Tabaski - the feast of the sheep

• Photographer
  Christian Bobst, Switzerland

On Tabaski, as the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha is called in Senegal, hundreds of thousands of sheep are sacrificed in a single day. After the imam cuts the throat of the first sheep, each family head of the Muslim community in Senegal must sacrifice a sheep. The sacrifice is anything but symbolic, as sheep are expensive in Senegal and are often loved like family members by the Senegalese. Many therefore prefer to sell their own sheep before Tabaski and use the proceeds to buy a sheep that they did not raise themselves, as they also have to slaughter it with their own hands.