Cattle Bloodletting Among the Suri of Ethiopia

Among the Suri of southwest Ethiopia, cattle are not just animals kept for food. They are wealth, security, social value, and a living part of everyday identity. One of the most discussed Suri cattle practices is bloodletting: drawing blood from living cattle and drinking it, often with milk.

This practice is often described online in dramatic or sensational ways. But the strongest research presents a more grounded picture. In Suri life, cattle bloodletting belongs to a wider agro-pastoral food system. It is especially connected to cattle camps, young male herders, milk, strength, and health.

Anthropologist Jon Abbink’s study of Suri food culture describes a “Milk-blood mixture (drink) règge-hólá” (Abbink, 2017, p. 131). He notes that it is “Drunk especially by young men” and valued for “supposedly giving strength and health” (Abbink, 2017, p. 131). That is the clearest way to understand the practice: not as a strange performance for outsiders, but as part of a living pastoral diet.

Quick Facts

1. The Suri are an agro-pastoral people of southwest Ethiopia, living in and around the Kibish River valley, west of the Omo River.

2. Cattle are central to Suri food, wealth, social identity, and marriage economy.

3. The Suri milk-blood drink is called règge-hólá in Abbink’s research.

4. The best evidence links the drink especially with young men in cattle camps.

5. Blood may be drunk alone or mixed with milk. A secondary animal science source also reports that it may be mixed with local beer.

   
   

The strongest sources support bloodletting as a food and strength-related cattle-camp practice, not simply as a spectacle or isolated ritual.