FW: Hyoganezumi no Kegawa (The Glacier Mouse's Fur)

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The Daily Yomiuri

Time to review correlation between food, nature

 

Takahiko Tennichi

Consumer aversion to beef, triggered by the discovery Sept. 10 of the first

cow in the nation to test positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy

(BSE), commonly called mad cow disease, at a farm in Chiba Prefecture, has

been steadily increasing. Twenty-two percent of respondents to a Yomiuri

Shimbun survey conducted this month replied that they had stopped eating

beef. A further 46 percent said that they were eating less beef, less

frequently.

 

In an attempt to restore consumer confidence, the government in October

ordered all domestically bred beef and dairy cows to be checked for the

disease. After launching the nationwide examination, it declared that all

domestically bred beef on the market would be BSE-free. The public was not

so easily placated. About 76 percent of those polled in the Yomiuri survey

said they had little faith in the government's preventive measures.

 

The government's failure to act promptly to contain the spread of the

disease is the reason for the increasingly sluggish consumption of beef.

However, the debacle has offered us an opportunity to contemplate a

fundamental problem facing civilization--the unprecedentedly predominant

position mankind has attained over other life forms.

A prominent cultural anthropologist of our times, Claude Levi-Strauss of

France, has attributed the emergence of mad cow disease to a human practice

that went against nature.

 

In an article in the Nov. 24, 1996, issue of the Italian daily La

Repubblica, Levi-Strauss pointed out that BSE was a consequence of humans

forcing " cannibalism " onto cattle, a practice in which farmers fed MBM, meat

and bonemeal, to cattle. He warned of a potentially dramatic change in

civilization, in which humans eventually might not be able to obtain meat

without going back to hunting if the livestock industry were to be

devastated by a species-to-species spread of BSE among food animals. His

warning was carried in the April issue of the Chuo Koron monthly, six months

before the nation's first case of BSE, creating a stir among the public.

 

In response to Levi-Strauss' view, Shinichi Nakazawa, a professor of

cultural anthropology at Chuo University, attempted an analysis of a work by

Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), one of Japan's most popular poets and fairy-tale

authors, to present his theory about mad cow disease.

The work in question is " Hyoganezumi no Kegawa " (literally, " The Glacier

Mouse's Fur " ). The book is a fairy tale about an express train bound for

Arctic regions carrying travelers bundled up in thick fur clothes that is

attacked by packs of feral animal " terrorists " living in the north. During

the attack, one of the passengers snatches a pistol from one of the animals

to defend himself. He begs the animals to spare the lives of himself and his

fellow passengers, saying they will stop unnecessary hunting and kill only

sufficient animals to keep them in food and clothes. The animals accepted

the pledge and freed the humans. Nakazawa said the moral in the fairy tale

was that animals only kill what they need to sustain their own lives and

those of their families; and no asymmetric, or unequal, relations should be

allowed between any specific species.

 

Nakazawa went on to say mad cow disease is a manifestation of " large-scale

terrorism " by cows, which could not help but resort to such an act to escape

from a tragic reality in which humans have forced them to cannibalize each

other under extremely asymmetric relations between humans and cows. While

the fairy tale is not one of Miyazawa's better-known works, the message

construed by the professor evokes the sympathy of many Japanese who have

nurtured traditional sentiments toward nature.

 

The philosophy of Miyazawa--who spent most of his life in a small village in

Iwate Prefecture, and had a profound knowledge of natural sciences--has

deeply contributed to the development of ecological thinking by present-day

Japanese. As a by-product of modernization, the traditional Japanese diet

has undergone drastic changes.

 

\For instance, sukiyaki, one of the most traditional and popular dishes, has

changed over the years. About 200 years ago, it consisted of the grilled

meat of wild animals such as geese, ducks and the Japanese serow. But after

the Meiji era (1868-1912), people started making it with beef due to the

growing influence of Western culture.

In the past 30 years, the Japanese have consumed large quantities of

gyudon--bowls of rice topped with strips of beef and onions seasoned in a

sukiyaki-flavored sauce--in fast-food restaurants.

 

However, according to statistics compiled by the Agriculture, Forestry and

Fisheries Ministry, the average amount of meat consumed by a Japanese per

year is 42 kilograms, only about half of that by a Briton and about

one-third of that by an American. In a sense, Japanese livestock farmers

have more freedom in inventing or improving methods of breeding livestock

than their counterparts in the United States and Europe. Mad cow disease is

a golden opportunity for us to give careful reconsideration to the link

between our dietary customs and nature.

 

Tennichi is a deputy editor in the cultural news department of The Yomiuri

Shimbun.

 

Copyright 2001 The Yomiuri Shimbun