org

From

In Defense of Animals (IDA)
July 2014

The Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) has been campaigning against the POG since 2003.

The history of the POG began as a contest between rival villagers involved with local temples, each devoted to a particular god. In the last few decades, however, it has become more of a commercially driven enterprise, with fierce competition between farmers, some of whom now specialize in the raising of alarmingly overweight pigs purely for economic gain and, thus, the POG has become a profession of captivity. In 2012, the "winner" weighed 2,340 pounds, ten times the normal weight of a pig.

pig of gods obeseThe pigs chosen for the annual Taiwanese "Chi-Thai-Ju" or "Pig of Gods" (POG) contest face up to two years of anguished confinement, enduring force-feeding until becoming so massively, grotesquely large that they are unable to rouse themselves, let alone move at all, often suffering organ failure and pressure sores from lying down for interminably long periods of time.

Their bodies sick and motionless, they come to sorrow in grim and forbiddingly small pens, until their last agonizing breath of life is mercilessly extinguished by having their throats cut in public, and the heaviest pig's carcass—the "winner" of the contest—is placed on a float and paraded through the city.

There are twenty farmers raising around 500 pigs to be killed each year for four "Worship" temples still running the POG. The contest is held on the sixth day of the first month of the Lunar New Year during the temple’s prayer ceremony to celebrate the birthday of Master Chingshul.

The temples themselves are places of religious practice, and the majority of them shun the macabre ritual of the POG. In fact, in recent years, many temples have replaced live pigs with "alternatives" made of dough, rice cakes, or flowers and, tellingly, the temple participants involved in ritual ceremonies with alternative offerings were as ardent in worshipping the gods as with the traditional POG contest, and their creative works drew cheers from visiting crowds. The POG contest stands apart from any specific religion, god, temple, or any so-called special folk religious culture. The majority of members participating in the various ceremonies to worship the gods have no affiliation with the contest.

The history of the POG began as a contest between rival villagers involved with local temples, each devoted to a particular god. In the last few decades, however, it has become more of a commercially driven enterprise, with fierce competition between farmers, some of whom now specialize in the raising of alarmingly overweight pigs purely for economic gain and, thus, the POG has become a profession of captivity. In 2012, the "winner" weighed 2,340 pounds, ten times the normal weight of a pig.

This spirit-crushing existence of pigs is a story of pain, torture, and terrible suffering, which includes the punishing burden of being weighed, loaded and unloaded, while for the farmer who raises the heaviest pig, the reward is the coveted prize of a gold medal, perceived as a symbol of blessings, from government officials and politicians, and being honored from the temples that hold the contest. The winning farmer's earnings can be as high as $30,000 USD. The other so-called "winners" are the buyers who purchase the pigs as sacrificial offerings, and the temples that benefit financially from the festival activities as well as the tourism industry.

While respecting temple traditions, animal-protection advocates fervently believe that temple authorities should unequivocally denounce the POG competition because of its unspeakable cruelty.

A few days before the contest, the pigs are weighed, so the temple can announce the list of "winners," thus celebrating the "honor." The pigs may even be force-fed sand and heavy metals like lead to make them even heavier. On the eve of the contest, they are ruthlessly dragged in front of a huge crowd, onto a scale, and then their throats are slashed. The terror of the pigs as they watch other pigs die in front of them can be heard in their desperate screams and some can no longer control their bowels, but this landscape of misery inspires little sympathy in the crowd, for some temple followers and tourists return every year to watch this gruesome spectacle. And then on the very day of the festival, the contested and then "decorated" winning pig carcass (the head and some body parts) are paraded on a colorful float around the city and offered to the gods. As the pigs are raised, weighed, and slaughtered in the name of the gods, their meat will be eaten after the worship ceremony.

The Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) has been campaigning against the POG since 2003. According to Chu Tseng-hung, also known by his Buddhist name, Wu Hung, founder and executive director of EAST, the POG breaches Taiwan's Animal Protection Act with the following violations: breed selection and cross-breeding for heavier pigs; once a certain weight is reached, farmers prevent the pigs from exercising; confined in cages made of bamboo or steel pipe until the moment before the weighing, when force-feeding begins, which may be carried out twice a day. Undercover investigations have exposed farmers hitting pigs' snouts with the force-feeder to compel them to open their mouths and slaughter without pre-stunning, which is required by law.

It is EAST's great hope that international pressure will illuminate the atrocity of the POG contest in getting the law enforced, and working with the government of Taiwan to finally abolish the sadistic and shameless annual ritual that has more to do with cold-hearted profit, and very little to do with "culture" or "tradition" or "religion" and, in fact, represents nothing less than perpetrating great and prolonged suffering for living, sentient individuals with interests and feelings very much their own.


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