There’s this old saying in Italy: dalle stelle alle stalle — easy translated in English as the opposite of “rags to riches” — that commonly applies to those that fall from an enviable social position to a very low ranking: from “stars” to “stables”, exactly. The story I want to tell in (lots of) pictures and (some) words it’s about a pig. A pig I’ve seen traveling from a small hog pen to the stars of pig’s heaven. A big pink sow I’ve seen alive for ten minutes and dead in front of me for a couple of hours, while experienced hands were busy at work on her flesh.
There’s nothing enviable in the everyday life of a pig raised for meat production but the will to end a sad life has never been a great excuse for murder. I feel empathy for animals in captivity, either in a zoo or in a farm, but I’ve never succeeded in my attempts to become a vegetarian. My grandfather was an amateur fisherman and everyone in my mother’s family practiced fishing or hunting. Everyday, in my childhood, I used to walk with my grandparents in the big fishmarket of the old city and the image of dead fish slowly became very familiar: I even began to eat things that children usually consider disgusting like snails and eels.
And though I know I can’t be a vegetarian, I’ve always thought that seeing the slauthering of an animal would have made me vegetarian in an instant. “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian”, said Paul McCartney. Well, it has not worked for me, so far…
That morning I tried to be ready very early, packed my cameras and lenses and within 20 minutes I was already there. I won’t say where the slaughtering occurred because I’m not sure it was made according to the current laws: let’s just say I witnessed a traditional pig slaughter in a Southern Italy farm, a few days after Christmas. An old friend of my wife’s family is our usual supplier of delicious handmade sausages and ham: he raises two pigs every year for a small production of cured pork meat. He is also a very nice person and an inexhaustible source of information on the traditions of his homeland. When he said he would be “occupied” in nearby farm to help a friend of his, I knew that was my chance to make a small reportage. I’m always looking for photo opportunities so… why not?
Arrived on site, I am welcomed by the usual Southern warmth — and a coffee, of course. There are five men standing around a table in this living room, talking and joking: the mood is relaxed and nobody seems upset about my presence. Mr S. (my wife’s friend) points out to the others that I’m there to make some photos: it’s ok, we can go downstairs and reach the hog pen. I begin to feel bad, maybe that third coffee in a row has been too much.
The farmer’s wife is the only woman I see around: she opens the pen’s door and disappears. The sow is tied from the nose and accompanied outside. S. tells me that she’s nervous because it’s happening something different from her daily routine. Everyone has to be very careful not to annoy the animal.
Now comes the sadder part. The sow is grabbed from a hind leg and lifted by a tractor, head down, while the butcher nears armed with a knife. In a fraction of a second the jugular becomes a blood fountain and everyone moves away to avoid the sprays. We have to wait: I can’t avoid to watch this huge animal writhing in front of me and to feel sorry for her. Very sorry. She moves slower and slower. Ten minutes later she is dead, I presume.
The body of the animal is gently placed on an iron base. Everything is done orderly and quietly. It is time to prepare the hot water and the men begin to exchange jokes to lighten the work that, henceforth, it will also be physically heavy. The procedure requires that the pig is covered with a heavy canvas bag, soaked in boiling water, and then shaved with very sharp knives; from both sides, obviously — imagine you have to flip a pig of more than two hundred kilograms…
My job is done. I’m tired even if I did not do anything tiring: I just changed lenses all the time, trying to “nail” some shot. My cheap 18-55mm disappointed me once again because of it’s unreliability to focus — but I’m just stupid to pretend such a lens to be reliable. I made some nice portraits with my beloved Yashinon-DS 50mm 1.4 — a 50 years old lens — but I won’t display them here to not further disrupt my guest’s privacy.
S. begins preparations for the killing of the second pig, I greet them all and walk away. It’s been an instructive and dreadful experience.
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