The other day I watched an instructive TV program, "Inochi no Kusa no Kabuwake (Multiplying the Roots of Life)" on NHK. Sidama people in the southern part of Ethiopia live on ensete, banana-shaped plants. One ensete plant provides enough food for a family of five for a month. When a Sidama man goes to cut an ensete plant, he kneels down at its root, praying: "I thank God for giving me this opportunity. I separated a root from an ensete of my fathers and planted this. I have nothing else to eat. Please allow me to cut this."
A similar ceremony used to take place among Ainu people when they killed a bear for food. They believe that every creature and plant has its own god, and regard the bear as an incarnation of a bear god sent to them. When they killed or "sent the god back home," they held a ceremony to pay homage to the god, praying for another visit.
Japanese people used to have the same spirit of appreciation. They would thank farmers for growing rice. Even now some old people say, "Farmers undergo 88 different types of labor before the rice harvest, so even a grain of rice must not be wasted."
Haven't Japanese people today, who are gorging and yet starving for, and at the same time wasting, gourmet food, forgotten something important about what they eat?
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