Animal slaughter on the streets of Alexandria Warning: sensitive animal lovers should know that this post includes pictures of dead animals and blood, no close-ups but you probably wont want to zoom in. With swift slices of a knife to its tendons the calf collapsed onto her forelegs and the burly team of butchers heaved her onto her side. In seconds the throat was slashed and the calf thrashed upwards, struggling against her severed muscles, forcing the men to jump…
Warning: animal lovers may find some of the images distressing In the lush hills of Tana Toraja in central Sulawesi the most important part of life is, without doubt, death. It is an event which calls for a great deal of time and expense and is firmly rooted in ancient traditions, despite the majority of the population being Christian. The piety of the Torajans disguises the fact that Christianity is largely a very recent arrival: attacks from Muslim lowlanders (which…
By the time I got to Burkina Faso I was beginning to get disappointed by the lack of sacrificial poultry action, so was delighted to discover the Sacred Fish Pond just outside of Bobo Dioulasso. Philipe, a French man I had met kindly let me tag along with his guide and 4×4 for a couple of days. After a short hike over wind eroded rocks, carved into a myriad of interesting shapes, we descended a narrow fissure in the rocks…
The somewhat challenging nature of Voodoo for animal lovers is put to the ultimate test at the fetish markets. These are the pharmacies of the voodoo world: after a consultation the priest will provide a prescription which is then purchased from the market. The stalls look a bit like the trophy collection of some psychotic, random animal hunter: great arrays of heads in varying states of decomposition, dogs, monkeys, cattle, birds and even most definitely endangered creatures such as leopards…
