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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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Here is an article about dog torture in West Africa.

The first sentence of that article literally reads:

Countless Countries Worldwide that are involved in the Dog and Cat Meat Trade are also heavily involved in the Barbaric Demonic Voodoo Animal Sacrifices, where they are using various methods of torture such as Beating Hanging, Setting Fire to Animals whilst they are still alive, Mutilation, Stabbing ,Tearing Animals apart with their Bare Hands and Eating them while they are still Alive.

I would give you 20% odds that this is a parody site, with The random Capitalization Thing going On.

While I am hardly the expert, Haitian Vodou and West African Vudun have diverged a few 100 years ago. So even if the most common sacrifice in contemporary Vudun are in fact dogs (which I concede by no means), concluding from that fact that Haitian Vodou also sacrifices dogs is a bit like observing that contemporary Roman Catholic priests have a tendency to fuck altar boys at higher than base rate and conclude from that that that Calvinist pastor is the prime suspect in your child rape case. Or indeed concluding that your Haitian is, because Catholicism is also a key ingredient of Vodou.

From my understanding, the animals most likely to being sacrificed in Vodou are exactly the same animals which Americans put on their barbecue, and Wikipedia claims the same:

Species used for sacrifice include chickens, goats, and bulls, with pigs often favored for Petwo lwa.

I am not saying that Haitian Vodou does not have its problems, it certainly does not seem to be as capable of fostering the creation of a functional state as various branches of Christianity are, but blaming it for missing cats in a country where you can simply buy a more traditional sacrifice like a chicken for a few bucks seems implausible.