The Goat Slaughter

Happy Easter 2012!

I left you on a small plateau climbing the grunt to Namche.  If you love walking and hiking especially on trails where you can gaze at the patterns of clouds and trees, where you can let your mind wander back to people and places in your life, then you know how wonderful it is to daydream.  When your mind travels into another world beyond the here and now, you are, as they say, “living in the moment.” It’s the stuff of meditation without the agony of trying.

When you struggle to breathe, when you will your body to move as I did on those rocky steps, you are also in the moment because you don’t have the energy to think. But from time to time on that climb I thought back to our two days in Kathmandu, to that magical, spiritual and turbulent ancient city that so enthralled, excited and revolted me. We were just beginning to get over the jet lag of nineteen hours of flying and the goat slaughter we saw sent us spinning.

It was a balmy day in early October, 2003. We were sitting at a table on the third floor balcony of the Durbur Square Restaurant in Bhaktapur, the medieval capital of the Kathmandu Valley. Water curled down our glasses of imported beer onto a red and white checkered tablecloth. I was beyond tired at this point, having spent the last couple of nights willing sleep to come.

We looked across to the Royal Palace. Pigeons flew overhead landing on the palace’s ornate wooden carvings, leaving their calling cards to the already thickly decorated exterior. I looked around, remembering that in this old durbar court, the Nepali princes of old Bhaktapur were crowned.

I imagined the pageantry, the music and the throngs of people. Wendy said, “Don’t look down.” She was clenching her napkin. I stood and peered down over the old railing. The railing shifted under my weight. A few people were milling around a rusted van decorated with colourful streamers. On the ground in front of the van, someone had placed a bronze tray with yellow flowers and a bowl of brilliant red powder. Behind the tray sat a priest. A man was leading a goat on a leash into the square. I was transfixed at the following scene as it unfolded.

preparing the car for the blessing

With the nod of his head, the man pulled a knife from his trousers and slit the goat’s throat. He grasped the gyrating animal and ran lopsidedly around the van, pumping the goat’s neck. Blood splattered a wild abstract design on the sides of the van and the old cobblestone courtyard. I felt sick. I didn’t want to look; but stared at the same time.

I grabbed my Nikon and tried to focus with shaking hands, not as much from disgust, as wanting to record this display. We had come here for a quiet lunch during a tour of the city. It was only our second full day in Kathmandu and as luck would have it, the ninth day of the fifteen-day Hindu festival of Dashain, a celebration marking the triumph of the gods over wicked demons.

As I read later, on this bloody and colourful day, sacrifices are given to all vehicles such as cars, airplanes and trucks for protection against accidents during the year. In a courtyard, somewhere else in the city, we missed the slaughter of hundreds of black buffaloes. When the killing ended, the area would have been filled ankle deep with blood.

After circling the van, the man positioned his still dripping knife and with a flick of his wrist lopped off the goat’s head, placing it on the bronze tray. He quickly severed the tail and rammed it into goat’s mouth. I felt like an impostor to this exhibition, recoiling even as my shutter clicked.

Children played tag in the courtyard. This was a day of worship and the scene our grotesque initiation to Kathmandu, a picture unimaginable at home. I turned around to find our guide, Rajendra.  He was chatting with our guide at a nearby table. Our eyes met.

 He must have noticed my revulsion because he shrugged his shoulders. He said, “Yesterday was the eighth day of Dashain and last night was the dark night when hundreds of goats, sheep and buffaloes are sacrificed at the mother goddess temples. Most families sacrificed a goat yesterday, as well. We can visit one of the temples if you want.”

The priest blessing the car

The afternath

My inners turned. City slickers aren’t used to such remarkable shows of blood and gore and I wondered why Rajenda hadn’t prepared us. Wendy toyed with her Dahl Baht. I took a few more gulps of beer and peered over the railing again. The priest was blessing the car and its owners before walking away, his white robe transformed into giddy abstraction by the blood of the hapless goat.

The priest leaving the scene

Goats for slaughter on their way south
 from Tibet to Kathmandu

The waiter removed our untouched plates. I looked out onto the square, to the bloody car, to the women passively looking down at the street, to the priest walking off after blessing the car. I remembered the mystical photographs of bronze gods in Power Places of Kathmandu. Those photos were taken here in the Kathmandu Valley, I remember thinking.

I think it was the gruelling trail that threw me back to that scene. As we climbed higher, my memories of Kathmandu changed along with the blue sky and the anticipation that at some point, no matter in what shape, we’d arrive in Namche.

Women passively watching

Upcoming posts

Meeting Swiss diplomats in Namche

Our porter Chirring Sherpa

Rajendra is sick