Blood in the Streets in the Town of Kathmandu

The people of Nepal are celebrating their biggest national festival, Dashain.
The 15-day annual religious feast marks the victory of the Hindu goddess Durga over a feared demon and symbolises the triumph of good over evil.

There are a wealth of rites in the goddess's name, and sacred grass is being grown in special pots all over the country to be used as a blessing this Sunday, the 10th and most important festival day.

Every Hindu home has been cleaned and decorated to welcome the goddess. The markets have been heaving as shoppers seek out new clothes and foodstuffs, and many thousands are returning to their home villages from the cities and from foreign countries to spend time with their families.

The festival is like Christmas and News Years to the Nepali people. The have Dashain parties at work, then the whole country is closed down for ten days. On the eighth and ninth days - Friday and Saturday - when hundreds of thousands of animals are ritually slaughtered as a sacrifice for Durga.

Visible in the Kathmandu traffic among all the shoppers are youths walking with herds of goats; motorbikes with live chickens dangling from the sides; and trucks crammed with buffaloes arriving from India. We even saw a goat on top of a bus the other day, sitting in the luggage rack.

Yesterday and today, and especially during the overnight in between, known as "Kal Ratri" or the "Dark Night", thousands of these animals as well as sheep and ducks will be slaughtered across the nation.

Yesterday morning, my landlord invited Scott and me to witness the slaughter of a goat that they had purchased from the market. There was a short ceremony in which the goat was offered some food and drink. After the goat eats they spray it down with water, hold it in place by it's head and legs, then the eldest son wields a khukhuri, which is a large curved sword. He swings the khukhuri downward towards the back of the goats neck, and in one blow, the goat's head is removed from the rest of its body. The worst part of this is that after the act is completed, the goat's eyes dart from side to side as its tongue continues to thurst back and forth. On the other side of the courtyard the rest of the body start to kick for at least another minute in a seemingly protesting fashion. The whole thing was a bit distrubing, but quick.

The goat will yield a feast of meat. But it is also said to have a religious meaning - the killing being a sacrifice to honor the goddess and prevent her anger in the year ahead.

An article in the Nepali Times weekly says most buffalos, like smaller animals, are decapitated but the bigger ones are battered to death with a heavy hammer on the forehead.

In Bhaktapur, near Kathmandu, pigs are skinned alive and their beating hearts offered to the temple, while in a nearby village people tear apart a live goat.
A quote from a Nepali man that was in a BBC article on this subject asks, "What kind of people take pleasure in such cruelty", even suggesting that a society which treats animals so brutally will be brutal to human beings too.

In fairness not every Nepali family sacrifices animals. My Nepali assistant, Prachanda and his family, sacrifice a coconut to keep in the spirit of the season. And after smelling goat blood, urine, feces, and burnt goat hair, I think I would enjoy the refreshing flavor of a Pina Colada, hold the goat meat please.