When South African politician and anti-apartheid activist Tony Yengeni engaged in ritual slaughter for a traditional cleansing ceremony, it sparked a lot of controversy regarding animal rights and cultural practices.
The practice of ritual slaughter stems surprisingly from Greece. Some deities were offered sacrifices in the form of animal sacrifices for the purpose of appeasing those deities seeking advice and blessings. This practice made its way to Rome and is further illustrated in the Bible by the Israelites.
In today’s context, ritual slaughter has remained dominant in African cultures across the continent. It has become a huge part of cultural identity and participation. What would you say to a community of people whose culture is deeply rooted and defined by their recognition of the “spiritual” world (the spiritual world in this context refers to the ancestral world) through the ritual slaughter of animals? An African creed states that an oblation cannot be accepted when the ancestor does not acknowledge it as an oblation.
The changing role of meat in African life
Bloodletting is seen as an offering of life to another person, as life is understood to be contained in the blood. When an animal was offered for sacrifice, it was former practice for an elder or representative of the family to carry out or carry out the ritual of slaughter. This means that the animal was handled as sensitively as possible under the deadly circumstances. Respect for the animal was seen as respect for the grandfather.
Animals were then slaughtered only for life-size ceremonies such as weddings, the birth of a son, and of course, to make an offering to the ancestors. Meat was mostly consumed during those occasions and without those ceremonies, the family survived through subsistence organic farming. The diet consists mainly of milk, meal meals, vegetables, beans and grains.
As trade and industrialization set the tone for Africa’s rapid development, a trend began that changed consumption patterns and dietary standards of the people. The irony is that cattle owners continued to keep their animals for farming and slaughter rather than for normal daily consumption, even as their diet shifted to a meat-based diet. The extra meat was obtained from ranchers who used growth hormones and other chemicals, inorganic animal foods, cruel methods of slaughter, and illegal disposal of industrial effluents.
Over the years, the controversy has shifted from justifying ritual slaughter to the method of slaughtering animals in such a way that the animal does not suffer. So the focus shifts to the treatment of the animal before and during the ritual slaughter. No amount of protest will stop or limit the number of massacres as long as ritual is considered part of cultural identity and forms part of the moral defense of traditional practice on cultural grounds.
animal sacrifice substitutes
The ritual slaughter still reflects what the people believed and how they practiced those beliefs. In the Bible, the first sacrifices were animals, fruits, and vegetables. The sacrifices were not one-dimensional. They didn’t necessarily have to come in the form of slaughter.
Contact with the spiritual realm or ancestors has different statuses. World-famous South African jazz artist Biki Khoza and his wife have been vegetarians for the past 10 years and have been throwing a wedding feast, regardless of their Zulu roots which required the slaughter of cattle. 40 years ago, a group of people of Afro-Hebrew descent formed a community that forbade the ritual sacrifices that had been part of their culture since the days of their great ancestor, Abraham. The community decided to offer themselves as sacrifices rather than animal sacrifices. By presenting themselves they cleansed themselves, expiated their transgressions, and made a new pact.
Something to be learned here is that when we open ourselves up to and internalize new experiences and new lessons, we are actually taking those lessons and those experiences to the ancestors we honor. While it may be true, in the African belief, that sacrifices should be made in a form acceptable and understood by our ancestors, it is also true that as we take our ancestors with us on our life’s journey and acquire new knowledge and methods, so do our ancestors; Because death is not a preparation for acquiring supernatural wisdom in the afterlife.
