A Beginner's Guide to Ritual Sacrifice

Today's the big day! Eid Mubarak Said, my good readers! Today, Muslims all over the world are celebrating Eid al-Adha. This day commemorates the occasion when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac. For all of you who don't know the story, God told Abraham to take his heir, Issac, up to the top of a mountain and offer him as a sacrifice. Abraham, being the good patriarch that he was, agreed, dragged Issac and a ton of wood up the mountain, and right as he was standing above Issac, wicked huge knife at the ready, God realized that Abraham was actually going to go through with it. God then sent an angel down just in the nick of time to prevent Issac from becoming a sacred barbecue, and Abraham sacrifices a ram instead to express his heartfelt thanks. The good Moroccan Muslim way to honor this occasion is to sacrifice your own sheep or ram.

My family's Eid preparations began on Thursday when I woke up to my dad yelling the Darija equivalent of "Watch out!". I peeped out my window into my apartment's courtyard, and was greeted by the sight of a ram. This animal was freaking huge and had a pretty massive set of horns, at least in my inexperienced, city girl opinion. My dad tied the ram up by its horns to a little stake in the center of our courtyard. By the end of the morning, the ram was surrounded by a large pile of hay and nicely situated under an umbrella to protect it from the sun and rain. Throughout the day everyone in my immediate and extended family kept drifting in and out of the courtyard to look at, and make baaaaaaing noises to the ram. My little cousin Khalid was by far the cutest viewer. He kept dashing around the house on his hand and knees chattering away and making sheep noises. My brother Aymen yelled and gave the poor ram a bit of a fright, which my dad apparently thought put the beast off it's food. For the rest of the evening, every time my dad passed the ram he would look at it for a minute, point at they hay, and say "Kul!" which is exactly what my family says to me when they want me to eat more.

So, living with a ram outside my window for three days taught me a good deal about these fuzzy creatures. First of all, they smell bad. Not at first, really, but after two days of eating hay and digesting said hay, and well the hay really does have to go somewhere else eventually, the sheep starts to smell pretty ripe. So did my bedroom. I suppose it could have been worse. The sheep could have been living inside a closet, like the one my friend Alyssa's family got. I also learned that sheep can be quite loud. You know that cute little Mary Bo Peep baaaaa, that you think of when you hear sheep? Such not the case in real life. Our ram roared...at three in the morning. In reality, it wasn't that bad as long as I slept with earplugs. The biggest inconvenience was that neither Evelyn nor I could help laughing whenever the thing made noise.

For two days our ram just hung out on the patio, under it's umbrella, being baaaaed at by the likes of my father, my sister Sarah, my cousin Khalid, and I. Then, this morning, I awoke to the special Eid morning prayer being called from all of the neighborhood mosques, and a very loud sheep. Maybe he knew that his hours were numbered and just wanted to give life one last bellow, maybe he didn't like the call to prayer, maybe he was hungry. Either way it was quite the sound. My family all ate breakfast together, and Evelyn patted the sheep one last time. Then, while I was getting dressed, two guys in blood spattered clothing showed up at the house. My dad led the to the back patio, and they pulled out a rather impressive array of sharp, shiny knives. Evelyn and I rushed to my window, which overlooks the courtyard and pulled out the cameras. Then the slaughter began.

*Warning- What follows below is not for the particularly squeamish or faint of heart, as it compromises a true account of the killing, skinning, and dismembering of a sheep.*

Step One: Guys flip sheep over, ties feet together, and approach with huge knife. Moroccan host mother runs up and shoves some salt in the sheep's mouth. Not entirely sure of the significance of said act, but will ask my Moroccan Culture professor on Tuesday.

Step Two: Guys take aforementioned knife and slits (by this I mean hacks at) sheep's throat. Sheep makes surprisingly little noise, but spews an impressive amount of blood.

Step Three: Sheep's feet are untied and dead (or almost dead) animal flops around for a while. Evelyn and I go nuts with the cameras.

Step Four: Sheep is decapitated. Head ends up rather close to my feet.

Step Five: Guy puts a slit in (now headless) sheep's leg and uses that slit to (no joke) blow up the sheep. Apparently this helps with skinning. Evelyn remarks that she will never kiss a man of that profession.

Step Six: Guy breaks sheep's leg and uses tendon to tie sheep to a rope and hang carcass off of a ladder.

Step Seven: Skinning. Involves knives and treating sheep as a sort of macabre punching bag. Also much more photo taking.

Step Eight: Slice sheep open and pull out the insides. Highlights include more blood, intestines, and lots of organs going into different bowls.

Step Nine: Mom and sisters separate, clean, and chop up sheep's organs. Sheep is still dangling from ladder by its leg. Dad waters sheep carcass with a yellow watering pail. Ranks as one of the strangest things I've seen in this life.

Step 10: Clean up. Dad and sisters clean up remaining blood, intestine goop, and sheep bits from patio. Sarah and I walk sheep's head down the street to men who are roasting them. (Sheep's head is later given back to us...blackened and hornless. Was told this will be cooked in couscous sometime in near future.)

So, there you have it. Ritual slaughter of a sheep in ten easy steps! Let's try it at home next year, yeah?

The remainder of the day so far has mostly been taken up by cooking and eating. After all of the organs were chopped and sorted, by mom stuck the lungs, heart, and some other bits I really can't identity into a giant pot. This mixture has been simmering for the past five hours and I think it's going to be dinner. I assisted my mom in making the Moroccan version of chestnuts wrapped in bacon. By this I mean we wrapped sheep's liver in fat and roasted it over some charcoal. The resulting smoke flooded the apartment, and I was once again reminded of the differences between Morocco and America when there was a noticeable absence of smoke detector induced screeching. Said meat skewers actually didn't taste half bad, and my family ate such a huge lunch that I think I can make it to our 9 PM dinner without a snack!

Today was a good bonding day with the host fam, even though communication was possibly at an all time low. My Eid vocabulary extended to the words "sheep" and "dead". I'm afraid my Arabic just isn't up to questions like, "Dad, why are you roasting that heart over an open flame", "Sarah what is that disgusting goop you're squeezing out of that white gunk", and "Mom, when are we going to chop up the rest of the carcass still dangling in the middle of the patio." Luckily, my family was just happy to ask me repeatedly if I was enjoying myself, and I was more that happy to give an exuberantly positive response. I guess holidays really do have a way of bringing a family together, even if they involve death, gore, and intestines.

To sum up. Eid = best cultural experience I've had to date. I will be happy to show pictures to anyone who doesn't think looking at them will cause vomiting.