Tag Archives: Pigs

No country for animal lovers

Blood and feathers
The remains of my chicken

My future is golden, according to the entrails of the chicken sacrificed on my behalf to celebrate the merapu new year. If I spend very much longer trailing around islands heavy with ritual sacrifice, it may also be vegetarian. Though I’m coming to respect the natural instincts of the animals that share every corner of one’s space in Eastern Indonesia. They sit under one’s feet on the bus, snuffle around under one’s bed in the village, find their way into one’s luggage. Judging from the reluctance of these, my fellow travelers, they have a pretty good idea of what awaits them.