Abstract
Meat is a key idiom in the lives of the Ethiopian Jews, both private and collective. This paper focuses on meat lottery as a unique praxis in Ethiopia and in the move of the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) community, from Ethiopia to Israel. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the egalitarian divide of meat to be consumed by all partners and its accompanied lottery ritual is described and analyzed, directing the gaze to its socio-cultural and symbolic meanings. Beyond the mitigating aspects of the lottery from a social perspective, i.e. circumventing potential rivalries in the distribution of the meat of a single animal among several partners, it is connected at heart with the notions of sacrifice and transformation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 129-143 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | African and Black Diaspora |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 4 May 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords
- Ethiopia
- Ethiopian Jews
- Meat consumption
- lottery
- sacrifice
