AUSTIN, Texas - MetroRail service was disrupted Monday morning after a package containing a cow tongue embedded with nails, a note and a photograph was found between the tracks in East Austin, the Statesman reports.
Just after 7 a.m., a passerby noticed the package, wrapped in white butcher paper with red tape on it, sitting on the railroad ties between the rails about 100 feet west of Fifth and Chicon streets, Capital Metro spokesman Adam Shaivitz said.
As a precaution, Capital Metro truncated the runs of the several remaining morning southbound trains so that they would not pass the spot where the parcel was found and canceled the one remaining northbound train from the downtown station.
Austin police officers removed the parcel from the tracks and X-rayed it, said John Jones, Capital Metro's interim security manager. When the nails were discovered, the police department's crime-scene unit was called in to investigate, Jones said.
A beef tongue about a foot long was wrapped in the paper, and the meat was studded with nails. There was also a glass jar nearby with an unidentified liquid in it, Jones said. The butcher paper had a message on the inside that included a series of names and a series of unpunctuated words: "Against us stop now close the mouth."
None of the 10 or so names, on a brief inspection, appeared to be those of well known individuals. The small photo was of a man's face, Jones said.
The meat had "started to putrefy," Jones said. "It had apparently been there awhile."
Helena Wright, an Austin police spokeswoman, said later Monday that the investigation was continuing. Asked what crime may have been committed, Wright said, "Right now, we're just responding to a suspicious package."
Public incidents elsewhere involving displays of beef tongues, sometimes with nails or photos, have been linked with Santerķa, a religion that combines aspects of Christianity with traditional West African beliefs.
Miguel De La Torre, author of the book "Santerķa: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America," cautioned that whoever put together the package might not be a practitioner of Santerķa. But if so, De La Torre said, the meat could be an offering to Ogun, a god of war but also of metal who believers say often resides on railroad tracks.
The sacrifice is often a ritual intended to silence someone, said De La Torre, who is also a professor of social ethics at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.
"By nailing the tongue, you are stopping the tongue of an individual from speaking," he said.
The incident provided a bizarre start to the tenure of Linda Watson, who began as Capital Metro's new chief executive officer Monday. Watson said that although the parcel was found on the agency's tracks, whatever message or intent it carried was directed elsewhere.
"What I have been told is that the incident is not related to Capital Metro," Watson said.
MetroRail runs six southbound trains in the morning, and two had passed the point where the package was found before it was discovered. Another southbound train was delayed 10 minutes, Shaivitz said, and three ended their runs at the MLK Jr. Station, the closest station north of where the parcel was discovered.
One of Capital Metro's three northbound morning trains was canceled, and another was delayed 14 minutes , Shaivitz said. Buses were called in to take riders to final destinations, and 179 passengers took buses from the MLK station, he said.
The afternoon trains, which begin running after 3 p.m., were on schedule, Shaivitz said.
(This item appeared Aug. 17, 2010, in the Statesman.)
