Warning: this post contains images that may be disturbing.
Venus, a good milker (foreground) and Blossom (background)
Ukarumpa is a unique place. Posted on our branch info newsgroup this Saturday:
About 11:00am…
One or more of our cows are on the loose and running. A team of
PNG people *HAVE PERMISSION* to kill/butcher the black one. So,
don’t worry if you see PNG guys with bush knives chasing a cow
through centre.
We DID have the cow in a fenced area (by Industrial) but it broke
out. Sorry about that.
David
So I thought that was kind of odd and then I went to lunch at a friend’s house. Another friend, Heidi, came in with a story she just had to tell, it began… “So I was walking by Bonnie and Liz’s house when I heard them cracking up- I needed to ask them a question anyway so I knocked on the door to see what was so funny. They said that a group of men with bush knives just ran by, through the park chasing a loose cow.” Now I was laughing too. Heidi continued “Some days I wake up and I think my life is pretty normal, I go to work, I come home but then there are days like today…where I notice the shower pressure is pretty much nonexistent and I have a gecko friend who joins me in the shower and when I am out for a walk and get to see a cow being butchered in the middle of the neighborhood park.” The cow wasn’t actually butchered in the middle of the park, more like in someone’s side yard but still not an everyday occurrence.
Blossom the sister of the unfortunate steer- chewing her cud in the field. (Notice the fence in the background.)
The unfortunate steer (don’t say I didn’t warn you). From the cow caretaker himself “Since we don’t have guns, the PNG method to kill cows is to somehow get close enough to the hind end and chop it’s back legs so that it’s crippled. While it’s on the ground, come around to the front and carefully, quickly (with a very sharp knife) cut it’s neck.”
Heidi continues “So I was watching them pull the skin off this cow and said to one of the men there “Em bikpela wok ya!” (This is a big job!) And he replied- “Yeah it’s usually not such a big deal when they are in a fence but this one got out so we had to chase it.” Heidi had stayed for as long as she could but decided to leave before they had fully cut open the sternum so that she wouldn’t be late for lunch. Thanks Heidi for being so considerate of us despite the compelling circumstances.
More of the unfortunate steer- but what’s bad for the steer is good for the store. This adrenaline filled meat is going right into the butcher’s case.
So I went home after lunch and found this newsgroup posting. Posted 30 minutes after the first posting:
OK, the one cow (steer, actually) has been caught and killed.
Hopefully, we’ll have the fence fixed before the other two cows
escape.
David
Eventually the fence was fixed and there were no more cows loose on center. But the whole situation provided quite a few people with a good laugh, a good story and some good meat. Hmmm, maybe I should go and buy a steak.
hahahahaha!
Haha that brought back some memories of when I was a kid growing up in Goroka, and watching a cow being butchered on the shore of the Asaro river, near Kamaliki. This cow wasn’t running around, so they were able to hit it over the head with the blunt end of an axe. Then when it was down, they cut the leg tendons so it wouldnt kick.
There was one guy there who apparently had sold the cow to the others, and knew how a cow was supposed to be butchered. He was laughing at them and saying, “you are doing it wrong, you are doing it like you do a pig” Wow, that was probably 30 years ago, but I still remember it.