Page 1 - MATTANZA_2010

Mattanza: The Ritual Killing of T una in Sicily
Rob van Ginker ·

W e are history, we' re making history,
with our nine centuries of tradition and
our nets with six million knots.
rais Gioacchino Cataldo 1
q a_br,·~H~ r1uv.ot~~ M~ {eoi-)

t-o-z..;~' t(J IM.f\A~ t>&) {.;v\.CVL( •
lntroduction

In present-day Europe, the public spilling of animai blood
would seem to arouse the indignation and disgust of many observers
and a wider audience. For example, clubbing seal pups to death for
their pelts is generally deemed unacceptable; many condemn the
Spanish bullfight as a cruel tourist spectacle and hunting animals
such as grouse, fox, deer and pheasant for sport or leisure meets with
fierce opposition. One could argue that this isso because there is no
nutritional 'need' to do so. But killing animals in public to procure
food is also increasingly contested. As French ethnologist Noelie
Vialles (1994) lucidly describes, killing and butchering animals has
been removed from the public eye to slaughterhouses hidden in pe-
ripheral areas. In rural Europe, the slaughtering of domestic animals
for private use continued to be of considerable importance much
longer, but the practice has been on the wane for decades now. The
vacuum-sealed chunks of meat and fish we buy in supermarkets are
hardly recognisable as once life animals. Nonetheless, there are stili
places where onlookers can observe killing animals and even feel at-
tracted to do so, despite- or perhaps even because of- the spilling of
animai blood.

* Department ofSociology and Anthropology- University of Amsterdam,
Oudezijds Achterburgwal 185, 1012 DK Amsterdam, The Netherlands-
r.j.vanginkel@uva.nl
1 Transcription of interview for Tonnara (Hope 2002).

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