INYAMBO COWS 🇷🇼🐄🇷🇼

Inyambo : are part of Rwanda’s creation myths. For Rwandans, their forebears dwelt in heaven, and when they erred and were expelled to earth, the most important of the mercies Imana (God) allowed them to take with them, for their survival on their new home, was a cow.

To understand what culturally cows mean to Rwandans, you look at their relationship with Inyambo. The cows are brushed, pampered, decorated with beads, and serenaded with poetry. They are often given names, to which they respond when they are called.

Inyambo were rarely ever slaughtered for meat. On the rare occasions that they were, rituals determined who could, or couldn’t eat the slaughtered animal. No self-respecting household for instance, would eat the meat from their milch cow. If for some reason such a cow was slaughtered, they would call upon the neighbours to come and ‘rescue’ that household, by eating the meat, which the neighbours could, since they weren’t so intimately connected to the cow.”

And no respectable family would ever slaughter cows given as dowry. When cows given as dowry had calves, the pride’s family would give some of them to the newlyweds. Indongoranyo as they are known, would also never be eaten by the family.

#Africa #Rwanda