By: Mimi Milstein
To: Martin Goldberg
Re: Zulu harvest festival

Hello Martin!

Martin Goldberg wrote in a message to Steve Hayes:

 SH> BULL TURNS TAIL AT ZULU SLAUGHTER RITUAL

MG> And your point is?

The point is that Steve seems to be of these painfully
PC-correct South Africans not seeing anything wrong with
barbaric religious customs - as long as he sees it as
RELIGIOUS, come hell or high water.

Here is the follow up (The Star, Monday January 13th 1996):

QUOTE:

ANC [African National Congress] REJECTS CRITICISM OF ZULUS'
CEREMONIAL SLAUGHTER OF BULLS

Durban - Dumisany Makhaye, provincial spokesman for the ANC
in Kwa-Zulu Natal, has dismissed, as an "infringement" of
Zulu culture, complaints by animal anti-cruelty groups that
the killing of a bull at the ukeEshawama [first fruits]
ceremony at King Goodwill Zwelithini's palace at Nongoma,
outside Ulundi, last week was "barbaric and inhumane".

"The ukeEshawama ceremony is part of an age-old tradition
and it is our right to practice our culture.

"In this particular ceremony the young men are compelled
to kill the bull in this manner because it will prove they
are strong and brave enough to become warriors" said Makhaye.

The ceremony - part of Zulu culture for many years -
culminated with the bull being wrestled to the ground, on
the instructions of the king, by a group of young men who
twisted its neck until the animal suffocated.

Marie Eekhout, chairman of the national council of the
SPCA [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals]
said that while the organization recognized the cultural
significance, the killing should have been "quick, clean,
and painless", rather than subjecting the animal to
"needless" panic and torture.

"The SPCA has never been allowed to attend the ceremony,
but to my knowledge, it takes the men nearly 40 minutes to
kill the bull. I have received horror reports of them
jumping on the poor beast, pulling its tongue out,
gorging its eyes and tying its penis in a knot. This is
inhumane and cannot be condoned even in the name of culture."

She said that the slaughter was in contravention of the
Animal Protection Act and could lead to prosecution.

Steve Smit, chairman of the Front for Animal Liberation,
said the ceremony had no place in civilized society.

A Durban veterinarian, who asked not to be named, said
he had seen an amateur video of the ritual and agreed it
was "unnecessary brutal".

"Before being pinned down, the animal was running around
in a frenzy, almost as if it sensed danger. Once the men
men got it on the ground, they all jumped on, twisting its
head and beating its body. The animal, clearly panic
stricken, was writhing in pain and crying out."

Eric Ngubane, private secretary to the KwaZuly Natal
premier, said ukeEshawama was a firmly entrenched tradition
and was performed on the orders of the king, who was the
custodian of Zulu culture. It had to be respected as such.
- - - - - - - -

From letters to the Editor, same date:

BULL RITUAL NOT SECRET, SIMPLY A DISGRACE

Further to the article that appeared on January 6 about
the "ritual" bull slaughter near Durban, I wonder why
King Goodwill Zwelithini asked the photographers not to
record the gruesome act of the bull being killed with the
bare hands of Zulu warriors? Could it be he realizes that
this is a dated, savage act?

Any normal-thinking person, culture-orientated or not,
must admit that this is a horrific and unnecessary infliction
of pain on a sentient being; just imagine the agony that
the beast goes through.

King Zwelethini, your rituals are not "hidden secret" as
you put it, they are simply a well-known disgrace.

signed: Ellen Fedale, Tree Rivers

 * Origin: The Purdah - don't even TRY to knock... Randbg, SA (5:7107/21)