In an Instagram video published in 2016 by the 27-year-old Harlem-based rapper Azealia Banks, a cell phone camera pans over a large closet covered in feathers, guts, and blood. Banks, who is seen wearing goggles and gloves, speaks in a mockery of a Spanish-Harlem accent.
“Real witches do real things,” she says.
Banks’ love affair with all things mystical comes from her mother, who Banks says was a practitioner of what she claims to be “white table magic.” The three-year chicken sacrifice in her closet was meant to help her father, who died of pancreatic cancer when she was young.
Banks is no stranger to controversy and critical commentary, with feuds from Russell Crowe to Nicki Minaj, she cultivates her fame by picking fights with any celebrity who has more clout than she. When it comes to the backlash on her false Latinx persona (one influenced by Caribbean religions), she is unusually silent. Banks uses Spanish in her songs, claims to be a well-versed practitioner of an Afro-Caribbean religion, and on one Facebook livestream attempted to teach herself Spanish, despite not being an Afro-Latinx herself.
The sacrifice of animals for more than just food is a very old and common practice, often associated with various forms of religious worship—one that in the modern era many still find unsightly. With the advent of groups like PETA, whose main goal is to protect all forms of animal life, and with veganism becoming more trendy, the idea that animal sacrifice as a practice happens to be a very unpopular one.
The Supreme Court case of 1993: Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye vs the City of Hialeah ruled that animal sacrifice was unconstitutional in the United States if it was not for human consumption. It was expressly forbidden in the city of Hialeah if it was conducted in a ritual ceremony.
Chickens, and other poultry, do not fall under the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958—that ruled it illegal to kill livestock in a cruel manner—and therefore it is perfectly legal to kill a chicken in inhumane ways.
Many confuse Voodoo with Santeria, and many use the term Brujeria to explain a darker version of Santeria. They come from the same place and share many similar traits, practices, and rituals, but many in the world of Santeria clutch their metaphorical pearls at the whispered notion of a bruja. Animal sacrifice in this realm is almost always used to worship your deity: a santo or an orisha. You cleanse the animal, pray over its carcass, dress it up how you please and leave it on the altar of your deity. Afterward, you cook and consume the meat.
Santos requires constant attention. To feed one is to feed your ancestors (the spirits who guard your home and watch over your family line). They make the earth move; they are the water in the sea; the air in which you breathe; the seeds that you grow. They choose you, and with their love comes a respect one is meant to have. The sacrifice of animals (usually chickens) is a necessity. Orishas, like us, get hungry too.
Some spiritual religions view animal sacrifice as malicious, and others, like The Church of Satanism have a strict no-sacrifice policy. If the Church of Satanism is disavowing your practice, don’t you have to ask yourself what you’re doing wrong?