WARNING: This post discusses some pretty graphic details of the sacrifice of goats and cows. Also, even though some of the descriptions may be a bit graphic, I do not mean for it sound as if I am judging this ceremony. Cultural norms shift greatly throughout the world and what I witnessed today was in no way “animal cruelty” in my mind, but a religious experience for the devout followers and a bit of a spectacle for the children (and myself) running around outside the mosque.
Today was Eid-al-Adha. Eid-al-Adha is the Festival of the Sacrifice for Muslims. It celebrates the story of Abraham and Isaac (Ibrahim and Ishmail) and Abraham’s obedience to God through his willingness to sacrifice his son, and also God’s giving of the ram to be sacrificed in the place of Isaac.
I headed toward the mosque nearest my house a little before 5:30am, following the procession of men and women towards the Mosque. As I approached the main street I found that the street had been closed off and a make shift prayer area had been built. I was a bit nervous heading to this festival by myself not knowing if I would be accepted or wanted there, so I asked a man walking near me if a “bule” (foreigner) can come. He said of course and asked me to come sit next to him, so i followed him and I took a piece of newspaper they were handing out as makeshift prayer-mats and took a seat about 4 rows from the front. The prayer session in the street lasted probably an hour and a half as it was composed of prayer and a sermon. I tried to go through the appropriate motions along with everyone else, but I naturally felt quite out of place until I looked around and not a single person was staring at me, or giving me a dirty look as if I was unwanted. If anyone did make eye-contact it was followed by a big smile and mouthing “hello.”
I was so struck by the welcome that I received at the first part of this festival. I can only imagine try to describe it by putting the shoe on the other foot: it would be as if a Muslim man in a prayer robe, mosque cap, beard, and carrying a prayer mat walked into Christmas Mass, looking totally lost but just there to experience and gain appreciationg for something he is unfamiliar with. Except I have a hard time imagining a Muslim man walking into Christmas Mass with America’s general sentiment toward Islam right now being treated with the respect and welcome that I was today.
After the prayer service, everyone got up and began a mass exodus down the next side street, I followed not entirely sure if everyone was going home or if this was leading to the sacrifices. I saw a small mosque off of a side street and walked up to it hoping to ask if the ceremony was over or if more was to come. The man I began trying to talk to in broken Indonesian was pointing at the goats and asking if I was here to be a part of Eid-al-Adha today, I told him yes and he asked if I wanted to eat. He led me upstairs where his family and friends had quite a spread of fish, rice, and what I assume was chicken. They kept piling food on my plate asking if I liked it and if I wanted more. I was STUFFED by the time I walked back down for the sacrifice to begin. The sacrifice took place in an open area behind the mosque and between a few houses. It was not at a large butcher shop as I understand some of these to take place. A hole was dug and the first sacrifice occurred. The goat was laid down with his throat over the hole and in halal style they slit his throat. The goats were hard to watch be slain because of the screams that they made. It reminded me very much of Clarice’s statement about hearing the lambs crying in the film Silence of the Lambs. The yell from a goat in distress is strikingly human and that human-like scream right before death was very disturbing for me.
Next, the Sapi (Cow) was slaughtered. The cow was tied up around the body and pulled down by about 5 or 6 people who then hog-tied its feet together. Once his feet were tied, the cow was dragged over to the hole dug for the blood and turned to be facing the correct direction. While the sound was the hardest part about watching the goat sacrifice, the amount of blood and the visuals were the hardest part of watching the cow sacrifice. The cow’s throat was slit and blood SPAT everywhere. It spurted almost like in a bad Steven Segal film. But maybe even worse than the blood was the visibility of throat muscle or esophagus or whatever it is that you breath from: the muscle was opening and closing pushing out what air was left in the cow and trying desperately to breath more in but all it could accomplish was to spray the blood that was running into and over the opening. Also, as it came closer to death some greenish liquid that I can only imagine to be stomach acids/bile started to pour out as well. All of this was very graphic, especially for me: I vomited after watching the live birth video in health class, after watching a live birth video of a cow in a science class, and stuck my lab partner trying to hold down and cut upon a pig fetus in highschool because I threw up again and almost fainted; I don’t do blood, its not my thing. So this was quite hard to watch and I was honestly pleased with myself for not having to run into the street to throw up into the roadside ditches.
After the slaughter, the animals were hung upside down, skinned, and beheaded (the animals head cannot be removed until it is fully dead) and divided into three sections for family, friends, and the poor.
I bring up the gruesome details of the story to make a point of not sugar coating everything. It can be so easy when witnessing such a foreign celebration to just go on about how eye-opening and life-changing it was while shedding only positive light on the experience. And while this certainly was eye-opening, there were parts of it that were hard to be a part of, and I think that made me realize how large some of the differences between cultures or religions can actually be. But in witnessing these difference in celebration, worship, or even sacrifice it became a bit more clear to me that all of these differences should be seen only as differences in the details. Faith is Faith, and these people certainly had a lot of it. While Islam and Christianity may be incredibly different in their practices, they are still both a way of relating to a higher power and hopefully of gaining a message of acceptance and love. And there were certainly similarities to be seen as well: the men and women at prayer this morning were as devout as someone at Easter mass. The sacrifice seemed to have a meaning that strangely mirrored the Eucharist. But despite any differences between myself and the Muslims I spent my morning with, they welcomed me with open arms. They embodied the good nature of people that religion, ALL RELIGION, should aim to nurture. They did not try to “convert” me, but merely asked if I had questions about what was happening or its meaning to them. It makes it hard to look back the “ground zero” mosque or Murfreesboro mosque controversies and see how narrow minded this American Islamophobia is. If people would open their eyes and try to experience other faiths and accept their differences rather than blindly judge them we might not be in the situation we are currently in.
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