By Simon Ngena

THE other day I came across a video clip of Microsoft founder Bill Gates in which he blamed cattle for contributing about six percent of methane to greenhouse gas emissions. He also accused cows of polluting the environment with their dung. The answer to such problems, he suggested, was to phase out cattle altogether. And if people wanted to continue eating beef, he was ready to supply synthetic or man-made meat. Billionaire Bill Gates obviously hasn’t lived in Africa, otherwise he would have known that there is more to cattle than just beef. And by the way, the cowdung he calls a pollutant is a prized fl oor polish for rural kitchens.

This week’s instalment is meant to educate the likes of Bill Gates on the importance of cattle in ouAfrican culture. In short, cattle cannot be wished away — just to help “save the environment”, as the techpreneur and philanthropist would like to put it.

My grandfather was considered wealthy, measured by the number of livestock he owned. Of all the livestock — goats sheep and cows — the latter held the most value NHETEMBO naIshe Gwindi Musha Wepwere Ndakasvika ndikawana rava dongo Zvengo zvemba zvisisiri padzimba Dzimba dzose dzisisina zvengo Zvaiva zvaitwa navaMuparanzvongo As a result, we never slaughtered a cow in our rural home until there was a ‘special’ occasion designated as fi t enough to put one down; such as my grandmother’s funeral. This is the role of cows in most African cultures: cows function to connect, to bridge, and to invoke. They exist in a liminal space between the human and divine, the physical and spiritual, the alive and the ancestors, the worldly and the universal.

By way of elaboration, cows are approached for slaughter when there is a funeral. They function to appease the ancestors so they may welcome one of their own to their realm. The slaughtering of a funeral cow is intricately executed by a designated family member or member of society. They know the protocol to observe in order to appease this cow to sacrifi ce itself. One may not just take a cow and kill it without ritual.

Therefore, you perform a ritual for the cow so it may facilitate a ritual for the humans and the ancestors. And, cardinal rule No.1, you never kill a cow in front of other cows, as happens in our commercial slaughterhouses. The slaughtering of a cow is an occasion on its own. No part of a cow goes to waste. There is order and temporality in the handling of a cow from the moment it takes its last breath. Depending on the diff erent cultures, specifi c organs are reserved for specifi c members of the family, and the slaughterer. In Shona culture, the liver is usually reserved for the slaughterer, who will always have a small fi re next to a place where he slaughters. He usually immediately grills this liver lightly on that fi re. The heart is for the senior male of the house.

The tripe is given to the senior female members of the house, who will cook it in the large quantities and serve it to other members of the family. There are people who congregate in the ritual of slaughtering this cow, who usually drain the blood from the cow, leave it to set, and eat it. This is called musiya, and it refers to the curdled blood which reveals to us the clearest connection with ancestors through blood. Those who fancy themselves hunters and herdsmen usually feast on the head of the cow once it has cooked. The meat of the cow is to be handled with care, and is usually eaten whilst fresh, as opposed to freezing it for later use. In this regard, the womenfolk who handle the meat know the diff erent parts to share with specifi c parts of the family upon departure at the end of the ceremony. It is all ordered and holy. The cow serves to connect two or more families.

The skin of the cow is also put to use: skin is hung to dry and may be used as sacred mats for the house. You never stand on this mat with your feet; you humble yourself and sit on it. The skin, most importantly, is used for a big wide drum that is the main leading drum for traditional ceremonies such as bira or nyaradzo.

The drum in Shona culture, and most African cultures, invokes the spirit and invites ancestors to partake in our realm, and us to enter theirs. In this sense, the cow also functions to connect the living and the dead, the physical and the divine, and the human and the ancestor. In days gone past, the horn of the cow/ bull was also put to use in customary processions. The horn provides sonic reverberations that, when blown, was used to summon members of the community far and wide to gather for whatever purpose: emergency situations, judicial meetings, celebrations, and announcements of new developments.

The rural cow, therefore, is not classifi ed as an animal in most African cultures, at least not an animal that queues up for slaughtering as we have been accustomed to in our commercial abattoirs. Cows are part of the family, community, part of the living, part of those who have passed and part of the universe. We need cows more than we need meat, in our African culture. And that is why even in the direst situations of hunger, the cow will never be slaughtered.