Zuwara
Originally posted on July 23, 2010 Warning: Some people might find the following images disturbing. Note: Cultural relativism is "understanding the ways of other cultures and not judging these practices according to one's own cultural ways." ( oregonstate.edu ) The Zuwara, similar to the Sufi sects' mainstream Moulid fests, is held to ask God to bless a people and a land with the intervention of the spirit of a local holy man. Sacrifice is part of every ancient tradition -- be it coconut, chicken, the symbolic body and blood of a savior, or actual meat -- in order to gather, meet, eat and pray together. God bless those people who don't buy their food in supermarkets!