A
cloven hoof is a
hoofA hoof is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, strengthened by a thick horny covering. The hoof consists of a hard or rubbery sole, and a hard wall formed by a thick nail rolled around the tip of the toe. The weight of the animal is normally borne by both the sole and the edge of the hoof wall....
split into two toes. This is found on members within the
mammalMammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by sweat glands, hair, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain.Mammals are divided into three main...
ian order Artiodactyla. Examples of mammals that possess this type of hoof are
pigsPIGS is a four letter acronym that can stand for:* PIGS : Phosphatidylinositol glycan anchor biosynthesis, class S, a human gene.* PIGS : Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, an informal grouping of sluggish economies....
,
deerDeer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. They include for example Moose, Red Deer, Reindeer, Roe and Chital. Animals from related families within the order Artiodactyla are often also considered to be deer – these include muntjac and water deer...
and sheep.
The two digits of cloven hoofed animals are
homologousIn evolutionary biology, homology refers to any similarity between characteristics of organisms that is due to their shared ancestry. The word homologous derives from the ancient Greek ομολογειν, 'to agree'. There are examples in different branches of biology...
to the third and fourth fingers of the
handThe hands are the two intricate, prehensile, multi-fingered body parts normally located at the end of each arm of a primate. They are the chief organs for physically manipulating the environment, used for both gross motor skills and fine motor skills...
. They are called claws and are named for their relative location on the foot: the outer, or lateral, claw and the inner, or medial claw.
A
cloven hoof is a
hoofA hoof is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, strengthened by a thick horny covering. The hoof consists of a hard or rubbery sole, and a hard wall formed by a thick nail rolled around the tip of the toe. The weight of the animal is normally borne by both the sole and the edge of the hoof wall....
split into two toes. This is found on members within the
mammalMammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by sweat glands, hair, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain.Mammals are divided into three main...
ian order Artiodactyla. Examples of mammals that possess this type of hoof are
pigsPIGS is a four letter acronym that can stand for:* PIGS : Phosphatidylinositol glycan anchor biosynthesis, class S, a human gene.* PIGS : Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, an informal grouping of sluggish economies....
,
deerDeer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. They include for example Moose, Red Deer, Reindeer, Roe and Chital. Animals from related families within the order Artiodactyla are often also considered to be deer – these include muntjac and water deer...
and sheep.
The two digits of cloven hoofed animals are
homologousIn evolutionary biology, homology refers to any similarity between characteristics of organisms that is due to their shared ancestry. The word homologous derives from the ancient Greek ομολογειν, 'to agree'. There are examples in different branches of biology...
to the third and fourth fingers of the
handThe hands are the two intricate, prehensile, multi-fingered body parts normally located at the end of each arm of a primate. They are the chief organs for physically manipulating the environment, used for both gross motor skills and fine motor skills...
. They are called claws and are named for their relative location on the foot: the outer, or lateral, claw and the inner, or medial claw. The space between the two claws is called the interdigital cleft; the area of skin is called the interdigital skin. The hard outer covering of the hoof is called the hoof wall, or horn. It is a hard surface, similar to the human fingernail.
The almost finger-like dexterity available to cloven hoofed mammals like the
Mountain GoatThe Mountain Goat , also known as the Rocky Mountain Goat, is a large-hoofed mammal found only in North America. Despite its vernacular name, it is not a member of Capra, the genus of true goats...
and Mountain Sheep combined with a hard outer shell and soft and flexible inner pads provide excellent traction in their precarious habitats.
Evolution
It is speculated that during the
EoceneThe Eocene epoch, lasting from 55.8 ± 0.2 to 33.9 ± 0.1 Ma , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene epoch. The start of the...
period, hoofed marsh dwellers carried their body weight using mainly two of the middle toes, which grew to be of equal size, becoming the Artiodactyla or even-toed hoofed animals. Prior to the close of the Eocene period the side toes of some had dwindled and practically disappeared while the basal pieces or metapodium of the pair of supporting toes became fused together, thus producing the appearance of a cloven hoof.
The mammal with a cloven hoof is an even-toed ungulate of order Artiodactyla as opposed to the odd-toed ungulates of Perissidactyla, like the
horseThe horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
, which have one toe, or the
rhinocerosRhinoceros , often colloquially abbreviated rhino, is a name used to group five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia. Three of the five species—the Javan, Sumatran and Black Rhinoceros—are...
, which has three toes. The five-toed ancestors of the earliest
EoceneThe Eocene epoch, lasting from 55.8 ± 0.2 to 33.9 ± 0.1 Ma , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene epoch. The start of the...
had already developed feet that suggest odd-toed and even-toed descendants to the modern viewer. Even
PhenacodusPhenacodus is an extinct genus of mammals from the late Paleocene through middle Eocene, about 55 million years ago. It is one of the earliest and most primitive of the ungulate mammals, typifying the family Phenacodontidae and the order Condylarthra....
, the most generalized of the early mammals, has a foot in which the central toe is somewhat larger than the others and could be placed in the division of odd toed ungulates, Perissidactyla.
Unclean animals
In
JudaismJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
,
KashrutKashrut is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food in accord with halakha is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér , meaning "fit"...
(
kosherKosher foods are those that conform to the rules of Jewish religion. These rules form the main aspect of kashrut, Jewish dietary laws.Reasons for food being non-kosher include the presence of ingredients derived from non-kosher animals or from kosher animals that were not properly slaughtered, a...
) is the set of dietary laws governing what may or may not be consumed. These laws are based upon the
TorahThe term "Torah" , refers either to the Five Books of Moses or to the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts...
and the
TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
. According to
Jewish lawHalakha — also transliterated Halocho and Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish religious law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions....
, animals that
both chew their cud (
ruminatePhysiologically, a ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal's first stomach, known as the rumen, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. The process of rechewing the cud to...
) and have cloven hooves are kosher
. Animals with one characteristic but not the other (the
camelCamels are even-toed ungulates within the genus Camelus. The dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the Bactrian camel has two humps. They are native to the dry desert areas of western Asia, and central and east Asia, respectively...
, the
hyraxA hyrax is any of four species of fairly small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. They live in Africa and the Middle East....
and the
hareHares and jackrabbits are leporidaes belonging to the genus Lepus. Hares less than one year old are called leverets.Hares are very fast-moving...
because they have no cloven hooves, and the
pigPigs are a genus of even-toed ungulates within the family Suidae. The name hog most commonly refers to the domestic pig in everyday parlance, but technically encompasses several distinct species, including the wild boar...
because it does not ruminate) are specifically excluded
. Jews are
forbiddenTaboo food and drinks are food and drink which people abstain from consuming for religious or cultural reasons.Food taboos can be defined as a codified set of rules about which foods or combinations of foods may not be eaten and how animals are to be slaughtered. The origin of these prohibitions...
from eating pork, as swine are considered to be unclean. In the context of Judaism, the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy from the
Hebrew BibleThe Hebrew Bible is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic...
specify what must not be consumed.
The Book of Leviticus states:
These are the animals considered to be unclean according to Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. Verse 7 to verse 8: (7)Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean to you. (8)And swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch thier dead carcase.
The Devil
The cloven hoof is also traditionally associated with the
DevilThe Devil is believed in certain religions and folklore to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The Devil is commonly associated with heretics, infidels, and other unbelievers...
. In works from Shakspeare and Sir Thomas Browne the association is very close and the devil takes pains to hide or disguise the hoof.
In other works the Devil and the cloven hoof can be separated, some believe the cloven hoof more mischievous than the devil.
But not every cloven hoof is the devil's minion.
In
TeutonicTeutonic or Teuton may refer to:*the Teutons* Germanic peoples , see Theodiscus**Teutonic Mythology** Germanic languages *Furor Teutonicus* A German military order, the Teutonic Knights.*SS Teutonic...
Mythology the devil has a non-cloven hoof that is solid like that of a horse,
from which he can not be separated.
There is a story that in the year 1165 the Devil was seen riding like a great black horse before a storm in
YorkshireYorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the British Isles. Because of its great size, functions were increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have been subject to periodic reform. Throughout these changes, Yorkshire has continued to be recognised as...
, the marks of his feet were visible in several places, particularly on the cliff at Scarborough, where he sprang into the sea. In the late 1800s, in the South of
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, was the discovery of marks in various parts of the country which could not be identified as any known beast or bird. The people did not like to say it was the Devil, but no explanation of the mystery was offered. Perhaps this extraordinary presence may have been nothing more than the cloven hoof which in the deep snows of winter is said to haunt the
DewerstoneDewerstone is the site of an Iron Age Hill fort on a rocky promontory overlooking the River Plym on the South West edge of Dartmoor to the North of Plympton inDevon. The fort consists of ramparts to the Northern side of the promontory at approx 210 Metres above Sea Level....
a rocky elevation on the borders of
DartmoorDartmoor is an area of moorland in the centre of Devon, England. Protected by National Park status, it covers .The granite upland dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops , providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The...
But this latter phenomenon is reported to be accompanied by a naked human foot. A case occurred in
DevonDevon is a large county in England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, although that is an unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county itself and often indicating a traditional or historical context. The county shares borders with Cornwall to the west and Dorset and Somerset to...
shire and are many cases are collected in "Lancashire Folk Lore" 1867.