Yeah I don’t see an answer, but it is possible that it is chemical and not about flora, because I keep seeing “clay” mentioned specifically, instead of “soil.”
I agree that just saying “it’s cultural” is not an explanation. Cultures are not entirely arbitrary.
Was it also potato and apple or is “scrapple” a general purpose term for an omelette made out of whatever scraps are available?
Pretty much all customs are culturally transmitted - that’s kind of the definition. But they’re not necessarily totally arbitrary either - there is often some other information that can be added beyond “they have learned to do it.”
I compost and a common practice is to throw a handful of your native soil into your pile when you start it, to inoculate it with local soil bacteria. Bacteria do most of the work in an active compost pile.
I wonder if people were getting some kind of gut flora benefit from this.
Yeah every culture went through their phase of tricking ethnographers on this.
The importance is in the mind of the person who knows more about armaments and wants to flex that on other people. This happens nonstop in gun control debates, as if you need the technical knowledge of a gunsmith to debate the regulation of lethal force.
I couldn’t even get to the paywall - their cookie consent dialog was halfway off the screen and I couldn’t click “reject”
Name this movie:
John Lithgow: “okay this is just a practice, nobody do ANYTHING. 3 - 2 - 1 - cut.”
To be fair, there probably is a lot of shame and self-loathing that comes after sleeping with Peter Thiel.