Pig For Name Project Fails (Sorta) - Updated




(Buteyongera, Uganda) It seems the Hornsleth Village Project has failed. Pigs all died.

On the other hand, a relatively unknown artist has made his name familiar to millions of people worldwide. Readers can decide on Hornsleth's success.

The residents of Buteyongera village were excited to receive animals they could use to boost their earnings. Many were comfortable getting a new name as a piglet was what they received in return, but disease and death struck.

At first, they developed blotches. Then their hairs started falling off until the bare unsightly skin was exposed to the elements. This happened just as many were approaching their reproductive stage. Later, after they had received some jabs, their skins “healed” and the sleek white fur started sprouting. But misfortune struck again; this time they just started dying one by one. The villagers got alarmed.

None of them though, thought of the most prudent thing to do: take the carcasses for post-mortem. That could have informed how they should have handled the surviving ones. Now five years later, all that the villagers say is, “The pigs died.”

People have stopped answering to the Hornsleth name since all the pigs got sick and died. The carcasses were buried. No necropsy is known to have been performed so the cause of the deathly sickness remains unclear.

Interestingly, some believe that the pigs were poisoned by local politicians who feared that success for the project would be to their political disadvantage. Heh.

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Pig For Name Project
[Previous 12/11/06 post]
(Kampala, Uganda) Interesting controversy is brewing in eastern Africa. A Danish artist, Kristian von Hornsleth, has been giving Ugandan villagers a pig or goat if they change their names to Hornsleth. The purpose of the project is to be a commentary on the hypocrisies of society. It's unknown what that means.

From Aljazeera.net:

But the scheme has outraged some in the Ugandan government. Officials such as James Buturo, the ethics and integrity minister, have condemned the Uganda Village Project, which Hornsleth launched in June, as racist.

Letters to newspapers have also expressed outrage, in addition to, support for the "pig-for-name" project. The villagers seem particularly pleased.

"We're so grateful for these animals," said Kabaalu Muyiwe Hornsleth, trudging through a field of banana plants towards her new goat tied to a tree in Buteyongera village, central Uganda. "Who cares about a name? We're poor and he helped us."

The general attitude in the countryside is best illustrated by the words of George Sabadu Hornsleth, a 46-year-old Ugandan:

"Africans adopting European names for gifts - we've been doing that since colonial times. Why do you think I am called George?"

Heh.