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Nuosu Yi New Year: Slaughtering the Pig
by Mother of Brook Song
W e were invited to our Nuosu friend’s house to celebrate Yi New Year. He slept with us in town the night before. We woke while
it was still dark, ate breakfast and walked to the bus station before 8:00 am. We rode the bus about an hour and got off and began walking. After the flat road, we turned sharply up the side of a mountain and climbed up a path for about an hour.

Finally we arrived at our friend’s house. On the drop-off side, way down below flowed a mountain stream, gurgling and crashing down rocks. The whole day I enjoyed its music.

There was a group of a half a dozen young fellows who came to the house. They came to do the slaughtering. I think it was the mother who went into the pen with a rope and caught the five-month-old, fattened pig. The guys helped drag it out to the open area. They plunged a knife into the pig’s throat and then caught the blood in a basin to be used later for making sausages.

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It takes a team to butcher a pig!

After the pig was dead, it was covered in dry ferns, to burn off the hair. The young fellows went on to the next house on a neighboring slope. After a while, we heard the short squeal of that pig being caught and held down. Then later, we heard another one. After the hair was burned off, the father and uncle used knives to scrape the hair off. They washed it, then dragged it into the main house right inside the door and began the butchering.

The butchering process had a certain orderliness to it. They knew which parts went where. The ladies brought a big tub to collect the innards. Later I saw them cleaning out what must have been the intestines. The father pulled out one piece and checked it, saying it was good. Our friend said it was some sort of good omen. Some pieces were put in a bowl and I understood that they were presenting them to the ancestors. After butchering the pig, the father produced a bag of boughten salt which he rubbed into some of the meat. It was all a very smooth process.

Within minutes, it seemed, the cousin had cut up some choice chunks and roasted them right in the coals, turning them with the fire tongs. I don’t know how he could see what was meat and what was coals. But soon, they were in a dish and the kids were called to eat. I thought it was delicious.

In addition to all this, they killed a rooster in our honor! It was a very generous gesture, and quite unnecessary with all the meat from a whole pig that was slaughtered because of the New Year celebration.