Why do ancient people like to put a pig's head when offering sacrifices?

In fact, the origin of using pig's head for sacrifice has been difficult to verify. I only know that it was inherited and developed by ancient sacrificial rites at that time, but according to analysis, the reason should be related to ancient farming technology.

The most fundamental reason is that pork is easier to obtain than other meats. Pork is easier to obtain than all kinds of wild animals, so it has become a sacrifice for the people to worship the gods and ancestors. In fact, it is not only pigs that are easier to get than wild animals, but also horses, cows, sheep, dogs, chickens and so on. But horses and cows are large domestic animals. People raise horses to ride horses and cattle to cultivate land.

In the pre-Qin period, cows and horses were all special sacrifices, especially cows were the main sacrifices of emperors and princes. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, for the needs of consolidating national defense and developing agricultural production, large livestock such as cattle and horses have been more and more protected by the government.

With the development of history, people in prehistoric times used pigs for burial and sacrifice in addition to eating. In Confucian culture, people usually bury pigs, and some rich people even bury the whole pig. This is done for the enjoyment of the dead and for boasting of wealth.

People in the Yin and Shang Dynasties have mastered the castration and castration techniques of boars. The castration flap cutting technology is of great significance to the rapid fattening and meat quality improvement of piglets.

During the Western Zhou Dynasty, pigs were raised more widely, and pork became the main meat variety in Zhou people's diet. Most families raise pigs. Raising pigs is very common. But there are not many pigs raised by ordinary civilian families. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, almost every household raised pigs.

During the Yin and Shang Dynasties, pigs were still widely used for funerals and sacrifices. Different from the previous generation, the combination of pigs, cattle and sheep was buried and sacrificed. The son of heaven Du Ji is too imprisoned, while the vassal States are less imprisoned. That is, the emperor only used three kinds of animals: cattle, sheep and pigs, while the princes only used two kinds of animals when they sacrificed to the country.

After the Warring States Period, the aristocratic hierarchy in China collapsed. Taxis were originally attached to the aristocratic patriarchal clan system and gradually became an independent class. Through economic and cultural efforts, a large number of ordinary people gradually entered the literati group.

Become a new scholar. The traditional custom of literati using pigs gradually spread to the common people, and finally formed the custom of China people using pork for sacrifice. During the Qin and Han dynasties, raising pigs was extremely common. Moreover, in the identification of pig breeds, people in the Qin and Han Dynasties already knew the relationship between the physiological function and the external morphology of pigs, which played a great role in the breeding of excellent pig breeds.