Rodeo Daze In Jakarta

OK, so it's not REALLY a rodeo, but for a Texas boy, it sure looks like one.

You see, Friday is Iddul Adha, or if you prefer the original Arabic, Eid al-Adha.  That's the Feast of Sacrifice for those who aren't Muslim.  It celebrates one of the most contentious events in history, since it is the basis of all the problems in the Middle East today.

According to Jews, "Abraham" was told by Yahweh to go sacrifice his son, Issac.  According to Islam, "Ibrahim" was told to go sacrifice his son, Ishmael.  If you're not up on your Old Testament, old Abe wanted a son, but at well over 100 years old, his wife wasn't up to the job, so he did the deed with a handy maidservant.  The offspring was Ishmael, who went on to father the semitic races.  Later, Yahweh told old Abe that He was fixing things so Abe could have another son with his wife.  Sure enough, she plumped right up and eventually had Isaac, who went on to father the Hebrews.

At some point, Yahweh (thinking this would be great fun apparently) told Abe to sacrifice his son, and here's where the fun really starts.  Abe took either Ishmael or Isaac up a mountain and prepared to let one of them have it.  Reports are that Abe's wife was so distressed by this that she died on the way.  Just as Abe was about to do in Ishmael/Isaac, Yahweh stopped the show and provided a lamb instead.

This incident set up one of the hottest family feuds in history, and even though the Hebrews have all but vanished off the face of the Earth, the Jews (actually Russians from the Caucasus mountains), along with their Christian dupes, have carried on the tradition of killing and hating.  Needless to say, this makes the Jews the most anti-semitic people around.  How's that for screwball?

So anyway, back to the rodeo.

Celebrating Idul Adha involves sacrificing goats, or if you're particularly rich, cows, to atone for one's sins.  In order to pull this off, this past week has seen truckloads of goats and cows being brough into the city.  Make-shift bamboo pans have sprung up around every mosque in town, with the attendant sounds and smells of livestock assaulting one's senses every 200 meters.

On Friday, the festival begins at sunrise.  Families pool their resources to buy one of the animals for sacrifice.  Afterwards, the meat is divvied up, with the poor folk getting a share of the bounty.  The scene is replicated at mosques all over the country, and even on vessels at sea, though I have no reports of this occuring on airplanes as yet.

A few years ago, a particularly corrupt politician (but I repeat myself) was showing off his pocket change and bought a cow for sacrifice at the main mosque in city center.  After the sacrifice, it was discovered that the animal's liver was riddled with worms.  Keep in mind that the liver in this culture is the seat of the soul and emotions, much as the heart is in Western cultures.  This was taken as a sign that the politician's sins were quite extensive and there was a minor scandal over the following weeks.

Much like Houston, the week has been full of trucks, push carts and any other rolling vessel delivering hundreds of animals across the city.  And like Houston, the got-rocks folks will show off their wads of cash by buying the most expensive and showiest animals.  Unlike Houston, they will be slaughtered on the street, rather than the butcher shop, and none of them will be ridden, as far as I know.  But the overall effect is very similar.

It's enough to make one homesick.  Similar events a world apart for very different reasons and histories, but still one of those interesting little quirks of Life on the Far Side.

Fear and Loathing in Indonesia

Tomorrow is Idul Adha, which is the Muslim feast of atonement. It's a holiday like no other, although you'd think it was rodeo time in Texas with all the livestock rolling around town.

During Idul Adha, those with means buy a goat, and those with more means buy a cow, and the animal is scrificed at the local mosque as an offering for the forgiveness of sins. The carcasses are then carved up and the meat doled out to needy families.

To that end, there have been trucks bringing loads of animals into the city for the occasion. I've seen dozens of trucks with a cow or two in the back and three or four guys keeping a hand on them. I've seen goats bound up and slung on the back of a motorcycle on its way to a mosque.

Tomorrow what will happen is that the penitant will present the animal to the imam at the front of the mosque. There is a round of praying and asking for forgiveness. The animals throat is then slit and the blood is poured out as sacrifice for sin. Richer folks may offer up more than one animal, and of course, cows being more expensive, a wealthy man will bring the larger animal for sacrifice.

Later the meat is divvied up and given to poor families and individuals, so that the sacrifice serves two purposes. Given that Jakarta has over 12 million people, and about 80% of them are Muslim, you can imagine how much meat is available for those who need it.

Blood sacrifice is one of the oldest forms of atonement that I am aware of. Of course, the Muslims still practice it. The Jews seemed to have stopped around the time the Secdond Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. Christians, especially Catholics and Episcopelians, still practice blood sacrifice, albeit in a symbolic form, by slaughtering and then cannibalizing their own God.

The practice is curious to me. Of course, there's the aspect of ingesting the Life Force of that which is eaten. Many ancient hunting societies were keenly aware of the fact that they were taking the spirit of the dead animal into themselves. i can imagine expanding that idea into one where the Deity is pleased by receiving the animal's spirit in sacrifice, and even more so by the aroma of the burning flesh. Lord knows I like a good steak myself.

Last year, I told someone back home about the practice. His only response was, "Barbaric." No more so than many religious practices I can think of in Western religions. The Jews have a whole list of rules about sacrifices in the first few books of the Bible. There's a list of sins and then a proscribed remedy, giving what animal, if blood or burnt, how much should be donated to the priests, et cetera. In fact, Jesus' whole rant at the Temple was against the crass commercialism that had grown up around the practice.

As far as I can tell, the Buddhists are one of the few religions that not only did not practice live sacrifice, but strictly forbid the killing of animals for any reason.

The Aztec and Maya of Central America went a step further and carved out the beating heart of human sacrifices, drained the blood down the pyramid steps and then cast the bodies down the steps to pile up at the bottom. There is a rather graphic re-enactment of the practice in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, which I found to be a fascinating film. Having been to several Mayan cities, including Tikal, I can easily visualize the scene.

Dan Brown dealt with the subject extensively in his latest novel, The Lost Symbol. The concept of freeing and absorbing the life force of other creatures has roots deep in European culture, as well. The majik arts and occult practices have used killing as a means of gaining spiritual strangth for centuries.

So, the slaughter of goats and cows is now shocking, really. In the abstract, one might think that it is a brutal and arcane ritual, but to witness it is to remove the mystery. It's no different that what is being done all over Texas right now, during deer season. The difference being that here it is a ceremonial begging for forgiveness. In Texas, it's a ritual form of spraying hot lead and testosterone all over the place.

An interesting anecdote from last year's holiday. A noted politician had purchased a cow for his sacrifice. When the animal was butchered, its liver was eaten up with paracites, which led to rampant speculation on what sins he had committed. You see, Indonesians view the liver the way a European would view the heart, as the center of a person's being. So, the liver being shot was a curious sign.

Anyway, a blessed Idul Adha to my Muslim readers. And to my other Indonesian friends, enjoy your holiday in the middle of the week.

Back on Thursday with more views from the Far Side.