In his article, Clifford Geertz explores the Balinese society through a central element of its cultural life – cockfight -, seen from the perspective of the outsider who has to prove his loyalty before being acknowledged as a physical presence. Geertz is therefore as much as an objective observer as one could be, a fact that allows him to notice the subtleties involved in this Balinese pastime and its impact on both the performers and the audience. Although illegal in Bali under the Republic, due to the puritan elite’s concern that it is an activity “unbecoming [of] an ambitious nation” (1), cockfight still takes place in a sort of semisecrecy, sometimes aided by bribing the police. For Balinese men, cockfights are what golf, racing and poker are to Americans, a high stakes venture in which masculinity, money and social status are reaffirmed. Geertz discerns a strong bond between men and their cocks, as a symbol of their manhood, for in both English and Balinese “cock” plays with a double meaning – rooster and penis. In a cockfight, “it is apparently cocks that are fighting there. Actually it is men” (3). In this sense, cockfights act as a liberation device for men, which allows them to indulge in what is usually considered repulsive behavior – animal-like behavior -, and connect with their inner selves, their masculinity, their penises.
Geertz cleverly describes cockfights as a “bloody drama of hatred cruelty, violence, and death” (4), in which the opposites attract and enhance each other: good and evil, man and beast, ego and id. Cockfights are primarily a blood sacrifice to the demons in order to pacify their cannibal hunger, with numerous such events organized before the Balinese holiday called “The Day of Silence”, in which it is believed that demons are chased momentarily out of hell and roam the Earth. This explains to some extent the rules behind a cockfight, particularly the fact that the winner is obliged to take the carcass of the dead cock and cook it for his family. These rules are passed on from generation to generation through palm leaf manuscripts, but the actual script remains unwritten, being similar in this respect to Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s orature. What is interesting to note is that surrounding all this melodrama, the participants reach the level in which they begin to identify with the cocks that are fighting, “moving their bodies in kinesthetic sympathy with the movement of the animals” (5). Therefore, the entire cockfight becomes a sociological entity, something Erving Goffman has called a focused gathering: “a set of persons engrossed in a common flow of activity and relating to one another in terms of that flow” (5).
Geertz then touches upon Jeremy Bentham’s definition of deep play, by which the latter means “[a] play in which the stakes are so high that it is, from his utilitarian standpoint, irrational for men to engage in it at all” (7). From this perspective, what makes a cockfight deep is not the gambling that takes place in the inner circle, nor the one of the outer circle, but the changes mediated by the circulation of money. When two people from two different villages compete, for example, it is their townsfolk’s moral obligation to bet for their cock as a sign of solidarity and respect. In this sense, there is a “migration of the Balinese status hierarchy into the body of the cockfight” (8). Whenever a match brings closer together people of the same social status, it deepens this migration, and consequently leads to the constant restructuring of social ranks inside each step of the hierarchical social ladder.
“The Balinese never do anything is a simple way that they can contrive to do in a complicated one” (6). It is as if everything they do could be considered the basis of a deep play, the only means compatible with their lifestyle and way of thinking. When one narrows it down to its essence, the cockfight and its function becomes clearer: “it is a Balinese reading of Balinese experience; a story they tell themselves about themselves” (9). This aspect is the most striking for me. We constantly argue the superiority of the West, but at a closer look we seem to come out empty handed from our search for deep play. Other than the phenomenon of Hell Houses, the West is bereft whatsoever of significant high stake ventures. With this in mind, I believe that one should take the time to look at the rich culture of the East, and only then feel entitled to engage in a discussion about the merits of the cultural heritage of the civilized versus the one of the primitive, of the savage.
Citation:
Geertz, Clifford. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.”
Alexandru Thinks Theater 