Marvin Harris, an anthropologist who espoused many controversial theories, such as that Aztecs practiced ritualistic human sacrifice and cannibalism because they needed animal protein, has died at 74. Harris, who wrote 17 books and taught cultural anthropology at Columbia University and the University of Florida, died Thursday in Gainesville, Fla., of complications following hip surgery.
The Brooklyn-born Harris developed a guiding philosophy that human habits develop to fill basic needs in the most economical way. He called his theory "cultural materialism" and used the phrase as the title for one of his books.
"Westerners think that Indians would rather starve than eat their cows. What they don't understand is that they will starve if they do eat their cows," he once told Psychology Today. "During droughts and famines in India, farmers who succumb to the temptation to kill their cows seal their (own) doom; for when the rains come they will be unable to plow their fields."
Harris' other theories have included:
n Jews and Muslims ban eating pork because pigs eat the same food as humans and provide nothing in return but bacon and ham, while sheep, goats and cattle eat grass but provide wool, milk and labor as well as protein.
n The South American Rain Forest's Yanomamo wage war because over-hunting produces food shortages.
n Dogs are considered unfit to eat in North America and areas where they are needed to hunt other animals supplying abundant protein, but are delicacies in countries that have little game or other edible animals.
n Horses have been good to eat or bad to eat depending on history's need for them as beasts of burden and modes of travel.