Funeral Second Day - Butchering the cow and the sheep

The next morning, just as I was about to leave the cottage to get to the grave site to finish digging, there was a knock on the door. It was another one of the men from the village who through sign language indicated that I should come with him as they were slaughtering a cow for the funeral feast. Unfortunately I arrived there just after the cow had been killed. I was really interested to see how it was done as Dave had told me that the villagers stabbed the cow at a spot on its spine just behind the head and that the cow simply collapsed without any noise or stress.

This really interested me as I do eat meat, and my decision to do so is based on five points:
How the animal lived (in this case the cow lived very happily and roamed freely and did all the things cows are meant to do)
How the animal died (quickly, humanely, painlessly and stress free – and close to where it lived, avoiding three days on a cattle truck without food and water)
How organic the animal is (that my meat is not pumped full of chemicals)
To minimise and eliminate any waste (eat everything, or give to somebody who will)
Never take more than you need (when fishing or foraging never take more than you need to)
So my idea is to acknowledge that I do eat meat, fish, eggs, dairy (and wear leather), then the least I can do is to try and follow some sort of humane guidelines. The five above are what I have set for myself, and I try to follow them wherever possible.

A sixth point would be – Never, ever eat McDonald's or KFC or anything similar.

Anyway, back to my morning.
When I arrived the cow was already dead. The deal was as follows:
Lie the cow on its back on the grass.
Skin it so that the skin forms a carpet under the carcass.
On the ground alongside the carcass place a sheet of corrugated metal roofing.
Cut of the legs and pass them to your friends who are waiting to cut the meat into pieces.
Slice off as much meat as you can until you are left with the sealed body cavity inside the ribs and the spine.
Use an axe to cut through the ribs.
Open the body cavity and extract everything, right down to the gall bladder, the intestines and the stomach.
Wash nothing.
Pick out shit and cud with your fingers till moderately clean.

After the cow we butchered a sheep. Here I was on more solid footing as I have killed my fair share of sheep when I worked for a sheep shearing team in Australia. I managed to get involved here and actually get my hands bloodied.

As before it felt appropriate to me to at least be prepared to kill whatever it is I was planning on eating.