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Sal/Manteca/Panela: Ethnoveterinary Practice in Highland Ecuador
Author(s) -
Hirschkind Lynn
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.2000.102.2.290
Subject(s) - agrarian society , order (exchange) , metaphor , agriculture , geography , extension (predicate logic) , agroforestry , business , biology , archaeology , computer science , linguistics , philosophy , finance , programming language
In this essay, I analyze the feeding of salt, lard, and raw sugar balls to cattle, as practiced in the southern Ecuadorian highlands. These balls provide nutritional satisfaction for cattle and conceptual satisfaction for their owners. Domestic animals are understood to share many human characteristics, needs, and desires. The metaphoric extension of these traits to cattle responds to the quest not only for cognitive order, but also for the pragmatic purposes of management in an uncertain and precarious agrarian environment, [agriculture, animals, ethnoveterinary medicine, metaphor, Ecuador]