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The diminished fifth (or augmented fourth) was proscribed by medieval musical theorists as diabolis in music (the devil in music) because its sound was considered flawed. To understand this taboo, it is necessary to know a little about musical harmony. Harmony, in music, is a succession of notes that sound simultaneously. Harmony derives from a natural phenomenon known as the harmonic series. The intervals, or distance between pairs of notes, in a piece of music determine the harmony; some intervals are consonant, of equal tension, causing the two notes to blend together, others are dissonant, with the two notes clashing, but with the expectation that they will resolve to a consonance. The earliest form of harmony in Western Europe began in the 9th century with the introduction of organum, which moved in parallel fifths and fourths. Fifths are so called because of the interval between two notes; for example, if the first note is a C on the treble clef, its companion is a G. D is linked with A, E with B, and so forth, with the tension between the notes remaining the same. These are called “perfect fifths”. However, the fifth that is formed from a B and an F does not

inimical to mankind, they may he regarded as springing from the “negative” principle of the universe. With regard to M ars, nothing need he said in this age; as for the spirit of cold, we may remember that M ephistopheles, in Goethe’s Faust, expresses a desire that life shall dissolve into nothingness; and, as we know, when that happens, the sun will have burnt out, and cold will conquer all (Cooke, p. 89).

If the 20th century was indeed an age of discord, as Cooke suggests, it created a fitting music. Between 1912 and 1922, the composer Arnold Schoenberg introduced a musical structure which was not primarily based on harmony and the diatonic scale. His atonal compositions, such as Pierrot Lunaire (1912), utilised a chromatic scale of twelve equidistant semitones, replacing the one or two tones which had previously served as the main focus points for an entire composition (the keys of tonal music). Harmonic cadences were replaced by melodic-rhythmic tensions and resolutions, resulting in a music of great emotional intensity. Though his detractors derided what they saw as a triumph of dissonance (no doubt the diabolus in musica), he, and his fellow composers, including Anton von Webern, Alban Berg, Luigi Dallapiccola and Hans Werner Henze, have had a radical influence on 20th-century music.

See also

Musical Harmony

References

Cooke, Deryck. 1959. The Language of Music. London: Oxford University Press.

Dogs

Eating a dog is believed to have dire consequences in many parts of the world and consuming the canine species is widely eschewed. There are several reasons for this. Religious conviction lies behind many of the bans. Buddhism abhors the killing of any living being. In the Nagarakrtagama, sent in 1365 CE to King Hayam Wuruk of Majapahit in Java, the Buddhist Prapañca explains that ancient scriptures forbid dog-meat and institute punishments for transgressors (Simoons, p. 100). Muslims consider dogs ritually unclean and the Maliki school of law states that touching one causes hadath, or impurity, which must he cleansed by the lesser ablution (wudu) (Glassé, p. 102). In Moroccan tradition, the killing of a dog pollutes a man, and any subsequent animals he slaughters will he unfit for consumption, and he himself barred from certain religious rituals (Simoons, p. 104 n.12). Hunting dogs, though, are not unclean and it is lawful to cat game caught by trained hunting dogs provided it is released with pronunciation of the basmalah (in the name of Allah). Hindus consider the animal a filthy scavenger. Within the Hindu caste system those designated as “Untouchables” (who were lower than even the lowest caste) were also disparagingly called “dog-cookers”.

On the other hand the Zoroastrians of ancient Iran refrained from eating dog-flesh because they held the animal sacred and used it in cleansing rituals. The historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BCE (Historia 1.140) relates how Xerxes had a great number of Indian bounds in his army when he invaded Greece and he discusses the cultic importance of dogs in Iran where the dead were exposed to dogs and scavengers. In his article “Zoroastrianism and the Body”, Alan Williams describes a Zoroastrian purification ceremony in which a priest tethers a dog. The gaze of the canine is purifying to the riman (polluted one), who has been tainted by contact with a corpse or through a miscarriage, but anathema to the corpse demoness who is exorcised by the rite (Williams, P. 163).

Ming dynasties (1271–1644 CE) a lust for dog-meat signified hot-blooded, animal energy. Since the middle of the 20th century, however, the consumption of dog-flesh in mainland China has rapidly declined. A fear of disease and the competition for scarce food resources has led to a widespread culling of dogs in urban areas.

Evidence of the importance of canines in Southeast Asia can be found in the Hou Han shu myth written by Fan Yeh in the 5th century CE but probably deriving from earlier oral sources. The myth relates how Kao-hsin, the White Emperor, was threatened by the Dog Jung and offered his daughter and, as an added inducement, much gold, to whoever could bring him the head of Dog Jung’s formidable chieftain, General Wu. Some time later, the emperor’s pet dog, a magnificent creature with a pelt of five colours, returned with the head of General Wu between his teeth. This dog, named P’an Hu, happily married the emperor’s daughter and returned with her to a stone chamber in Nan- shan [“Southern Mountain”, in the Lu-chih district of Hunan province]. Here his wife disrobed and, in deference to her spouse, made a pu-chien (dog-coiffure) hairstyle and dressed in a tu-li (dog-tailed) robe. After three years twelve children were horn, six of each sex. These married incestuously and retained the sartorial tastes of their parents: they liked five-colour clothing and always cut their clothes with a tail. Their descendants became known as Man-i (barbarians), and the present day Man people of Wu-ling in Ch’ang-sha [Hunan] are reported to be a branch of these (White, p. 141–142).

This tale, in which a race of humans is believed to have descended from dogs, touches on one of the most salient reasons for the avoidance of dog-flesh: dogs are too close to humans. As domesticated animals, they have hunted with man and lived in his homestead. To cat the flesh is akin to cannibalism.

See also

Food Taboos

References

Glassé, Cyril. 1989. The Concise Encylcopedia of Islam. London: Stacey Publications. Harris, Marvin. 1986. Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Cuhure. London: Allen and Unwin.

Ojoade, J. Olowo. 1990. “Nigerian Cultural Attitudes to the Dog”. In SignifyingAnimals: Human Meaning in the Natural World. ed. Roy G. Willis, p. 215–221. London: Unwin Hyman.

Simoons, Frederick J. [1961] 1967. Eat not This Flesh: Food Avoidances in the Old World. Madison, Wisconsin; London: University of Wisconsin Press. White, David Gordon. 1991. Myths of the Dog-Man. Chicago, Illinois; London: University of Chicago Press.

Williams, Alan. 1997. “Zoroastrianism and the Body”. In Religion and the Body. ed. Sarah Coakley, p. 155–166. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.