Festivals Of Animal Torture And Other Cruel Traditions

Introduction

There are numerous festivals, regular traditional and cultural events all over the world that involve horrific animal cruelty. Animal cruelty is often defended because of being part of a tradition or culture.

On this page you will find information about just some of these events, including the Farra Do Boi, a Brazilian festival where innocent oxen are terrified and tortured for many hours in the most painful ways people can think up, until they finally die in agony.

Other traditions include goats being thrown from a bell tower in Spain, and bulls being tortured to death by youths in South Africa. A number of other cruel festivals click here and traditions are also outlined.

Image: A goat being tossed from a bell tower in Spain. Source

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The Festival Of Ukweshwama

The festival of Ukweshwama takes place in South Africa. It is a horrific event where youths torment and slaughter a terrified bull. They do this in a prolonged and agonising way by ripping out the bull’s tongue, shoving handfuls of dirt into his mouth so he can barely breathe, gouging out his eyes, and mutilating his genitals.

Sickeningly, this despicable behaviour is allowed to continue, depite being against animal cruelty laws, because it is considered exempt from these laws due to the country’s “cultural liberty” law.

Image: The abuse that takes place in this festival

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The Brazilian Festival Farra Do Boi

During this Brazilian festival, the Farra Do Boi, people find fun in chasing terrified oxen, and on catching up with them, inflicting on them the worst, most agonising torture they can think up. They prolong this over a number of hours so the oxen suffer the maximum agony and terror possible. The oxen are terrified and tortured in the cruelest of ways until they can take no more and succumb to death.

The oxen are chased towards the sea, so if any are not caught and tortured, they run in to the sea and are so terrified of returning to shore that they drown.

Image: In the picture above right, the ox is alive and in agony having had it’s legs hacked off and chest slit open. The image, above left, shows an animal that has been chased, terrified and tortured for hours and has had its chest slit open.

One theory is that the people are treating the oxen as if they were Satan, and inflict the punishment on the oxen that they feel Satan deserves. The name of this Brazilian festival, Farra Do Boi, can be loosely translated to the sickening title “fun with Oxen”.

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Toro De La Vega – The Lancing Of The Bull

The Toro De La Vega is a cruel and bloody Spanish festival which takes place in the streets of Tordesillas.

A Bull is chased through the streets and over a bridge in the town by in excess of one hundred men and youths armed with sharp lances. Once over the bridge, the animal is attacked by the men thrusting their lances in to him. The Bull tries desperately to get away from this agonising torture, but the poor animal has lances repeatedly plunged in to him until his flesh is torn so badly, and he is bleeding so heavily, that he can eventually go no further.

On his collapse, his testicles are cut off, often while he is still alive. This is all watched by rowdy and cheering crowds. This spectacle in this Spanish festival is considered suitable entertainment for the whole family, with many parents taking their children. This horrific tradition was illegal for years, but, incredibly, it was again legalised in 1999!

Image: A frightened bull being tortured by men and youths with lances in this traditional and cruel Spanish festival. Source

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The Gadhimai Festival

The pictures below are from the Gadhimai Festival which takes place every year in Nepal. During the festival around 15,000-20,000 animals, including buffalo, goats, chickens, pigeons and rabbits are slaughtered for the sake of religious animal sacrifice. Animals from young to old are all sacrificed while crowds watch and cheer.

This festival of mass animal slaughter has provoked anger among people who are against animal cruelty, and protests against the festival have been held. Despite this, the festival continues every year, defended on the grounds of being a religious tradition.

Image: Hundreds of decapitated cattle, with a young cow less than a seconds away from being decapitated by a man’s blade, used for killing many other innocent animals. Source

Image: During the Gadhimai Festival in Nepal, at least one man holds the cow secure to a post with a rope, whilst another holds the cow’s body. The helpless cow has no way of escaping. Crowds watch as a man draws back his sword to decapitate the innocent animal. Source

Image: The next image, on the top right, shows an innocent cow once the blade has sliced through it’s neck, completely severing it’s head from it’s body. 

Image: The bottom left image shows a man drinking the blood from the body of a calf. Source

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The Pero Palo Festival In Villanueva de la Vera, Spain

Every year, a terrified donkey is violently forced through the streets of the village of Villanueva de la Vera in Spain, surrounded by drunk, rowdy, young men. The men think it is great fun to beat, kick, bite, shove, drag and crush the terrified donkey, as they all laugh as it is done. The animal regularly collapses from exhaustion and fright, only to be forced back to its feet by violence from the mob of drunken men. Guns are fired close to the panicked animal, alcohol is forced down it’s throat and it is ridden by the heaviest men in the village.

The ordeal often leaves the donkey badly injured or crushed to death. After this mental and physical torture has finally ended, the shattered and traumatised donkey is forced in to a trailer and taken away to meet an unknown fate.

Animal charity campaigners, who work at the only donkey sanctuary in Spain, were refused when they asked if their vet could check the donkey over after the festival. A member of the charity, Jose Rodriguez Gil, said “When I tried to film the donkey I was repeatedly threatened. They knew very well that what they were doing was cruel.”

Another donkey sanctuary worker commented about how he had been punched, kicked and spat on by the crowd during his attempts to protect the Villanueva donkeys.

A spokesman for Villanueva de la Vera and the region’s tourism department said: “We will not bow to pressure from animal welfare activists. This is our tradition and that will continue.”

Image: A terrified donkey is abused by a violent mob of drunk men in the name of tradition in Villanueva, Spain, in The Pero Palo Festival every year. The traumatised and exhausted donkey is taken away afterwards to meet its unknown fate. Source

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The Tradition In Spain Of Hanging Spanish Galgos

The Galgo is a Spanish Greyhound used by hunters in Spain. It is traditional in Spain at the end of the hunting season for the hunters to kill their dogs, as they do not want to look after them when it is not hunting season. Sadly, this tradition is still very much alive.

The most traditional way the hunters kill their dogs is by hanging them from a tree. There they die a prolonged, frightening, and extremely distressing death.

Image: Sickening statue in Spain celebrating the tradition of Spanish hunters killing their Galgos (Spanish Greyhounds) by hanging them from tree branches at the end of the hunting season. Source

Other methods of the hunters killing their Galgos include throwing them down deep, disused wells that they have no hope of getting out of. There, they starve to death, alone and frightened.

Some hunters beat their dogs to death, set them on fire or shoot them.

For more information on this disturbing topic please visit the The Abuse Of The Galgo – The Spanish Hunting Greyhound.

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Ways To Stop Animal Cruelty

On this site there are many varied ways you can help stop animal cruelty, and there are ways that will suit everyone, no matter what your personality or lifesyle.

If you would like to learn more about why we so urgently need to help stop animal suffering, please have a look at the Types Of Animal Cruelty section of this site. It will allow you to broaden your knowledge of many different types of animal abuse that happens in the world.

Sadly, what you will find is only the tip of the iceberg, but do not worry, because in the Help Stop Animal Cruelty section of this site, you can find a large and varied choice of ways that you can help stop the suffering. Have a look and see what ways would most suit you.

Help animals further by sharing the ways to stop animal cruelty you learn with other people and on social media. Doing this could mean more people help stop the cruelty, and therefore you are responsible for more animals being saved from suffering.

If you would like to find organisations needing your action and support to fight against a specific type of cruelty, enter the type of cruelty you want to help stop (for example “Cruel animal festivals”) into a search engine online, or search bar on social media.
Search through a fundraising search engine so you can raise money to help animals with every search.

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