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Du sacrifice au capital : de l'animal comme valeur

Pierre BONTE

fr Anthropozoologica 21 - Pages 231-238

Published on 01 November 1995

This article is a part of the thematic issue Animal in man's space, man in the animal space. Proceedings of the 5th international meeting of HASRI, Genova, 23-25 November 1994

Domestic animals as value: from sacrifice to capital

Domestic animals hold a special and central place in the Systems of representation of pastoral or agro-pastoral societies. Their value is evident in the number of social and ritual practices: from animal sacrifice to capital, as a semantic extension of cattle, this value is related, cognitivelly and materially, to the reproduction of human societies. We try to show in this article that if the animal is "bon à penser", it is because of similarities between animal and human reproduction.


Keywords:

Capital, Cultural code, Domestication, Reproduction, Sacrifice, Sexuality, Taxonomy, Value.

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