Tradition vs Cruelty to animal

Recently I had the most traumatic experience in my life, which is connected to tradition. Relatives had to do a traditional ceremony which involved slaughtering a cow (Kubuyiswa utata wekhaya). We all gathered outside to witness the process that took place inside the kraal. As the elders started officiating the ceremony, the cow became restless inside the kraal causing some chaos. The people started commenting that the person for whom the ceremony is for, was a strong minded person who sometimes did things his own way, he did not take nonsense from people. So the wildness of the cow in the kraal was justified by the family, it was alikened to their father's strong character.

During the cow's restlessness, it charged into the pole (ixhanti) inside the kraal and injured one of its horns. It immediately started bleeding, at the same time they were preparing to slaughter it, but it had to make certain sounds (ikhale) before being slaughtered. It did not respond as expected and family members were now starting to panic as the absence of sound has a bad meaning and the ceremony can not continue.

All the time the cow was bleeding badly. I sensed that the family was really worried about the silence of the cow and the women sitting next to me were on the verge of tears. To the family this is a disaster, they can not continue with the tradition, they think of what could be the reason for the silence of the cow, it is obvious the Ancetsers are cross, but what is it that is causing them to be cross. Also in the village, the family becomes the source of gossip. So there were so many things going through their minds.

For me I was so stressed by the whole situation, and I could not tell which was stressing me more, the cow that was bleeding badly or my family that was in verge of tears worried about the tradition gone wrong, the fact is I was also teary. The situation was solved when elders decided to go to a witchdoctor who told them what the cause of the problem is and it happened to be true. They later continued with the ceremony and despite the cow having lost so much blood and was supposed to be weak to give the require sound, the minute the spear touched it, it gave the strongest sound and verybody was ululating and cheering.

Yes, it a tradition and culutre to slaughter, I just wish the animals could be spared the gruesome torture and pain. I understand that its not intentional to make animals to suffer, its just that I wish something could be done, what could be done?, I really do not know.  

It is through these traditional ceremonies that we also get spiritual and physical healing, so we have to do them. All that is needed is for us believers to adhere to the tradition and not think that there are short cuts.

For me, the more I witness these incidents, the more I believe in tradition and culture!! I always wonder whether my kids will follow their family or not on this issue when they are grown ups.

Whatever they decide I still ask God to give them wisdom to make right decisions.

HAPPY READING!!