When the family of South African politician and anti-apartheid activist Tony Yengeni engaged in ritual slaughter for a traditional cleansing ceremony, it sparked a major controversy over animal rights and cultural practices.

The practice of ritual slaughter surprisingly originates from Greece. Sacrifices in the form of animal sacrifices were offered to certain gods in order to appease the gods who sought advice and blessings. The practice reached Rome and was further evidenced in the Bible by the children of Israel.

In the current context, ritual slaughter remains dominant in African cultures across the continent. It has become a big part of cultural identity and participation. What do you say to a community of people whose culture is deeply rooted and defined by their recognition of the ‘spiritual’ world (spiritual world in this context denoting ancestral world) through the ritual sacrifice of animals? An African doctrine states that an offering cannot be considered acceptable when the ancestor does not recognize it as a sacrifice.

The changing role of meat in African life

Bloodshed is seen as the offering of one life for another, as life is understood to be contained in the blood. When offering an animal for sacrifice, it was formerly the practice for an experienced older person or family representative to perform or carry out the ritual slaughter. This meant that the animal was treated as sensitively as possible in the fatal circumstances. Respecting the animal was seen as respecting the ancestor.

Back then, animals were only sacrificed for life-size celebrations, such as weddings, the birth of a child, and of course, to make an offering to one’s ancestors. Meat was mostly consumed on those occasions and without those celebrations the family survived through subsistence organic farming. The diet consisted mainly of milk, flour, vegetables, beans, and grains.

As commercialization and industrialization set the tone for rapid development in Africa, a trend began that changed people’s consumption patterns and dietary standards. The irony is that cattle owners continued to keep their animals for agriculture and ritual slaughter and not for normal daily consumption, even as their diet transitioned to a more meat-based diet. The additional meat came from ranchers using growth hormones and other chemicals, inorganic animal feed, cruel slaughter methods, and illegal disposal of industrial effluents.

Over the years, the debate has moved away from the justification of ritual slaughter to the method of slaughtering animals in such a way that the animal does not suffer. The focus then shifts to the treatment of the animal before and during ritual slaughter. No amount of protest will stop or limit the number of killings as long as the ritual is considered part of cultural identification and is part of the moral defense of the culturally motivated traditional practice.

Alternatives to animal sacrifices

Ritual sacrifice is still a reflection of what people believe and how they practice those beliefs. In the Bible the first sacrifices were of animals and of fruits and vegetables. The sacrifices were not one-dimensional. They didn’t necessarily have to come in the form of a massacre.

Connecting to the spiritual or ancestral world has several modalities. Internationally acclaimed South African-born jazz artist Bheki Khoza and his wife have been vegan for the past 10 years and held a wedding feast, disregarding their Zulu roots that required them to slaughter cattle. Forty years ago a group of descendants of African Hebrews formed a community that forbade the ritual slaughter that had been a part of their culture since the days of their great inaugural ancestor, Abraham. The community decided to offer themselves as sacrifices instead of animal offerings. By offering themselves, they purified themselves and atoned for their transgressions and formed a new agreement.

There is something to learn here and it is that when we open ourselves to new experiences, new lessons and internalize them, we are actually taking those lessons and those experiences for the ancestors that we honor. While it may be true, in African belief, that sacrifices should be given in a form that is acceptable and understandable to our ancestors, it is also true that as we take our ancestors with us on our life’s journey and we acquire knowledge and new methods, also our ancestors; because death is not a predisposition to obtain supernatural wisdom in the afterlife.