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Blood and Feathers: Masculine Identity in East Timorese Cockfighting |
| Section: CULTURE / PEOPLES |
| Author: Written By David Hicks; Photographed By Maxine Hicks |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 1/1/2001 |
| Size: 2,501 Words, 14,176 Characters |
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When head-hunting died out in East Timor, cockfighting helped maintain the definition of manhood.
Cockfighting boasts a long pedigree around the world, even in the United States, where the sport is illegal. Rules and etiquette vary from culture to culture and can be quite elaborate. Special vocabularies denoting the physical attributes of cocks, feather color, and fighting style have developed. Deciding which owner or bettor wins may be determined by a single fight or a series. The betting system can be straightforward or sophisticated, with odds laid and individual bettors pooling their resources and wagering as a group. But no matter where you travel, the only woman you will find at a match is the occasional tourist or anthropologist. Cockfighting is universally a masculine pastime, as it is in East Timor, half of an island sitting 350 miles north of Australia.
My wife and I started going to these spectacles more than thirty years ago but couldn't return to East Timor until 1999 because of political events that wracked the lives of its people. That summer we renewed our acquaintance with a family by the name of da Costa Soares, and I asked to go to a cockfight. Jorge Emanuel Soares, a scion of the house, kindly took charge of our excursion, and we went in his car to one of the regular sites for the sport. As we approached, raucous excitement told us a tournament was getting und...
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... around the arena display only disbelief. Even before the referee has lifted the sad bundle of bedraggled feathers from the dirt, those with money left in their purses will be running to bet on the next pair of gladiators. And this time they expect to fare better.
Additional Reading:
David Hicks, Tetum Ghosts and Kin, Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, Illinois, 1988.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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