Cow blowing

Cow blowing,[1] Kuhblasen,[2] phooka, or doom dev,[3] is a process used in many countries according to ethnographers, in which forceful blowing of air into a cow's vagina (or sometimes anus) is applied to induce her to produce more milk.

Cow blowing was the reason why Gandhi abjured cow milk, saying that "since I had come to know that the cow and the buffalo were subjected to the process of phooka, I had conceived a strong disgust for milk."[4]

Contents

Distribution according to Plischke (1954)

People Area Author Year See (also) Other
Kalmyk (Mongolian people) southern Russian steppe Peter Simon Pallas 1776
Scythians Herodotus 5th century BCE (to horses)
Yakuts Lena River (Siberia) Gerhard Friedrich Müller 1736
Ethiopians Ethiopia I. M. Hildebrandt 1874
Kaffa Friedrich J. Bieber 1920
Nuer H. A. Bernatzik 1929 E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1951); Luz H, Herz W (1976)
Dinka H. A. Bernatzik 1930
Baggara Kordofan McMichael 1924
Somali C. Keller 1894
Oromo Ph. Paulischke 1893
Wasiba H. Rehse 1910
Wanyaturu E. Sick 1915
Wagogo H. Clauss 1911
Khoikhoi Peter Kolb 1719
Bana Logone area south of Chad A. Rühe 1938
Chinese Tung River (China) I. H. Edgar 1924 Dadu River (Sichuan province)
India T. Murari 1937 Mahatma Gandhi (1927/1929) phooka
Alps (Untergurgl, upper Ötztal), Pfitscher Joch 1939
Pyrenees 1939

Literature

Notes

  1. ^ Clancy, Shae (1999): Cattle In Early Ireland Celtic Well.
  2. ^ Sierksma F. (1963): Sacred Cairns in Pastoral Cultures. History of Religions, Vol. 2.
  3. ^ The Prevention of cruelty to animals act, 1960 (paragraph 12).
  4. ^ Gandhi, Mohandas K. (1927). The Story of My Experiments with Truth. pp. part 5, chapter XXIX. http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/Biography/gandhi/part5.chapter29.html. 

External links