Thursday, November 01, 2007

DASHAIN, a BLOODY FESTIVAL

Nepal is really the festival country. Apparently there are more festivals than days in the calendar. But Dashain is by far the most important Nepali festival. Everybody celebrate it. Is gathering families spread all over the country, and sometimes the entire world. It is an Hindu festival. But it is also the festival that is marking the begin of the rice harvesting season. And everybody want to celebrate Dashain to wish a happy rice harvesting. But what is really amazing to me, is the animal sacrifice that is happening during the festival. For some reason I though that Hindu were vegetarian. But I had to change my mind. And I thought that Buffaloes and Cows were both holy for them. But I had to change my mind on that as well. I am telling you. I have never seen so much blood in my life. The Dashain festival lasts several days, but everything begins with the sale of the animals. They can be chickens, ducks, goat and buffaloes ...


But mostly there are a lot of buffaloes. A lot of them. It has a religious meaning. Apparently the buffaloes represents a bad God defeated. And the Dashain is also the celebration of such a victory over the buffalo.As a tourist, I was curious to see how the animal sacrifice happen. The day before I saw the goat sacrifice. But for some reason, it wasn't enough. Although I was shocked from yesterday goat sacrifice, I wanted to see more. And unfortunately for the poor buffaloes, there has been a lot of action. Here a sequence of pictures. They are from different sacrifice that I have witnesses during two days in Bhaktapur, but they are making a complete story. Sorry if they are shocking, but this is what I witnessed. And this is what I would like to share with you today ...And this is the final stage. I was offered some racki, the famous Nepali hard alcohol. It was 5AM. Really funny. What to say about the sacrifice? I can't really judge, but I think they made me vegetarian ... :)

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