EL TORO

The first year I went to Mexico for the pilgrimage to Wiricuta, Doña Guadalupe's niece Maria Felix was having her completion ceremony. She had just fulfilled her vow to travel to the sacred desert 5 times. We stayed up all night praying, dancing, drumming and singing. At dawn the gentle young bull whom we had been petting and talking to for a week was lead to a cleared space in front of the tuki (temple) and blessed. He was then sacrificed with a knife blow to the heart. His long low deep bellow, his death song, opened a nierika (doorway) through which the Gods and Goddesses came down to earth. We bathed our sacred objects, our muvieri, in his blood, receiving some of his kopoori, his strong life force. The young men who so skillfully skinned and butchered him let nothing go to waste and the week long fast was broken with tacos de toro.

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