Chicken(COCK) fights?

Roosters! Roosters please... Many places. Where are you planning to be - someone will direct you to a 'rooster fight' nearby...

If you want you can come with me some time. I love the "maldita gallera" to quote JLG. They are all over the place. I prefer the more humble ones, much more "color." The stadium in the capital is just too big and modern for my taste. There is a lot to learn by theway. It is a complex sport. I am afraid I cannot teach you much, but I have learned a few things. I am more interested in it from a visual point of view, but I bet occasionally (and lose). I know that most people consider it barbaric, but I dont. Neither did St Augustine, for that matter. He found it "beautiful and in harmony with Nature's laws."

my GFs brother raises them. and apparently takes them to the fights locally in between Moca and Santiago....I am sure it is more of an ameture thing though.

On rte 21 someplace close to Jamao Al Norte there is a nice looking Cockfighting club right on 21!!....I am sure it coming down the other side of the mountains. But still up closer to the top.

Also i went through San Fransisco De Macoris and saw what looked like a big club as well

hope others can help too

bob

Every town has its gallera, or one close by, and even in the capital the various barrios each have one. I go to a small one in Manganagua from to time. It is a little too small though. Up near Bonao where my folks hail from, there are quite a few along the Autopista. YOu really cant miss the things -- if you are on a road and you see a circular shaped edifice with a tin roof and chicken wire surrounding the benches, you have found a gallera.

Bob, I dont know if we can really call what your GF's brother does "amateur." In that case, all the galleros are amateurs. There may well be some kind of league arrangement here, I actually dont know about that, but Iwould guess that the big stadium here in the capital may have things arranged along those lines. However, all the stuff that is done in the campo is very serious, professional in the sense that they know their stuff and pursue it seriously, and the betting is also taken very seriously. I will bet that if you talk to your GF's brother about it, he will unleash a torrent of information on it!

well he is only 14 and his buddys all come over and help him tend to his birds...in the last 5 months he has 4 that have not returned from fights!! ha ha... they shave the legs, and most of the stomach it looks like...once i saw him sharpening the spurs!! they also have padded spur gloves that they put on their birds and let them practice fight.... the birds are amzininly docile to the handlers.. they dont run away like a regular chicken.. they let themselves get picked up pretty easily.

Also one of his buddies gets a piece of tobacco chews it, just to spit on the bare skin of the legs and chest of his birds after they shave them some!!!

also I have seen them stick a nail or a sharp stick down their throat!

I asked and thought it was to clean out something...but he said its to get them mad and irritated!!!! I have posted pictures of some of his birds fighting on the gallery here!

bob

Will you be in POP...

if so, there is one in Ensanchez Luperon. I used to live 3 houses down from it - UGH !!! I believe if you take Ave. Luis Ginebra to the police station and then turn towards the malecon, you are heading in the right direction. I am sorry, I have been gone for so many years the street names have escaped me, but I am sure there are many people who live in POP that can give you specific directions.
Marlie

Given his record, yeah I would have to class him as an amateur, but they start young. I have met well regarded galleros who were his age. It is funny to watch some of these teens suddenly acquire so much dignity!

They do shave them, they do spit tabaccy and also rum on them (I am not sure why, probably superstition), and they put spurs on too, but the spurs here are much smaller than in Mexico,and the rules are strict. I read an interesting article about it in Hoy I believe it was.

The fights can be a real spectacle, and not just all the human commotion, which I find hysterical. (in a small gallera in a town called El Batey up in the mountains near San Juan, they even had sexy chicas in hot pants come in during the round breaks and strut around the circle, selling cold drinks and what not, but it reminded me of those wrestling programs on TV!) The roosters are sometimes amazing fighters. I have a pic of one rooster doing a Bruce Lee move on the other, a flying kung fu kick. Quite astonishing. That was a quick fight.

I will check out your pix Bob. Who is Laura Pasini? pardon my ignorance!

well how can a rooster win month after month!!!!!!!

I have seen them watch the rooster fights on TV... and the birds have extra long metal spurs!.

anyway... Laura Pausini( cant fit her whole name in the fields for this site)

is an Italian singer who sings many many songs in spanish...she has wone sevral grammys...she won at the latin grammys and she won at the regular grammys in the latin catrgory...... I happen to like her and i had to come up with a screen name!...I think it is kinda corny now days... ha ha ha...but thats what everyone knows be me by now

bob

Well I will have to find some of her music. Meanwhile, I have no idea how long these birds last! Ha! Never occurred to me to ask, but now I have to know. I have had some galleros tell me that they eat the dead bird, if he was a real champ, as a kind of honorary ritual! I dont know, you hear all kinds of things at the gallera. Do you know Juan Luis Guerra's song La Gallera? It is a very funny merengue about a guy who loses everything betting on the birds.

The extra long spurs on tv -- these are the Dominican birds or were you referring to the Mexican cockfights? Supposedly they cannot fight with spurs that are longer than an inch, if memory serves (I will doublecheck that) and the material cannot be metal, it has to be either tortoiseshell or more commonly plastic. Anyway that is what I have always seen in the galleras, but maybe TV is different for some reason. Who knows?

A pleasure Bob.

laurapasinifan said:

well how can a rooster win month after month!!!!!!!

I have seen them watch the rooster fights on TV... and the birds have extra long metal spurs!.

anyway... Laura Pausini( cant fit her whole name in the fields for this site)

is an Italian singer who sings many many songs in spanish...she has wone sevral grammys...she won at the latin grammys and she won at the regular grammys in the latin catrgory...... I happen to like her and i had to come up with a screen name!...I think it is kinda corny now days... ha ha ha...but thats what everyone knows be me by now

bob

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Thanks for the info Bob, I thought it was your GF name.

Disgusting!

So sorry to hear that they allow this kind of "sport"????? in D.R.
Oh well, D.R. is not alone.

In my opinion ( guess it doesn't matter) it should be banned!!

Just my two cents worth.
:ermm:

everyones opinion matters......but to put it in prespective...isnt there larger problems with HUMAN beings in the DR that would warrant your attention first?

did you know these birds and many other birds that are still in fact wild do this fighting NATURALLY....

I would add, that just because i post about it..doesnt mean that its my bag either.....I just dont see a big deal about it though.....BOB

megamania said:

So sorry to hear that they allow this kind of "sport"????? in D.R. ... In my opinion ( guess it doesn't matter) it should be banned!!
:ermm:

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Actually, it was banned, between 1916 and 1922, during the US intervention. Also, bull-fighting. However, bull-fighting never came back. These prohibitions created deep resentment in the DR population. Could you imagine if football was outlawed in the US? the citizens would revolt and overthrow their government. Let's hope that doesn't happen ;-)



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If you read the DR Law on Environment, there is a whole section devoted to animal welfare. If this were to be applied, cockfighting's days would be numbered.

Mirador said:

Actually, it was banned, between 1916 and 1922, during the US intervention. Also, bull-fighting. However, bull-fighting never came back. These prohibitions created deep resentment in the DR population. Could you imagine if football was outlawed in the US? the citizens would revolt and overthrow their government. Let's hope that doesn't happen ;-)
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Although technically bull-fighting has never come back to the DR, it is in fact practiced every day. Instead of matador vs. bull, it is pedestrian vs. motor vehicle.

Chirimoya said:

--- cockfighting's days would be numbered.

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Don't hold your breath! In most DR southwestern rural communities, cockfighting is much more than a sporting and betting event. Cockfighting, along with funerals, are irrepleaceable social events. Let's try first banning rum drinking and bachata music... Not even the Taliban could do away with cockfighting in the DR...


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HB on Cockfighting:

Cockfighting is the one, singular activity that is carried on every day, somewhere in the Dominican Republic.
It is a substitute for war, just like the bull fight.
It proves a man's stature in the community.
Much like golf in more "civilized" environs, cockfighting and the surrounding accoutrements, handlers and owners, gain good or bad fame, and this fame can be as close to being "forever damning" as this can be in the DR.
The accoutrements of the fights, the birds, the spurs, the tobacco (really it is called "andullo" ) all form part of the Dominican economic system.
Birds are "calidad", and pampered from birth.
When they reach maturity, they are kept apart and exercised each day. The people who exercise the birds are part of the "traba" and receive salaries from the owner of the traba.
More efficient trabas raise other birds for their spurs, and these are kept in wire cages so that the spurs can grow and grow.
The making of spurs is an art in and of itself. Carey is supposed to be banned, BTW
If you can imagine this, and it is something I have seen for myself, a matchbox with a few pairs of spurs (3?, 4?) can cost as much as RD$15,000/RD$20,000.
There are "master" spur makers.
Each gallera is supposed to be a money making proposition.
In today's Hoy there is a half page, full color announcement for "El Club Gall?stico El Jefe (Los Quemados)
Carretera Mao-Santiago Rodr?guez, donde bailan las mujeres de la Linea Noroeste
COMPLETAMENTE REMODELADO
PRESENTA SU GRAN FIESTA Y JUGADA
el Domingo 5 Marzo
1:00 de la tarde
Amenizada por Jos? Veras, El Hombre de tu Vida, Narciso y su grupo La Presi?n y la Reyna Mar?a D?az.

Gracias Anticipadas por el apoyo siempre recibido.
INVITA: Joyer?a La Linda en Maizal
Tel: 809 565 7149

Page 5 of the Sports section. And there is a full color photo of a gallero with his rooster (cock)--two gold chains, and two or three gold rings are in evidence....

As for cocks that win week after week, I met and admired "Jacagua" , a bird that won for 12 weeks- but not week after week--Jacagua was part of a breed developed by Jo Kelner, one of the more famous owners of a traba, in the Jacagua section, north of Santiago.

One of the more curious sociological aspects of the cockfighting ring is that every social and economic class get together as one shouting mass during the fights. And your word is your bond, perhaps the only place in the DR where you can trust a person's word. Of course, the consecuences for breaking your word are oftentimes fatal .

I think I am not far from the mark if I state-flatly-that there is absolutely no activity, NOTHING, more "Dominican" than cockfighting.

Therefore, save your bile, anger, surprise, shame, tsk-tsks, and other signs of disapproval for something else...not this. You are not Dominican, you are not part of this culture, so get over it.

HB :ermm:

Amen. Have to say I am with Mirador and Hillbilly on this one. I hope that cockfighting is never banned and never disappears. Galleros unidos, nunca ser?n vencidos!

And very important to point out as Hillbilly just did, that this involves much more than just two birds fighting. It is all about a man's stature, his word is his bond, and the "theatre" of cockfighting is a dramatization of all the key values of rural Dominican society (read Clifford Geertz's famous essay on cockfighting in Bali to see just how complex the symbolic meanings get). As a cultural practice you could not find a more significant interpretive key.

I am not sure, though, that cockfighting is practised everyday -- there is a season, I am told, that begins in October, cant remember when it ends -- now this may just be a regional thing. I used to attend many cockfights in the san Juan area, but you couldnt find them in the summer.

In Afghanistan cockfighting is big too, though second to bukashi, and I believe in fact the Taliban omitted acting on that one. They knew better!

And let me quote st. Augustine once again, who was repulsed by cockfighting until he went to the gallera, and then he decided that it was in fact "beautiful and in harmony with Nature's laws."

I didnt know that carey was banned -- I have seen carey spurs -- not the plastic ones that look like cheap tortoiseshell, but the real thing. No one objected to its use. But it was rare, and the subject of everyone's admiration. Is this something they can get away with only in the more isolated areas? My knowledge of the sport stems entirely from these smaller galleras, as I dont go in for the bigger urbanized arenas. Though in fact San Juan's municipal arena is really fun, and I did enjoy that place very much. Such places are probably where you are likely to meet the Jo Kelner types, I guess. But I have known more humble galleros in the barrios who were well respected and treated like local royalty.

btw, all the rings I have ever been too always have the police on hand. This is serious business!