Audio By Carbonatix
Kiowa Park, a postage stamp of green space tucked behind Prestonwood Elementary in Far North Dallas, is not known as hotbed of Voodoo or Santeria, a fact that makes yesterday’s discovery all the more puzzling.
According to police, a neighborhood resident was walking a dog through the park at about 5:30 Tuesday evening when they came upon a tree with a cow tongue stuck to a tree. The dog walker wasn’t sure what to make of it, so the person called the cops, who said the tongue had been “ritualistically” stuck to the tree.
A Dallas PD spokeswoman declined to elaborate, but reports of (and instructions for) cow tongue rituals aren’t difficult to come across.
In 2009, more than a dozen cow tongues were discovered on trees in a New York City park. One morning in 2010, a passerby found one embedded with nails and wrapped in a package deposited next to some Austin railroad tracks. Last year, one showed up outside the civic center in Yuma, Arizona.
It’s not clear whether any of those cases ever yielded any solid evidence, but in each one, investigators speculated that the tongues were the work of practitioners of Santeria or Voodoo. Both religions have versions of a ritual involving nailed cow tongues meant to silence one’s enemies.
“In their mind they believe that by doing this act they’re going to prevail over the person who is speaking against them,” Miguel De La Torre, a theology professor who wrote a book on Santeria, told the Village Voice at the time of the New York discovery.
None of which answers the central question surrounding yesterday’s discovery at Kiowa Park: Who the hell is nailing cow tongues in Far North Dallas? Police are investigating. If a friend or loved one suddenly loses the ability to talk, give them a call.
