Cockfighting in Bali by Mark Eveleigh

First rule of Fight Club: you do not talk about Fight Club. The venue is simply a corrugated iron roof up a deserted Balinese backcountry road. The arena is just a pounded dirt-floor, moistened with generations of betel-nut spittle. The first bout is set to take place at ‘sore’ (sometime after mid-afternoon) and by 4pm a motley group of motorbikes betrays the fact that something is about to happen. There’s a trestle-table where the only woman in attendance sells snacks and a couple of mobile games-of-chance. But there’s nothing that cannot be spirited away in moments should the polisi make an impromptu visit.

A casual visitor might think twice before venturing into the gloom of the tin-roof where two hundred men are yelling and gesticulating in what seems like total pandemonium. The air is thick with clove-scented cigarettes and saffron-coloured dust. Tattooed hands wave wads of notes – denominated in thousands – and, squatting in the centre of the arena, a pair of handlers clutch two crowing gladiators.

They might be owners themselves but more likely they are professional ‘seconds’ in the death-or-glory sport of Balinese cockfighting. They are skilled in inciting a cock to fight – ruffling his neck feathers, bouncing him to get the adrenalin flowing – and the best can sometimes revive a wounded bird, to drag victory out of the ‘beak of defeat.’ They declare the bet that the owners have agreed among themselves and an old man of impeccable honour, who holds the position of referee, announces it to the crowd.

This is the all-important moment: the amount wagered between the owners (always even money) is a gauge of how confident they are and now the spectators join the fray to find a match for their own money (anything from 10:9 to 5:2 but never evens). Experienced semi-professional bettors are the first to shout out a description of the bird that they consider the favourite. They are answered by others in the crowd who yell out the odds that they demand if they are to back the underdog.

In these secondary bets an average wager might be around 20,000 to 50,000Rupiah but as much as 1 million Rupiah (about $120, perhaps 2 months wages in Indonesia) is sometimes bet on a fight. In the old days chieftains would bet their wives and every village has its tale of family fortunes that have been won or lost in a single fight. In the ring even the subtlest body-language is not missed. Neck-ruffs rise, lethal steel spurs flash as claws scrabble the dust in desperation to be at each other and the odds shift in favour of a bird from Java that seems to be the aggressor. Instantly a whole section of the crowd is yelling a staccato “putih-putih-putih-putih-putih-putih,” (white) or “timur-timur-timur-timur,” (East) to signify that they want their money to ride with the white fighter on the eastern side of the ring.

As the referee begins to position the handlers for the start of the fight some bettors have given up shouting for 2:1 to back the red bird and will now happily take 4:3 in their desperation to find a match for their money. Within a remarkably short time almost everybody has, through a mix of eye contact and hand-signals, miraculously haggled out the odds with partners on the other side of the arena. Balinese men will bet on everything from the departure time of the 3pm bus to the number of chirps that a gecko makes and they are unlikely to let a little thing like this mind-boggling clamour get in the way.

With a flurry of feathers that is too swift for the eye to follow the fight gets underway. The crowd ebbs and flows as the birds flail around the arena in a cloud of dust and feathers and, with the view often blocked by a scrum of heads, the roar of more quick-sighted aficionados is often the first signal that a wound has been inflicted.

The crowd gasps as the white bird stumbles and the handler of the red cock rushes in to save his charge from possible injury in what he hopes might be the death-throws of the Javanese bird. But the favourite, though speckled pink on his back, is unsteadily back on his feet. His fighting sprit is waning though and as the red bird closes again, the Javanese runs for cover to the derisive shouts of the crowd and a panicked exit of the ringside seats. The razor-sharp taji spurs (fashioned from industrial hacksaw blades) are capable of inflicting severe injuries among the legs of the spectators.

Since the white bird remains resolutely unenthusiastic, both birds are now confined under one of the large bell-shaped cock cages. The moment they start to go at each other again the cage is removed but the Javanese is too weak to come back now and, as the red bird hacks at his back, he slumps and lays still.

Winnings change hands with surprising efficiency and a total absence of bickering. There is no place for IOUs here and the currency of the cock-pit is quoted not in Indonesian Rupiah but in Ringgit (the now extinct currency of the old Dutch East Indies), in much the same way that guineas may be quoted at English racecourses. Money won is accepted with just the same attitude of eastern fatalism with which it is lost and within a couple of minutes thoughts are already focussed on the next pair of feathered gladiators.

Every village has its professional cockfight gambler, who does little other than tour the Fight Clubs and its perennial loser whose hard-earned wages invariably soak away into the bloody dust on Saturday afternoon.

Some anthropologists have gone so far as to describe the fighting cocks as surrogate penises. It is no coincidence, they point out, that the word ‘cock’ carries the same connotations in Balinese slang that it does in English. There is certainly an air of masculine pride in the way in which the men strut about with their favourite bird under their arm; crouching to preen its tail-feathers, to feel how its muscles are developing, and to glow with pride when it measures favourably against that of his fellows.

In Jembrana regency, the heart of Balinese cockfighting, Pak Rusto makes a modest living from a ‘gladiator school’ of over thirty cocks. Every afternoon he can be seen training his birds, accustoming them to road and crowd noises, sparring them against each other and preparing the spicy food that apparently helps to make them mean. We walk past the long line of domed cages and stop at one where a magnificent white rooster is so obviously superior that it catches even my untutored eye. “Good choice,” says Pak Rusto. “Yours for 210,000 Rupiah!”

At $25 this bird represents two week’s wages for most of his neighbours but Pak Rusto thinks he is worth the money: “I had one very similar that won 21 fights!” The odds of a cock making it so far in the ‘fight game’ are slim. The central philosophy is that the birds must be evenly matched. The bigger a bird, the bigger his opponent will be; but if, by mutual agreement, he is fought against a slightly weaker bird he will be handicapped by having his spur tied on at a skewed angle.

In 1981 the Indonesian powers-that-be decreed that there would be no place for violence and gambling in their vision for the world’s biggest Muslim country. But Jakarta is, psychologically at least, a world away from the villages of rural Bali and in many ways their influence does not carry too much weight here.

Cockfighting has been an integral part of the Balinese character and its own particular brand of the Hinduism since time immemorial and was originally seen as a ritual blood-spilling that was necessary for the continued purification of sanctified ground. For Balinese men a ban might have been seen as an attack on their very manhood; before deciding to make an exception on this island alone, the Tuans in Jakarta must have given some serious thought to the rebellion that they might face should they ever try to enforce an outright ban on cockfighting.

On holy days Balinese men dutifully petition the authorities for an official permit for the three bouts that are allowed for religious purposes...and the rest of the time they simply desert the ceremonial village wantilan for Fight Club hangouts behind the paddy fields.

Less than two minutes after the fight started the white cock from Java is just a heap of pink-speckled feathers. The man who may have spent three years preparing it lovingly for this one fight shows no more sentimentality than would his wife, carving a slaughtered chicken in their bamboo dapur kitchen. He slides the dead gladiator’s miniature sword back into its ornate pouch but, as he hands the bundle of pink meat to the owner of the winning cock, a wistful look comes over his face. The meat of a defeated fighting cock is said to be the most delicious there is.