In the light of these parallels the beliefs and customs of the Egyptians touching the pig are probably to be
explained
as based upon an opinion of the extreme sanctity rather than of the extreme uncleanness of the animal; or
rather… they
imply that the animal was looked on, not simply as a filthy and disgusting creature, but as a being endowed with
high
supernatural powers, and that as such it was regarded with that primitive sentiment of religious awe and fear in
which
feelings of reverence and abhorrence are almost equally blended…. In course of time one of the contradictory
feelings is
likely to prevail over the other, and according as the feeling which finally predominates is that of reverence
or
abhorrence, the being who is the object of it will rise into a god or sink into a devil.
— Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough (1890)
