When I was a child, I enjoyed those festive moments that calls for slaughtering of livestock for meat 🥩. Festive time like Christmas, Easter, Child dedications, and other ceremonies like weddings and burials used to be my favorite moments; because of merriments associated with them. Food, drinks, assorted meats and new clothes which are always available in good quantity during those festive periods. As a child, I couldn’t care more how any why those things were made available.
Now that I’ve become an adult, many things to me aren’t necessary, but how can I explain to my own kids who also expect these things from me their father?
There are certain things that I’ll love to help my kids to know at their early stage; even though my own parents didn’t see anything wrong in them.
The picture above is an original picture of a horse, I snapped him this picture when he was picking some grasses closed to my lower walls. Little did I know that men will take life out of him 10 minutes after I snapped him these pictures. But it happened.
The horse in view wasn’t mine but became friendly to me, to the extent that he loved coming around my new house for food. I started seeing him around my house just about a month now, I didn’t ask many questions why my neighbors decided to adopt him at his older age.
He was kind to the neighborhood children; he allowed them to ride on him. I used to see them climbing on this animal which also parades them around. But what happened?
Just yesterday, after snapping him few pictures from my compound, a group of men walked from my neighbors house to the horse that was busy fetching for his lunch under the hot sun, they grabbed him and took him back to my neighbors house.
I perceived that their move was too ill, I followed them to my neighbors house, when I got there, I saw butchers around my friend which has already thrown at the ground.
I became so furious and wanted to stop them and to know why the abrupt killing. They stopped me and told me that my friend is only fulfilling the book and the purpose why he was purchased at the first place.
As I pushed further for more reasons why it should be killed, they linked his obvious death to a tradition in their land that demands that a horse or a cow should be slaughtered for every death chief in their land after seven market days which is called izu-asaa in their native language.
You may remember when I wrote a tribute to my good neighbor that died recently? Or you can find the post with link below if you care more about that.
https://read.cash/@Maxdevalue.BCH/tribute-to-my-good-friend-a-father-in-my-land-of-sojourn-931ace50
It approximately a month that my friend who happened to be a chief died. Their tradition demands that every dead chief should be celebrated and with some rituals after seven market days. In this ritual, animal such as cows, horses and goats should be slaughtered at the chief’s compound with all his daughters, sons and grand children around.
Before this animals are slaughtered, they’re to be taking to their market square a day before the main event and rituals. In the market square, they will dance with all their families. This dance will attract huge crowd in the market.
I took this picture a day before the rituals, I didn’t go for the dance actually, rather I went to take some pictures at the market square for other reasons that has to do with my original articles about West Africa.
Well, that is the community market square where the chief’s family danced. Dancing in the market as they say marks the final mourning day which will lift some laws that restricts their family members in attention to other events happening around their community. After the rituals, they’re finally free from mourning their dead.
The focus of this article is to portray some attitudes and traditions which brings about some unnecessary killings of pets and animals we cherish. Left for me alone, I’ll rather find ways to proscribe such traditions and acts; yes, the tradition can still hold but with some amendments that may stop the killings of these animals.
This will not be the first custom and tradition to be stopped in some part of Africa; remember that there was a time when twins were being killed which our ancestors labeled taboo to have two children coming to world at same time. But civilization and Christianity helped them to see their wrong which they admitted to and stopped killing twins.
I hope you enjoyed this article as it’s happening in West Africa now. Thanks for reading through my publications.
I’ll appreciate your comment below.
Hello, Max. Thanks for the sad story. I knew nothing about these customs. It is a pity that even today animals are sacrificed unnecessarily.