Você poderia estar pensando em Courtship Rite de Donald Kingsbury, publicado pela primeira vez na revista Analog em 1982?
Apparently the only Earth-life on Geta are humans, bees, and the "Eight Sacred Plants", including wheat, soybeans, barley, and potatoes. Native, "profane" life includes plants, a wide variety of sea-creatures and "insects", but no large land-animals. Each has a different biochemistry, so each is largely toxic to the other. Parts of certain profane species can be eaten if prepared correctly. As a result, food is a commodity that is very precious on Geta, and in most places the only source of meat is humans themselves. Cannibalism has insinuated itself into the very fabric of social and religious life. On the other hand, humans are not at risk of infection from native bacteria, and seem not to have brought any pathogens with them.
The planet seems to have been settled centuries before the time of the story by a small group, possibly not by choice. Apparently, they made little use of printed materials that could be read in a world without advanced technology. Most knowledge of history and the larger universe was therefore lost, the remainder preserved by oral tradition in "Chants" and stories. The settlers' ship remains in orbit, but its nature has been forgotten; it is generally referred to as "God". The Horse survives only as a piece in chess, named for a "mythical sidestepping insect".
A história apresenta a seguinte passagem
“We’ve puzzled it out. This is what it says.” She wrote for them:
SOMBER HELICOPTER GUNGOD FLEW BEYOND THE RANGE OF