Saturday 8am
8 am and it is already warm. Because the meat is to be cured, it would be better if it were cooler but today is the day, so that is that. We will just have to work quickly.
I am greeted by some with open mistrust. What the hell is he doing here? And why the hell has he got a camera? This is because the new laws on slaughter prohibit this centuries old practice being carried out as it has been…well, for centuries. The men present do not wish to be identifiable so I have blurred their faces. The women don’t care.
The barn, usually used as storage, has been cleared and the preparation tables set out. I was wrong about the chocolate and buñuelos coming as the blood drained. They are first. Nobody does anything until they full of chocolate and aniseed doughnuts. There is wine circulating but is taken up only moderately. There is a subdued feeling. Soon I find out why.
Jesús, the main man, carries a garrotte on the end of a long pole. This is to put over the pigs head so he can be manhandled into position. The thing is a stainless steel tube with a handle at one end and a heavy wire snare at the other. Another guy takes a one-hooked grapple. They go round to the pen accompanied by the farmer and his wife. Next thing I know they are coming back round the corner pushing and dragging an enormous screaming pig.
“Quick, hide” says Toni, my friend who invited me and son of the farmer. Everybody retreats into the shed. “It makes him nervous if he sees lots of people.” So everyone is in the shed but we’re all peering round the corner to get a glimpse. I’m fairly sure that fourteen people stealing glances does not calm the pig down in any way. And the pig knows what’s coming. I’m sure of it. I could hear its mate squealing in torment in the pen round the corner. It too knew exactly what was going on. Both are fully aware that San Martin has arrived.
Toni reads my thoughts and says that the pig that is left alive is so traumatised that it won’t eat for days. He also tells me he used to have nightmares due of all the screaming of pigs to be heard at this time of year. Their screams are chilling. Once again the comparison between pigs and humans is drawn. Lindsey Anderson got it so right
I can’t help thinking that perhaps it might have been nicer to send Survivor Pig on a little holiday that day.
Anyway, I now know for a fact that pigs scream loudly as they are about to die. Animal husbandry, by its nature, has brutal moments and seeing the pig dragged to its slaughter table is one of them. The guy with the grapple steps forward and shoves the hook through the pig’s nose, increasing its discomfort and distress. He then starts pulling with all his might.
I am a Waitrose patronising, Guardian reading, lily-livered whoopsi and this is indeed brutal. But it is also primal.
Now it is all commotion. The men get the pig first alongside its death bed, and then onto it. To do this the table is lifted up sideways, the pig brought alongside then pushed and pulled as the table is righted again. The pig is then tied down, screaming all the while.
Jesés offers me the knife. But I don’t know how to do it effectively nor do I want to step on anyones tows. I decline. He smiles. The smile means Waitrose patronising, Guardian reading, lilly-livered whoopsi marica hijo de puta. (funnily enough that is a well used phrase in Spain. They know all about us). Now, if I had been practised and was certain to kill the beast as quickly and painlessly as possible, I would have taken the knife. I am a believer in ‘if you gonna eat it, you gotta be able to kill it.’
Jesús slaps the pig’s neck a few times to be sure of his mark. You will have seen junkies do this to their arms on screen, or perhaps even have first hand knowledge, but you get the picture. He inserts the knife into the flesh of its neck. He does not slice, cut, nor go from ear to ear. He simply sticks the knife into its jugular at a 45º angle and then removes it leaving a neat 2 inch wound.
The blood starts to gush into the wide plastic washing tubs the women are placing at the end of the crimson arc. Crimson? No, burgundy more like. One bucket after another is removed and replaced. The women immediately start stirring and squeezing their fingers through the buckets of blood. There appears to be some sort of fibrous stuff in their hands. I ask what this is and am told it is the nerves within the blood. I had no idea that one could squeeze blood and get fibres out of it. Maybe I just misheard.
The pig is now dead, its huge head hanging off the edge of the table, its huge tongue hanging out of its mouth.
These days I can go for weeks, or months even, without anything happening. But now, as I am stand looking at the dead pig, I am in no doubt that something has just happened. Something I have been the beneficiary of many times but never witnessed.
Good piece of writing, Marke, and pretty accurate! Matanza in Andalucia, early 1970's, was in the open air under the cork oaks and the breed was Iberico (see "Family LIfe - Birth, Death and the Whole Damn Thing" pub 1994, still in print, can't remember which chapter). Every household in the valley kept a stye-pig - the herds were semi-wild in the forest - to eat up the kitchen scraps (waste-not, want-not), help responsible for the pig in life as in death. Slaughter, matanza, was a co-operative business, each household in turn. Women weren't expected to slaughter anything bigger than a goose, but all the pig-prep was women's work, including catching the blood for morcilla. A learning curve.
Brutal. I'm a Guardian reading Waitrose - wanna be - shopping wimp. Couldn't finish article. But brilliant writing.