Meat, Meat, and More Meat

25 May 2008

Yesterday was an awesome day! I learned so much about so many different things, but especially about Xhosa culture. Matt, Jared, and I all went to a traditional/ancestral ceremony in the rural village of Chalumna (about 60 kilometers outside East London which is the city I am staying in while in South Africa). This, believe it or not, was my first time in a rural village and it was something else. In the urban areas, South Africa is not too different from a typical city anywhere in the US generally, so going to the village was quite a change from the westernized urban areas and the ghettoized townships. I saw a new side of SA that day.

Loyiso, one of the teachers at Nompumelelo Primary School which I am working at, was performing this ceremony at his home in Chulumna and invited us to attend. We went along with three of the teachers from the school (they were all drinking because any African get together that I have heard of or been to involves whiskey, beer, and of course Mnqomboti (African Beer), so I got to be the designated driver; yep driving on the left side of the road once again, I only made one “right-handed” mistake . . . oops . . . but no one died so it was all good J). Let me explain what this ceremony was all about. Loyiso’s family has this cow that has gotten really old, but it has been in the family for a long time and gave them many healthy caves, so they are ceremoniously slaughtering this cow to say thank you to the ancestors for the bounty that this cow has brought to the family. This is one of many cow slaughtering ceremonies that the Xhosa practice. Others include: slaughtering a cow when a family member dies to say farewell and to go with the deceased to where he/she is going, and slaughtering a cow to welcome that person’s spirit back to the family so that he/she can help guide the living family members. Both of these other ceremonies are to honor the ancestors as well. Let me only focus only on the one that I attended.

I will first explain what happened before we arrived and then I will attempt to give you a play by play of what happened while I was there. At about 08h30 they slaughtered the cow. Now Loyiso himself did the actual slaughtering of the cow because he has been chosen by his family to officiate because he is knowledgeable about cultural customs and he is a “good” person (responsible, faithful to his wife, etc, etc; they said that someone who is not those things can not be expected to perform such a sacred work). The key to the slaughtering is that the cow bellows. If the cow does not bellow, then it means that it is not accepting to be slaughtered and that the ancestors are not accepting this sacrifice. The slaughterer has a spear and pokes the cow and if it does not bellow, then the elders must be consulted. The elders decide how to proceed; sometimes they can try to slaughter the cow another day hoping that it bellows. If the cow does bellow, then it is speared a few times, then a knife is used to cut the spinal cord and spine. Then, the neck is cut so that it can bleed out. This is all done in the family Kraal which it the most sacred place on the homestead (cows represent a very sacred part of Xhosa society: wealth, livelihood, fertility, etc; this is an extremely oversimplified explanation of the sacredness of cows in the Xhosa culture; if you want a better explanation read Milk in Baskets or A Concise History of South Africa). The cow is then immediately butchered on the spot and everything is cooked and eaten (depending on which ceremony it is, sometimes ALL of the meat must be eaten that day which is why many people are invited to come J). Some of the meat is braaied (or barbequed) and some is boiled in pots, and only salt is used to flavor the meat.

We arrived at about 11h00 and some of the meat was already cooking in pots and being braaied (all done over a fire in the Kraal of course). They walked us into the Kraal and sat us down with the elders. Loyiso came over with a plate of raw meat and said that it is custom to present each visitor with meat, and the visitor may either braai it him/herself or ask someone else to braai it for them (we decided to braai it ourselves, but actually just ended up standing near the fire while one of the younger guys braaied it, which was probably best because they know what they are doing and I probably avoided one more opportunity to make a fool of myself). The whole day was basically spent sitting around eating the meat. When our meat was done, we put it on a plate and about 10 guys all ate off of it with our hands and it was great. Honestly it was probably some of the best meat I have even had because it was so fresh; I mean the only thing fresher would be raw (the cow was living and breathing at 08h29 and at noon we were eating it). So that was the first round of meat eating . . .

As we chatted and mingled, I learned and realized a few interesting things. The elders, men, and “boys” were all in the Kraal and the women and girls were in various places outside the Kraal but in the yard. The women of the family eat in one area and then the women that married into the family ate in another area. The genders and the various familial groups were very segregated which I found to be very interesting. I asked why only men where in the Kraal, and they said that this is the man’s place and that only the women that were born into the family could enter the Kraal (so a daughter-in-law can never enter her husband’s family’s Kraal). During the day, only one or tow women came into the Kraal and the only time there was a number of females in the Kraal was when they brought in plates of food (umnuqshu, spinach, potatoes, cabbage; this food was brought at the end and we need no more meat). Traditionally, the Xhosa culture is very patrilineal (valuing the father’s side of the family more than that mother’s; for example, a first cousin on you father’s side is considered a closer relation than a first cousin on your mother’s side). Even in the urban areas, men are still waited on and women are in many cases still treated as second class citizens (which is something that bothers me very much, but I try to be understanding and culturally sensitive to the situation and do not object when I am fed before the females in the room). Ok, so I am running out of time and want to get this posted, so I will end it here for now and pick up later with the promise of pictures

Culture is sensitive and gender equality is a constant issue . . .