My first foray into the realm of chicken sacrifice took
place this past weekend at a friend’s house. To say it didn’t go as expected
would be a lie cuz’ it did - Rooster was killed and we ate it. End of story..
Well sorta...
Event Host/Rooster-owner is not a Pagan, nor were the other
invitees who arrived to witness said sacrifice; so said sacrifice went as
follows: friend grabs rooster hands it over to me, I hold it for a while and
sage it and apologize for taking its life but thank it as well, as a
“representative of all domesticated animals that we eat”; chicken gets strung
upside down, jugular is cut while I play a singing bowl, end of story.
Well sorta...
There was also the part where the host’s friend took
pictures of the entire event - I didn’t care for that, but this not being my
house nor my rooster, I didn’t say anything. There was also the part where the
bleeding rooster flew out of the stirrups, landed on the ground and we had to
grab it and string it up again - that was no fun. Then again, slaughtering an
animal is not supposed to be fun.
See, while my friend isn’t a Pagan like me, I got the sense
that as cavalier as he was about harvesting the one of the four chickens he got
this past spring that turned out to be a rooster, he understood there’s
something profound in the act of taking a life, even if for the noble purpose
of food (and um...adhering to First World zoning laws). And while there’s
plenty of “how to” guides online for killing a chicken properly, there are few
guides on how to do it with a little ol’ time relijun, if you know what I mean.
I’m guessing that’s why I got invited...
Being the first to arrive at said occasion, the host and I discussed how this would all go down - He’d do the
stringing up, throat slitting, etc, I’d give the chicken some Pagan respect
beforehand, smudging, a singing bowl om, a little sending off prayer. Ideally,
I would have preferred to cast a circle, or at the very least call in the
elements, and have the other guests sing something to the chicken while it was
being sent off (stop rolling your eyes!). But yeah, you’re never sure how folks
will react to the “Woo” so I kept my New-Agey shenanigans to a minimum.
Surprisingly, the hosts friend’s were pretty respectful of
the entire process, as in they didn't snicker or chase me away with a pitchfork. I even got a few, “I see you’ve done this before,” accolades
to which I replied, “Uh, actually, no I haven’t.”
Cuz’ here’s the thing - my friend is a white collar
suburbanite, as were most of his guests. Yes, they eat meat, but no, they’ve
never participated in slaughtering a bird or mammal for food - It kinda goes
against the entire point of living in the First World and working a white
collar middle class job, right?
But urban farming being all the rage these days - everyone
who wants to maintain some level of street cred just has to have an organic
edible garden, maybe even a bee hive, and definitely some chickens (I have 2
out of those 3). And if you get chickens that weren’t sexed beforehand, well,
that rooster has few options as this is once again, a First World suburban
enclave, and the only loud morning sounds allowed here are dump trucks and the
occasional motorcycle. This is all to say, people here take their poultry
zoning laws seriously.
So here we were stringing up this young rooster. The
majority of the folks in attendance being men, it was hard not to feel a little
gender solidarity. And we can’t just kill the damn thing without any homage,
right? So here I am, feeling a bit like a schmuck in front of these other
dudes, but also feeling pretty damn serious, playing a singing bowl for an
upside down rooster, telling him, “thank you for your sacrifice, may your
spirit return,” then holding the chicken as its last breaths left its body and
its eyes closed, shushing it, and then a few moments later, helping pluck the
feathers out. “Anyone wanna help?” the host and I asked, everyone said no.
And yeah, there was the science experiment part later - with
examining the crop, the liver, the heart, the other unidentifiable parts; there
was the ethics and philosophy discussion we had while the chicken was being
roasted - about the burden we carry as humans in being conscious of our own
eventual death, about the price domesticated animals pay for living a
simple, well fed life; and there was the unspoken part about being white collar
and middle class and trying to honor the spirit of an animal we’ve all been
complicit in killing millions of times over but too privileged to ever
participate directly in.
I know carnivores who say they’d never eat meat if they had
to participate in slaughtering animals. I say, you should never eat meat if
you’ve never participated in slaughtering an animal, at least once, and if
you’re planning to, call me and I’ll bring over the sage and singing bowl. Till' then...
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