Marvin Harris Sacred Cattle Summary

In The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle, Marvin Harris describes the Hindu sacredness of cows as being more influenced by economy than theology. He calculates the economic advantages and disadvantages of cows and the consequences of illegalizing cow slaughter, without considering the possibility that these may have come from theology. In the first paragraph, Harris admits that he has never been to India and all of his research is based off of reading. He admits this may lead to some errors, although outright errors are unlikely. All of his research was purely statistics-based and gave practically no room for misinformation. It does, however, lead to misinterpretation. By basing all of his resources from only a scientific viewpoint, …show more content…
For instance, if the descriptions of how necessary strong cattle are for farmers are still accurate today, he would be right about them having an economic value. But that does not make the religious significance invalid like he implies. When Harris describes the use of beef and hides, he suddenly becomes less specific and instead theorizes about the cattle who die naturally. He seems to assume that the lowest class would eat beef if they had to, and that the non- Hindu population would eat it regardless, but does not provide evidence for this beyond the number of cattle dead, the lower class population, and the non-Hindu population. This seems to be aimed more at coming up with a counter for any possible argument against him than a realistic argument, because he offers very general support and no evidence for it. Harris’ conclusion of the importance of economic value seems to mostly come from not researching religious value enough. He used enough of the etic perspective to know the details without the context, but religion relies on context. This purely empirical viewpoint led to him discounting a religion’s