Cattle brandin'

A few weeks ago some friends invited us to ride along with them to brand cattle. As usual, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but we couldn't turn down the opportunity. The night before, our friend stopped us on the street and said, "What time should we head out in the morning.....four?" Then he told us that his entire extended family was going, and we realized we were in for a long and eventful day. Folks here generally keep their herds on land a few hours' drive from Moro Moro. The land isn't good for growing crops, so they keep cattle there so that they don't cause trouble in the cultivated fields closer to town. However, the cattle are set loose to roam over hundreds of acres of hilly, cactussy, scrubby land, so searching for them whenever you want to check on them, butcher them, or brand them is quite a chore. We set out before sunrise so that there would be plenty of time to round them all up.

Upon arriving, everyone in the group was fed bread and coffee. An hour later, we were all ordered to sit down again to a meal of boiled potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and enormous (and delicious) chunks of cheese. We were apparently the only ones who got a huge kick out of the large fellow sitting in the tire.

After breakfast, our host went to look for a young bull that had been injured in a fight with another bull. The bull's rear leg looked to be broken and completely unable to sustain any weight, and everyone agreed that what was needed was a little impromptu butchering. In the picture above, two guys had roped the front and back legs of the bull and are forcing it to lay down on its side.

For some reason, Andy was selected to be the one to hold the bull's head down while the other two guys in this picture did the actual killing. You can see here that Andy is trying his best to get as far away from what's about to happen as possible, but he's got to hold onto that head. If they weren't too graphic, I'd love to show you the succession of photos starting with this one. Andy's left leg keeps getting farther and farther back until he's basically doing the splits, as if by getting that one leg out of there he could keep blood off his hands.

Can you see the blood in his beard?

After the butchering was done, the rest of the cattle were rounded up, and we drank fresh milk, straight out of the cow (notice the milking going on in the photo).

This little guy was determined to rope a calf.

A dozen or so cows had to be branded. Guys would get a rope around the head and back feet of each one, pull it to the ground, then the host would brand it, and, for some reason we never fully understood, he would then rub fresh cow poop on the mark.

After each cow was branded, someone would feed it a cupful of chicha....

...and if it was a heifer, the hostess would pretend to milk it into her hat and walk around pretending to give everyone in the group a drink. We understood this ritual to be like a prayer asking for a blessing on this cow's fertility and productivity.

The smallest calves (one male and one female) were laid down in this little cuddling position in another sort of fertility ritual, and then the owners marked them by snipping a corner off each of their ears.

After the branding and the closing ceremony, one man was chosen to be the "cowboy." In the past, this person apparently was the one who would lead the cattle back to their feeding grounds. He would then come back with milk, cheese, and other food and offer it to the guests. On this day, the cowboy didn't actually lead the cows away, but he disappeared for a while, then came back and served us all bread and cheese. Finally, we ate a late lunch and sat around talking about branding all afternoon, and then drove home. Apart from spending most of the day completely confused about what was going on around us and wondering why people were doing the things they were doing, we had a really good time!

I also saw this awesome bug.