The Cockfight: A Casebook

303 Pages·1994·15.415 MB·English

by  Alan Dundes

The Cockfight
Balinese wood carving in the collection ofW. M. C. and Donna Dickinson. Photograph
by Gene Prince.
Edited by Alan Dundes
The Cockfight
A Casebook
The University of Wisconsin Press
The University of Wisconsin Press
114 North Murray Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53715
3 Henrietta Street
London WC2E 8LU, England
Copyright © 1994
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Cockfight: a casebook / edited by Alan Dundes.
302p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-299-14050-4. ISBN 0-299-14054-7 (pbk.)
1. Cockfighting. I. Dundes, Alan.
SF503.C68 1994
791.8-dc20 93-30545
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments x
A Barnyard Cockfight of the Fourth Century 3
St. Augustine
A Cock Fight from the Ming Dynasty 7
Yuan Hung-tao
The Rules of Cockfighting 9
Jim Harris
A London Cockpit and Its Frequenters 17
Pierce Egan
Cock-Fighting in Puerto Rico 26
William Dinwiddie
A Cockfight in Tahiti 30
Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
California Cockfight 38
Nathanael West
An Irish Cockfight 45
Michael O'Gormon
The Birds of Death 54
Giles Tippette
The Fraternity of Cockfighters: Ethical Embellishments
of an Illegal Sport 66
Charles H. McCaghy and Arthur G. Neal
Questions from a Study of Cockfighting 81
Laurin A. Wollan, Jr.
Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight 94
Clifford Geertz
v
Contents
Cock or Bull: Cockfighting, Social Structure,
and Political Commentary in the Philippines 133
Scott Guggenheim
The Cockfight in Andalusia, Spain: Images of the Truly Male 174
Garry Marvin
Zooanthropology of the Cockfight in Martinique 191
Francis Affergan
The Gaucho Cockfight in Porto Alegre, Brazil 208
Ondina Fachel Leal
Cockfighting on the Venezuelan Island of Margarita:
A Ritualized Form of Male Aggression 232
H. B. Kimberley Cook
Gallus as Phallus: A Psychoanalytic Cross-Cultural
Consideration of the Cockfight as Fowl Play 241
Alan Dundes
A Selected Bibliography 285
Index 289
vi
Preface
The cockfight, in which two equally matched roosters-typically bred and
raised for such purposes and often armed with steel spurs (gaffs)-engage in
mortal combat in a circular pit surrounded by mostly if not exclusively male
spectators, is one of the oldest recorded human games or sports. It is at least
2500 years old, and it appears to have originated somewhere in southeast Asia.
The cockfight may be brief-it can be over in a matter of minutes or even
seconds, but it can also last much longer, e.g., up to half an hour or more, if the
two roosters are both able to avoid serious injury. Banned in many countries on
the grounds that the cockfight constitutes inhumane cruelty to animals, the
activity nevertheless continues to flourish as an underground or illegal sport.
The cockfight is by no means universal, as it is not reported from native North
and South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and northwestern Europe (e.g., Ger
many and Scandinavia). Still, in those areas of the world where cockfighting
thrives, it is virtually the national (male) pastime, e.g., the Philippines, Bali,
Puerto Rico.
The aim of this casebook is to sample some of the scholarship which has
sought to describe and analyze the cockfight. Sources selected range from
chapters in fictional novels to analytic essays which first appeared in profes
sional anthropology and folklore journals. The goal is to give the reader some
idea of the nature of cockfighting in a wide variety of cultural contexts as well
as possible clues as to the meaning(s) of the cockfight as a traditional game/
sport. As these eighteen essays were written at different times (from 386 to
1993) and directed to vastly different audiences, one should expect a lack of
consistency in terms of theoretical orientation. But that is precisely the point.
The reader should come away from the casebook with an appreciation of the
fact that there are numerous ways of analyzing the same data. Because these
diverse essays were written independently of one another for the most part, it
was not possible to avoid some overlap of content and detail. This repetition of
ethnographic material should not be deemed undesirable. That a cockfighting
practice in the Philippines is also reported in India may tell us something
important about the possible historical relationships between these two cock
fighting traditions.
We begin the volume with St. Augustine's fourth-century musings on why
cocks fight in the barnyard and why men are so fascinated by such cockfights.
We then present a short essay from the Ming Dynasty, which again attests
man's attraction to natural cockfights but which raises the question of whether
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Preface
or not man should intervene in such events. We then proceed to consider the
cockfight proper, in which the "natural" cockfight has been taken over by
humans so that cocks may act as human surrogates. The first of these essays
gives an account of the rules of cockfighting. While each area of the world or,
for that matter, each arena or "gallodrome" may have its own local rules, the
general principles governing this event are discernible, and it is the purpose of
this essay to familiarize the reader who may never have seen an actual cockfight
with these principles. The next six essays consist of different descriptions of
cockfights. The contexts include early nineteenth-century London, late
nineteenth-century Puerto Rico, and twentieth-century Tahiti, southern Cali
fornia, Ireland, and the Texas-Mexico border. Although several of these ac
counts are literary, they do have the advantage of being vivid and well-written.
Then follows an essay describing the cockfighters themselves and their atti
tudes towards their sport, and how they defend themselves against the charges
made by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A second essay
in this vein speculates not only about the pros and cons of cockfighting, but
also about whether or not cockfighting should be the legitimate subject of
study by scholars.
The final seven essays in the casebook all seek to analyze (as opposed to
describe) the cockfight. The first of these, by anthropologist Clifford Geertz,
is unquestionably a turning point in the history of cockfighting scholarship.
First published in 1972, it has stimulated an interest in cockfighting outside of
the relatively small world of cockfighters and cockfight fans. Almost all serious
scholarship since 1972 takes Geertz's memorable commentary on the Bali
nese cockfight as a point of departure. Anthropologists Guggenheim, Marvin,
Affergan, Leal, and Cook analyze the cockfight in the Philippines, Spain, Mar
tinique, Brazil, and Venezuela, respectively. Each provides valuable ethno
graphic detail as well as an attempt to decipher the meaning of the cockfight in
a particular cultural context. The final essay, by this volume's editor, seeks to
examine the cockfight as a cross-cultural phenomenon from the vantage point
of a psychoanalytic perspective.
The reader may agree with one, or some, or none oft he authors represented
in this casebook. In the latter instance, he or she may be inspired to propose a
new interpretation of the cockfight, an interpretation not found in this sam
pling of cockfight scholarship. At least, the reader will have an advantage over
most of those who have written on the cockfight in the past, the advantage of
having a knowledge of some of the standard sources devoted to the subject.
Many of the writers of the essays included in this volume appear to have known
only the one cockfighting tradition they discussed.
While some individuals may adjudge the cockfight to be a cruel "male"
game or sport, and as such unworthy of scholarly consideration, the fact is that
viii
Prefoce
the cockfight does exist and has existed for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Folklorists are obliged to study all traditional materials, even those which may
seem unpleasant or inhumane to some. Certainly there is no doubt that the
cockfight is traditional. We cannot possibly hope to understand human behav
ior if we arbitrarily exclude any part of it from study. The cockfight may be
"illegal," but it is perfecdy legal to seek to explain its undeniable appeal to a
substantial segment of the world's population.
ix