From: hornpete@uctvax.uct.ac.za (Peter Horn)
Newsgroups: alt.prose
Subject: Children kill Pigs
Date: 9 Nov 92 09:11:26 +0200
Organization: University of Cape Town
Summary: Children play butcher
Keywords: butcher

Children play butcher
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In the year 1927 when the Mpondos were killing most of their
pigs because they believed that the Americans would come in many
aircraft and send down lightning and thunder on all whites until
they were burned to death and because they were told that pigs
because of their fat would attract the lightning and burn all
the inhabitants of the hut where there were pigs,  the two sons
and the daughter of a nearby farmer had stolen away from the
farm and were watching the spectacle of such a pig slaughter.
One after the other the animals were held down by a helper and
killed by a quick movement of the big butcher's knife. While
they were bleeding to death, one of the men held a bowl under
the spurting blood because it was believed that such blood
smeared on the body made one immune against the lightning to
come. After each killing all the participants in this ritual
held up the red side of their ICU cards to heaven thus inviting
the Americans to come now and deliver them from the oppression
of the whites and from their poverty.

The spectacle had something of a great festival, an occasion in
which all these poverty-striken peasants and workers anticipated
their freedom to come, and the death squeals of the pigs who
were slaughtered and immediately cooked and served to all family
member, friends, and bystanders, mixed with the sounds of drums
and shouting and singing. Some saw the slaughtering of pigs who
were often seen as "white" animals as anticipation of the
slaughter of white colonialists which was to follow, and so the
men who performed the slaughter went to their task with
particular pleasure. Only one member of the kraal spoke very
powerfully against the eating of pork which he said was impure,
and infected all those who ate the meat with impurity. The other
members of the kraal laughed about him good-naturedly, because
they had eaten pig meat for some time now, and nothing very
drastic had happened to them. They were not to give up a great
feast for the confused ideas of a religious fanatic.

The three children who watched the whole procedure from the
nearby bushes which completely concealed them from the
inhabitants of the kraal, observed with great fascination both
the slaughter and the drumming, dancing and singing which
accompanied it. Fully involved in their game of spying "on the
kaffirs", they completely forgot the time, and when the dusk
came suddenly they were still in the bush above the kraal.
Hastily they beat their retreat into the darkness which
descended quickly. When they came home they were given a
thorough beating for staying out late, for going down to the
"kaffir kraal" and for not informing their mother where they
were. Their mother was crying, and saying that they had already
thought that they had been killed, and that they must never do
this again.

The next morning, while their father was out looking after the
cattle and their mother was bathing the baby, the six year old
Frans said to the five year old Hannie: Let us play butcher! and
Hannie said: Yes, that is exciting. And they said to the four
year old Henning: You be the little pig and I will be the
butcher, and Hannie is going to assist me. So Frans fetched the
big knife from the kitchen and Hannie fetched a bowl and all
three of them went behind the house. Frans said: But you must
take off all your clothes. Pigs do not wear clothes. No, said
Henning, that is not allowed. But then we can't play, said
Hannie. You must! So they took little Henning and undressed him,
even if he didn't like the game anymore.

Right, said Frans, get down on your knees and your hands like a
pig. But I don't want to, this is not nice. Please, let me go.
And Hannie said: Don't spoil the game, Do, as Frans tells you.
So Henning got down on his knees, and Frans took the knife and
stuck it in his brother's neck, exactly as he had seen it at the
kraal. And Hannie held the bowl underneath the neck and caught
the blood as it spurted out of the neck in the bowl. At that
moment Henning started to scream like a pig, and the mother
heard his screams in the kitchen, where she was bathing the baby
in a zink bath tub. She let go of the baby, ran to the window,
saw the blood and the knife, and stormed out of the kitchen in a
rage of red. When she reached the three children, she drew the
knife out of the child's neck and screaming: You murderers, you
murderers! hit out with the knife towards Frans, the knife
slipped through his ribs and into his heart, and still raging,
she hit out towards Hannie and forced the knife into her body as
well, and Hannie let fall the bowl with the blood, and fell
screaming to the ground, where Frans was lying, no longer
screaming but pale in his face.

For a moment the mother looked vacantly at the scene, the three
children lying on the ground, the blood everywhere, the bloody
knife in her hand, then she dropped the knife, and remembering
the baby, she ran into the kitchen. But the baby was no longer
breathing, his face turned down under the water, it lay still.
The mother snatched the baby from the bath, lifted it up, kissed
it wildly, tried to make it breathe again by pressing her lips
against his mouth and forcing her breath into its lungs, but the
lungs refused to work, and the baby, still warm from the
bathwater, was dead. The mother dropped the baby, ran out into
the yard again, saw the three children, no longer breathing in
the pools of blood, ran into the kitchen, ran out again, took
the washing line from between the two trees, got a chair from
the kitchen, stood on the chair, fastened the washing line to a
branch of the tree and around her neck, and kicked away the
chair.

Late in the evening her husband came home, saw the three
children in the yard and his wife hanging from the tree, and
before he could even enter the kitchen, he collapsed and died
with a face which was suddenly red and then paled slowly. The
last thing he saw was a silver aircraft murmuring through the
sky from the Northeast to the Southwest.

Peter Horn

-- 
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Peter Horn 
German Department, UCT 
43 Trevor Road, Lansdowne 7764, Cape, Republic of  South Africa . 
Phone Home ZA-(021)696-1983		e-Mail: HORNPETE@UCTVAX.UCT.AC.ZA 
      Work ZA-(021)650-2936		Fax ZA-(021) 650-3726 
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Peter Horn, Walking through our sleep (Poems), Ravan Press 1974
Peter Horn, Poems 1964-1989, Ravan Press 1991
Peter Horn, An Axe in the Ice (Poems), COSAW Publishing House 
forthcoming September/October 1992
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Ravan Press, P.O.Box 31134, Braamfontein 2017, Republic of South Africa
COSAW Publishing House, P.O.Box 421007, Fordsburg 2033, Republic of 
South Africa.
USA: Ohio University Press Fax (614) 593-4536
Britain: Central Books, Fax (71) 378-1811
Australia: New Era Books, Fax (02) 596-0045
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