"If you live in Miami please listen up," Allison Buch (@allison.buch) warned in a video she titled "Chicken sacrifices in Miami Florida," adding the hashtags #disturbing #sacrifices #miamiflorida and #miamifl.
"I have been seeing the most disturbing thing ever on the streets of Miami, specifically near the Wynwood area," she continues. "There have been bags of dead chickens outside of my apartment building...I've seen like five or six at this point, and they're usually in a plastic bag or a brown paper bag and the chicken is dead. It is fully feathered, it has the whole body intact, but it is clearly dead and I am just so disturbed."
Buch goes on to call the sacrifices a "public health problem" and adds it's a particularly jarring sight "for someone [who] has just started eating chicken again. "I don't ever want to eat it again."@allison.buch Chicken sacrifices in Miami Florida #disturbing #sacrifices #miamiflorida #miamifl ♬ original sound - allisonbuch
In the video, which has racked up more than 10,000 views in 16 hours, Buch asks her followers if they're familiar with the phenomenon. "I looked it up on Reddit and it does seem to be some sort of a cultural sacrifice of some sort. I don't know too much about it. I don't know what religion it is or what ethnic group does it but it is some sort of ritual, I'm gathering." She then asks her followers to share information or let her know "who I can contact to complain about this."
Her followers responded in kind. The consensus: "Welcome to Miami!" and "Girl, are you new here?"
Before turning off comments on the video, Buch responded to a comment asserting she is not new to town but is from Chicago. "It's heavily Spanish," she adds. Indeed, she's been posting Miami content for the past couple of years after moving here from the Los Angeles area.
Animal sacrifice rituals like the ones Buch mentions in her video are often attributed to SanterÃa, also known as LucumÃ, one of many Afro-Cuban religions practiced in and around Miami and within the Cuban diaspora. Instances were common enough that, in 1993, the City of Hialeah passed a law prohibiting the practice. The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down, affirming the right of SanterÃa practitioners to sacrifice animals.
Even for many who grew up here, the question of chicken sacrifices on Miami's streets is wrought with misunderstanding and controversy. As Buch points out, it's a popular topic on Reddit, from r/Miami to r/Santeria.
In 2022, after Virginia Key Outdoor Center staff halted an apparent bird sacrifice in the park, New Times spoke to anthropologist Martin Tsang, a Lucumà priest and librarian of the University of Miami's Cuban Heritage Collection, about the issue. He pointed out that it is difficult to ascribe these sacrifices to SanterÃa with 100 percent certainty, and that, in the case of the Virginia Key incident, "I do not know any bona fide practitioners who would do this — going out to sacrifice in a public space. Sacrifice within the Orisha context is very delicate, very respected, and conducted in a sacred context. It is not entered into lightly."
Most of Buch's content involves beauty and fashion. Her last bird-related post involved styling the JW Anderson pigeon purse popularized by Sarah Jessica Parker in the second season of Sex and the City spinoff And Just Like That.@allison.buch Style my new purse with me #monochromeoutfit #purpleoutfit #pigeonpurse #springoutfits #springoutfitideas ♬ Genesis - Grimes
She posted another unrelated video this morning, an inspirational TikTok about not giving "the wrong people access to your energy." The first commenters are still responding to her post about chicken sacrifices in Miami.
