To Sir, With Love.
Disclaimer: the following can be slightly graphic and/or boring if you’ve done many animal killings.
I realize I’ve never watched anything bigger than a spider die. Even a mouse, I usually look away. But I’m willing to eat anything, in the sense of even animals I have no imagination of what it’s like to witness their death.
With that in mind, Kim and I decided to kill a chicken. Here there are easy ways to have someone else kill and clean it for you if you’ll pay them less than a dollar. But I just wanted to know the process, being the suburban little princess I was, I didn’t grow up on a farm killing my food. I know many Americans have this same experience of disassociating the pink piece of meat kept tightly packed in glistening plastic and squeaky styrofoam from the bloody feather and biology class organs of the real chicken.
We went to the market and went to the chicken section. Smelly and dim, I stumbled my way down the tight aisle of fowls. On both sides, white chickens of different sizes were lifted and held to reveal vulnerable flesh – wounded and pecked at. We chose a fluffy medium size one and put it in a bag to carry home.
For 3 days we kept it, avoiding naming it (Although Kim kept calling it “Sir Chicken” which I discouraged). We made up a story about it having a terrible life and us mercy killing it in order to make us feel better.
On the day of slaughter, Kim and I divided tasks. We chose to do the deed behind my house next to a small corn farm, where the fewest Cameroonians would happen by to watch. Emboldened by a bit of alcohol, I stepped forward to kill it. Since I’m not skilled at whipping the neck to break it, we dug a hole to let the blood flow out of its throat. I stepped on its feet and wings wearing my flip flops and held its neck back. The knife wasn’t sharp enough, even though I’d taken it to the shoe repair guy to grind it sharp. It took awhile. I held it in my hands for what seemed like too long. As I floundered with the dying bird, my older neighbor woman sang out, “Let me go softly…” at the perfect moment. She was watching and I suppose they sing this song at funerals. I purred, “It’s OK, It’s OK” after the chicken lay motionless on the ground. Kim and I remembered we wanted to say a little prayer/ceremony. We thanked the chicken for its life.
We dipped it in boiling water to loosen the feathers and then plucked it. Not nearly as gruesome as I thought it’d be. Quickly it went from a slain creature to meat. Kim, with guidance from another more experienced PCV, cleaned it. I think biology classes helped make this less shocking.
Then we cut it up into normal-looking pieces and washed it. It was here that the flesh/guts/blood smell kicked in and my resolve broke down. I had to go and sit down.
After cooking with veggies in some broth, the meal was amazing. I didn’t feel the guilt I often feel as a quasi-vegetarian who sometimes eats meat. I’d known this chicken and gone through its death.
I’d do it again if I had to. But holding a creature as the life escapes is a powerful experience that gets forgotten in the word “slaughter”. If I sound like a bleeding heart hippie, maybe it’s not untrue but the first encounter with killing something is rare and a special confrontation with self, morality, and life. It’s a shame more Americans aren’t responsible for what it takes to satisfy their immense cravings for meat.
ourman said,
May 13, 2009 at 9:37 pm
So you got drunk, you admitted you didn’t know how to kill it properly so killed it slowly? When it slowly died you said “it’s ok, it’s ok” and said a little prayer. Sorry – this IS all quite disturbing.
Perhaps you could have bothered to learn how to kill it quickly first?
“…the first encounter with killing something is rare and a special confrontation with self, morality, and life”
Sorry, sounded like chicken torture to me.
And then you say: “It’s a shame more Americans aren’t responsible for what it takes to satisfy their immense cravings for meat.”
I think your moral high ground may be slightly misplaced.
Brighde said,
May 14, 2009 at 12:02 am
Hi,
Interesting post. I agree that many of us in the Western world are insulated by the whole process of slaughter of animals and I think that there would be heck of a lot of vegetarians / vegans in the world if we had to kill our own animals. Many people would not have the courage to do what you did and I am sure what you did will hopefully help you to appreciate meat a lot more and the fact that it is taking a life and the process of slaughter is not particularly fun, clean etc.
However, I find the argument of appreciating the meat and being thankful to the chicken is not particularly convincing. To say that you are thankful to the chicken insinuates that the chicken gave up its life for you by its own consent which I am sure that chicken did not do. I think is is safe to assume that the chicken would have much preferred to have stayed alive and lived happily in your backyard and I am sure (like any living being would) it fought for its life and didn’t want to die!.
I would suggest that being thankful helps you feel better about what you did but justifying is to yourself, but actually it makes no real difference to that chicken or anyone / anything else for that matter.
Jerry said,
May 14, 2009 at 8:04 pm
All this backlash over a mere chicken? Please you guys should get a life!!!