Sacrificing a Rooster

One lunar cycle after the earthquake we sacrificed a rooster, each person present sharing a piece of his heart in the meal he became. It was my first experience being involved in the killing of an animal and participating in the transformation of corpse to food. We had built a ceremonial fire, had boiled water to ease the plucking of feathers, had breathed the vibrations of diggery-doo and guitar into the growing dusk. But no matter the physical and spiritual preparations, death is a difficult act to bestow upon any creature, especially one you have watched grow from egg and chick. I do not want to get over-sentimental, but at least now I understand why I do not normally ingest chicken. Their death throes are particularly shocking and the skin emits a pungent odor once dosed in hot water, the feathers sticking to your fingers as you pluck the body bare. The disemboweling was less dramatic than I had anticipated, possibly made objective by science class conditioning years ago. We separated out the heart and the liver, boiling the rest into a stew for the dogs, and burned the head and the crop in the fire. The meat, cooked with corn, onions, garlic, and green pepper in a disc over the fire, was delicious I am told. I can only attest for one-fifth of his heart and a bite of his liver, both a first for me, with smooth textures and strong flavors.

Oh, young, head-strong Pebbles, I thank you for you life, as short as it was. You were just one of our too many roosters this year with a particularly raucous voice that never quite grasped the concept to morning song and with the obnoxious habits of regularly startling the hens and beating on your more beautifully plumed brother. Your murder was not punishment for your faults, though these traits did guarantee that you were the first. If el gallo de passion wasn’t already too old and so small, he would have taken your place, but breeding gave you strong legs and wings, and after all, this was not a game in choosing favorites.

It was an exercise in doing something completely commonplace and ordinary. Something so basic to our human heritage, an event which occurs daily billions of times over, something that usually deserves no afterthought, never receiving reflection, and yet something that I, in my 30’s, had never before experienced first-hand. How strange this modern age where many millions of the over-fed collectively, willingly forget where their food comes from, how to clean it and prepare it for the table. How stranger still, both sides agree, that one should actively seek to peel back the cloak of naivety and to stare at the gruesome details, raise a creature with the intention of getting blood on one’s hands when processed and plastic-wrapped versions are so readily available. But that is after all, the point: to fully experience our humanity and all that is necessary to sustain us, to shed our ignorance and to remember the forgotten arts.

Thank you, young Pebbles, in teaching us through your dying about the nature of life. I take a piece of your heart into me and hope to transform that energy into creative expression.