MASS EWETHANAS IA
Tabitha Troughton overcomes
her shock, and learns to savour a barbaric ritual
We had been warned. Saying of the month among the diplomatic community in the Moroccan capital Rabat was 'Sorry, I guess I'm just as nervous as a sheep on Eid al Kabir.' This is most often translated as 'the Big Festival', although other Arab countries have come right out and called the day, with grim realism, the Festival of Sacrifice. At the last count, there are 24 million Moroccans and in mid-June every family despatches at least one sheep, preferably more. That's a lot of sheep. In the medinas the air was filled with the sound of knife-sharpeners plying their trade; in the nights leading up to the festi- val, the tranquillity was regularly shattered by plaintive choruses from sheep which had started to become suspicious. During the day the streets were packed with sheep being carted off to their final resting place — the family home — with transportation methods ranging from the bizarre to the pathetic. Sheep riding pillion on motor- bikes, sheep trussed up in cars with their hooves sticking forlornly over the back seats, sheep getting piggybacks down the street. 'I saw one peeing over the bloke carrying him,' said one tourist to me with a certain amount of satisfaction. 'We're leaving the country before the festival, thank heavens,' he added.
For most Westerners, though, the event holds a gruesome fascination. 'Did you know the oldest male does it, but they make the youngest member of the family watch? And they give their sheep names before bumping them off? I think it's bar- baric,' a diplomat's wife complained to • `To have and to hold. To love and to cherish, until, perchance, the gilt wears off the gingerbread.' me. 'Most of them don't even know why they're doing it,' claimed another expat. This is not entirely true. 'We do it to com- memorate Abraham,' Moroccans explain earnestly to foreigners interested enough to listen.
Whether you take this at face value or not, a certain suspension of disbelief is nec- essary when, a couple of thousand years after Abraham sacrificed his sheep, the King appears on television, wraps a sheep in a white robe, pulls out a ceremonial meat cleaver and cuts its throat, covering the camera lens with blood in the process. This is the sign for every god-fearing Moroccan (all of them) to do the same, although Moroccans who are either with- out television or who get a little carried away do the deed earlier. And while the King is being bundled by bodyguards back into his armoured car, presumably to min- imise the dangers of ovine revenge squads, the festivities — chopping the sheep up into bits — begin.
Naturally, things are not the same as they were in the old days. A few of the less bloodthirsty Moroccans get butchers to do the killing for them. Even those champing at the bit to take their turn at the knife are hampered by the practicalities of modern living. Where do you keep your sheep if you live in a fifth-floor flat? And where, for heaven's sake, do you kill it? (The answers are on the balcony and in the bath.)
Another problem is that Moroccans have developed the 'my sheep is bigger than your sheep' syndrome — the Muslim equiv- alent of keeping up with the Joneses. 'They have to be big and fat. And have big horns,' explained Muhammed, a young Moroccan soldier. 'Otherwise you look foolish.' Morocco is not a rich country and when a weedy sheep with no horns to speak of costs the equivalent of about £80, life for the poorer families becomes even more dif- ficult. 'It's all such a waste,' Mohammed agreed cheerfully. 'But of course when I
have a family, do it. It's the tradition.'
`It's part of the Islamic code that you're meant to be nice to animals,' Andrew Pren- tis of the Moroccan outpost of the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (Spana) told me. 'We've made a lot of progress with the dreadful state of horses and donkeys here,' he added, as we drove past six emaciated sheep who obviously hadn't qualified for the festival. We swerved to avoid two children who had run across the road hitting each other with dis- membered sheep's legs. 'It's really an atti- tude of mind; we're changing that with our education programme but it can seem like an uphill struggle.' As we passed a group of Moroccans you could see the problem. Basking in the evening sun, looking faintly bloated with the effort of eating an entire sheep in two days, they exuded utter con- tentment and satisfaction with a job well done. You don't get that out of buying a humanely amputated leg of lamb from Marks & Spencer.
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