This ritual is really cruel and disgusting:
ORURO, Bolivia (Reuters) – Every day, miners in the Bolivian city of Oruro emerge from the underground gloom with dusty, grimy faces. On Friday, they emerged dressed in ceremonial ponchos, their faces smeared with the blood of sacrificed llamas.
Simply to say thanks for staying alive for another year, the Oruro miners who eke out a living from abandoned state mines cut the hearts from llamas in a ritual offering to Mother Earth and Tio, who among Aymara Indians is the mythical owner of the mines.
Their work is dangerous, so the offerings must be great.
“I’m 56 and I’m still alive, which surprises me because so many of my friends have died,” said Isaac Meneses as the miners gathered at the mouth of the Itos mine near this mining town some 145 miles south of La Paz,
Huddled around a rusty railway cart laden with sweets, confetti and eggs, the miners chewed coca leaves and sprinkled alcohol on the offerings to be taken below in a ritual that takes place every year on the Friday before Carnival celebrations in Bolivia.
As the ritual reached its climax in a vast cavern at the top of the mine shaft, the llamas were brought in. Amid shouts of “Viva” in Aymara, their throats were slit and hearts cut out to be offered on silver plates.So, where’s the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)?
If you go onto PETA’s website, you’ll see all kinds of literature condemning eating beef (caution-very graphic), chicken (scary for children), and bacon and ham as well as wearing fur (scary for children), leather, and wool.
PETA even goes as far as to condemn things as innocent as circuses and as important as animal research.
But PETA says nothing about slicing the throats and cutting out the hearts of innocent llamas simply for good luck.
Why?
Kim Priestap blogs at Kim Priestap: A Conservative Blog in Flyover Country
I cannot wait for March 15th, for the International Eat a Tasty Animal for PETA day (www.yourish.com). Those twofaced bastards are about as helpful as the UN is. Yeah, the UN is worse. But right after the UN is PETA than Amnesty International – tied with the ACLU.
Living only a scant 15 miles from PETA HQ I can tell you where they are…
If they aren’t euthanizing as many pets as they can find (they are the second largest killer of animals in the state of Virginia) they can be found nearest the most widely televised publicity stunt in order to gather donations to fund…..another publicity stunt.
The SPCA is a much better organization to support than the PETA-heads who are all about APPEARING to give a damn about animals–but they only care so long as it is likely to bring them money.
It is my understaning of PETA: They are the largest animal rights organization in the world, with more than 800,500 members worldwide. Founded in 1980, they are dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights of all animals. PETA operates under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment.
They focuse their attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry. They also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds and other “pests,” and the abuse of backyard dogs.
PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.
^ Yeah. PETA is a great organization!
Maybe you should email them. I found their email at http://www.peta.org It is peta@peta.org email them and alert them of this sick and twisted “tradition”.
Why?
Because PETA knows that the miners don’t give a damn about what some pampered rabiblancos think about them; and, in fact, might react badly to being lectured.
I mean, there’s a reason that the animal-rights crowd will dump paint on people wearing fur but not on people wearing leather.
Moe
PETA, like all liberal organizations, is only interested in telling WHITE people how to live their lives; they can’t possibly criticize what people with brown faces are doing, however gross and cruel.
(half Hispanic but not supporting animal sacrifices)
You’re worried about the animals?
What about the poor miners, who are so poor they risk their lives going into an unsafe mine.
And what about the country that is so corrupt that they allow unsafe mines to stay open?
Perhaps you should write PETA a letter and inform them about such crude actions and explain why they shouldn’t be overlooked and maybe PETA will create a plan to stop that as well.
“You’re worried about the animals?
What about the poor miners, who are so poor they risk their lives going into an unsafe mine.
And what about the country that is so corrupt that they allow unsafe mines to stay open?”
Enjoy typing that on your computer? The one full of metals and so forth?
Mines. Throw out all your minerals and metals and we’ll talk, ‘k? Of course, you’ll have to walk over here to do it.
Worried about miners? Stop buying the products from the companies that buy the raw materials they risk their lives to mine.
Or shut up…whatever.
“PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.”
That’s what they claim, and almost true to an extent. Public education only through publicity stunts, usually including celebrities or naked women in cages. Special events? Only in front of cameras and prefaced by lots of PR releases which they then call “protest campaigns”. Their camapaigns end once they’ve gotten their dollars collected from enough other pseudo-concerned people who donate a few bucks to ease their minds. It’s a way of looking like you give damn without making any effort.
Animal rescue? What a joke. They rescue zilch. They kill the animals the “rescue”. 2 of them were recently arrested for dumping the dead carcasses behind a mall recently. http://www.washingtontimes.com/sports/20050621-115255-8184r.htm
They claim to represent animals but they never actually DO anything. A bunch of posers who are just out to collect money. http://www.petakillsanimals.com/petaKillsAnimals.cfm
Between their funding ELF and supporting convicted fire-bombers (Rodney Coronado), killing Free Willy–forcing an animal not used to wild into the wild where it subsequently died–a common theme for PETA they’ve done more harm to animals than good. I wonder if Pam Anderson knows how many animals are used in testing make-up and breast implants?
http://www.eskimo.com/~rarnold/conference.htm
I mean, there’s a reason that the animal-rights crowd will dump paint on people wearing fur but not on people wearing leather.
Well, I’m not defending PETA by any stretch, but this is an easy one. The making of a fur kills hundreds of animals whose bodies are used for nothing else. A leather coat can be made from a cow or two which are also used for meat. The waste is what is so offensive.
Well, I make fun of enviro-Mental-ists quite often. That doesn’t mean that after a few drinks I don’t think my houseplants enjoy listening to music (snarf, snarf). But, I did stop going to the circus a few years back. After seeing a toddling little elephant, having already developed ‘pacing behavior’ on the end of its short chain. While we were walking from the parking lot into the arena, before the start of the show (Ringling Bros.)
Something I had seen before as a child on a visit to NYC, and Central Park [mature elephant, closet sized enlosure (not an exaggeration)]. Now if we could teach Al Qaeda detainees to perform circus acts? That there would be humane. But then People for the Ethical Treatment of Insects would complain. Who ya gonna call?
It’s not like me to agree but PETA is a Maoist fundraising racket. The Anti-Vivisection League or your local Animal Aid (which adopt any unadopted animals themselves) are worthy of support. As far as the Indians sacrificing animals, take that up with the Vatican. Animism is tolerated as long as a Baptismal card with the witch doctor’s name on it is in their files. Santaria, voodoo, Fatima, etc.
JimK,
“Or shut up….whatever.” To Boinkie’s comment about the country being so poor they cannot provide safe mines.
Do you have a solution? You must to be so brazen to tell someone to ‘shut up’ because they are concerned about the safety of miners. Say…. how about slitting the throats of any miners making it past the age of fifty after a lifetime of providing you with those metal thingies… you know… your keyboard keys and all that junk miners provide us. What a great idea, and we’d get to save the llamas! Whoa…. dude….
I don’t think that PETA sees a difference, do they mantis? To rational people it seems obvious that using the hides of cattle killed for food is a good thing, not wasting that resource. But the eating the cow part is something they veiw as equally evil as raising a mink or fox for fur. Don’t they?
Tahler can say whatever he/she likes about focusing on the worst things, the worst abuses… but they don’t.
They’ve been successful by focusing on the minor abuses, the little stuff, preaching to people who already love their companion animals… not pets. Heaven forbid we speak as though we can *own* another creature. Not pets. Not food.
They convince teen age girls that it’s wrong to eat meat. Now isn’t *that* preaching to the easiest converts!
Sacrificing the llamas doesn’t bother me unless it involves torturing them slowly rather than ceremonially cutting their jugulars. Probably they are even distributed for food afterward (sacrificed animals usually and historically are eaten, not wasted). If it bothers someone that they killed the llamas you have to ask, is it because they didn’t harvest or butcher the llamas with the proper attitude of shame for doing so?
Would it be okay if they killed them some other way? Why?
Hey, I could be wrong… maybe PETA has guidelines for the proper way to humanely butcher a cow. I sort of doubt it though.