“Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” by Clifford Geertz

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Methods
Contents
Discussion
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The ethnography reviewed is entitled “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”. The ethnography was done by Clifford Geertz and his wife. The main theme of the ethnography was the study of Balinese cockfight, an event that was held to raise money to be used in building a new school. A Balinese cockfight is a form of fight in which men fight by proxy using the cocks. Men spend their time grooming, feeding, and ensuring that their cocks are able win on their behalf. This implies that the owner of the winning cock is actually the winner. Clifford Geertz and his wife arrived in the Balinese nation as professors of anthropology and were actually cleared by the Balinese government (Geertz para 1).

Methods

Clifford Geertz and his wife traveled to the village where the cockfight was held. They used triangulation in the process of collecting the qualitative data. During the cockfight, the two anthropologists were amongst the crowd who watched the community cockfight. They had arrived in the village the previous day and familiarized themselves with certain aspects of the community. To get more detailed data on the cockfight, the anthropologists engaged the use of interviews and discussions so that the members of that community would easily and freely give the right information about the cockfight. The data collected was not statistical but qualitative. The data was analyzed as a case study (Green and Thorogood, p. 137).

The Raid

The anthropologists arrived in the Balinese village in April 1958; the village they intended to study had a population of approximately five hundred people. The village is described as remote and almost existed as its own world. The ethnographer describes that they were intruders and that the Balinese residents treated them as so; the Balinese people never got concerned with the two professional anthropologists and treated them as though they never existed. The ethnographer states that, on their arrival in the village they were accommodated in an extended family home with a large compound. He records that their stay in that extended family’s compound was a pre-arrangement by the local government officials. The ethnographer accounts on how everybody in the village, except the extended family and their relatives and the village chief, ignored them and was never interested in talking or greeting them. The fact that almost everybody in the village ignored the ethnographer and his wife would be a major setback in their mission to study the cockfight activities in the small Balinese village. According to the ethnographer, the members of the village looked at them with a gauze, which to him, seemed to focus and extend many yards behind them. The implication of this is that they were complete strangers in the village and everybody looked at them with suspicion and critically.

The ethnographer contends that even though almost everybody was not interested in greeting or talking to them, no one scowled at them either, a fact that he appreciates would have been more or less suitable. He described a scenario in which when they approached somebody, that person moved away. He explains that the members of the village are restrained from doing in such an atmosphere. In cases where they found community members sitting and is unable to escape, such a person simply never moved and never talked. When the person was forced to talk, he simply mumbled something that had no meaning but, according to the local community, implied yes. The ethnographer also studied the indifference amongst the community members. The villagers were so much interested in the ethnographer and his wife but seemed not to decide whether to talk to them or not. Nonetheless, according to, to the ethnographer, most of the villagers they encountered knew where they came from. He described a scenario in which his wife and he were in a squall of wind stage and that he doubted whether it really existed as human beings. It seems the atmosphere was unusual for the ethnographer as things looked like they would not work as he planned together with his wife.

The ethnographer records that after ten days of their arrival in the village, a cockfight was organized in order to raise funds that would later be used in building a new school within the village. The cockfights were organized to take place in a large public square whereas many villagers as possible could watch.

Before indulging more into what entails the cockfight, the ethnographer puts it clear that cockfight is an illegal activity in Bali considered under the Republic. At this point he explains that the republic is concerned with why the poor people would gamble with their money and waste time in the cockfight instead of spending the money they bet in the cockfight to meet their basic needs and also devote their time to nation-building. Furthermore, he explains that he found out the government of the republic is more concerned the foreign communities will always consider cockfights as primitive. The consequence of this fear is one of the reasons cockfight was illegalized. The ethnographer describes the perception of cockfight as would be viewed by other outsiders as backward, unprogressive and a sign that the Balinese people as a nation are not ambitious. He also gives a description of what characterizes the cockfight events; he records that during the cockfight, the community members smoke opium and women woke with uncovered breasts which the state views as embarrassing.

The ethnography reveals that the village members hold cockfights in secluded ends of the village which actually seem to slow down the process though not to an extent where it interferes with the activity as a whole. However, the ethnography record that the slowed process is not a big issue to them and the village members are not worried about it. Even though, cockfights are illegal, the villagers defy the illegality and organize the events in the best way they know. This offered the ethnographer and his wife to study the culture, a fact that would not have taken place were it not for their defiance of the law. Nevertheless, the ethnographer explains that maybe the villagers defied the law prohibiting cockfights because the government could not help them raise the funds for the school. According to the ethnographer, he overheard from some form of discussions that hinted about the possibility of the cockfight; that for the cockfight to be organized, the leaders of the community had paid some form of bribe to the local government authority and believed they could attract a large number of villagers without letting government agents know. However, he does not give clear definite reason the villagers defied the national statutes banning cockfights in the Balinese nation.

The ethnographer records that the villagers were wrong in thinking that they could illegally organize a cockfight, which attracted a large crowd, and escape the attention of the police. He explains that the first and the second match went on smoothly without any interruption, unfortunately, during the third match, as is recorded in the ethnography, police officers suddenly appeared in the venue; that was a phenomenon the ethnographer described as a “ a superorganism”. According to the ethnography, the super-organism is evidently his description of the track in which the police officers arrived. He explains that the police officers had machine guns. According to the ethnography, the police officers got into the ring and started wilding their machine guns consequently scaring everybody. Everyone ran away within the directions they were found when the match went on. In the confusion, the cocks that were brought for fight ran wildly around the arena as everybody else ran for his or her life, including the ethnographer. He describes the cocks in such a way that give the pictures of huge cocks that have been fed over a long period of time; he records that the cocks had steel spurs which actually is not the case but figuratively, this indicates the cocks had very strong dangerous spurs perhaps to make them fight better.

The ethnographer describes the way they ran with his wife away from where they got their accommodation due to the fact that during the cockfight, they were not on that side of the ring that faced the home in which they were accommodated. He further explains that as they ran with his wife, a fugitive suddenly appeared just when they were close to getting into a rice field. It seems the ethnographer and his wife were lost and had nowhere else to go, he therefore records that they decided to follow the man he describes as fugitive up to his hope where the man’s wife offered them cups of tea.

According to the ethnography, as the ethnographer, together with his wife and the man they followed, sipped tea, a police officer suddenly appeared in the compound in search of the village chief. It seems the village chief was seen as responsible for the illegal cockfight since he was the government representative at the village level and therefore was expected to ensure rule of law. Actually, from the ethnography, it is evident that the chief was not only amongst the organizers of the cockfight, but he also attended the ceremony. The ethnographer explains that the chief ran to the river to pretend that he was bathing and that everything about the cockfight happened without his knowledge. The police later captured him but refused to believe the lie he told. The police imposed a fine of three hundred Rupiah on him which was paid on his behalf by the villagers. After the fine was paid, the ethnographer debunks that the police suddenly showed interest in what he wanted at the illegal place accompanied by his wife.

To avoid the police harassment, the ethnographer explains that their short-time host came to their defense and explained to the police officers, in detail, what the two white men wanted in the illegal cockfight ceremony. The possible arrest of the professional anthropologist would have been another setback in their goals of the study. However, the short time host saved them the loss they would have experienced. The ethnographer explains talking to the police officers was the first time in more than a week he communicated to a human being, not taking into account the chief and the family that gave them accommodation. He states that he talked to the police officers to tell them that as anthropological professionals who had sought permission from the government, they had the right to be at the place of cockfight.

Of Cocks and of Men

In this chapter, the ethnographer contrasts the culture of America and that of Bali. He points out that much of the faces of America are to be found in golf links, race tracks, porker tables and ballparks (Mukerji and Schudson, p. 243), while the surface of Balinese people is found around the ring where cockfight takes place. According to the ethnography, it seems that it is the cocks that are fighting when in the actual sense; it is the men who are fighting. This is what can be referred to as fighting by proxy. The Balinese people use the cock in very many aspects of their daily life. The ethnographer contends that the everyday morals are shot through on the side of the village men taking into account the roosterfish imagination. He records that the term ‘Sabung’, which means ‘a cock’ is used to mean a hero, man of sections, a warrior, ‘lady-killer’, political contestant or bachelor. However, in Bali, men are the ones most associated with cocks, they spend most of their time grooming them, teasing them and feeding them special meals. Furthermore, they carry their favorite cocks around and meet to discuss them a lot. The Balinese people, especially men, use cocks to symbolically actualize and elevate themselves.

According to the records of the ethnographer, a cockfight is a blood sacrifice offered while chanting takes place in the process of the fight. The Balinese people believe that the evil of cruelty, egoism, destructive evil powers and any form of animality are fused in the bloody fight where the solution to all the evil things are to be found in the spitefulness, violence and death of the weaker cocks. After the cockfight the owner of the strongest cock is given the carcass of the killed cock to eat at home. It is important to note from the ethnography that the cockfight is held in fifty square feet ring; the fights are organized to take place in the late afternoon and last until the sun sinks into the horizon (Beers, p. 57).

Discussion

The theoretical perspective of the ethnographers offers a colorful analysis of the data. The ethnographer gives an account of cockfight including how it is organized; the village members are mostly associated with cockfights and also further explains the symbolic meanings of cockfights to the community. The ethnographer used very appropriate methods of conducting the study which has adequately addressed the research problem. This implies that the ethnographer has sufficiently brought out adequate information about the Balinese people. The theoretical perspective is consistence with ethical ethnography (Pink 5)

The cockfight seems to be unique to the Balinese people and cannot be used to generalize most societies, however, the ethnographer points out that every culture has its own point of focus in terms of traditional practice. For instance, he points out that the faces of America are found in ballparks and porker tables amongst others while the face of the Balinese is to be found in the cockfight. This implies that every culture has its own unique practices that give it a unique identity. The ethnographer has therefore attempted to generalize the findings on the basis of every culture having its own unique identity, but not on the assumption that other cultures are also driven mad by the cockfights and symbolism.

The ethnography has clearly brought out certain most significant issues about the Balinese people. First, the ethnography starts by explaining what takes place in the process of data collection which offers credibility to the data collected. It also explains the challenges that the ethnographer and his wife faced in the process of the study. Secondly, the ethnography is informative on the fact that cockfights have been illegalized by the government of the Balinese republic and that nowadays cockfights take place but illegally, further, the illegality of the cockfight is based on very important factors that the ethnography brings to light. The reasons behind illegalizing cockfights include the fear of the perceptions of foreigners on cockfights as primitive and backward and that the poor should not waste their time and money on unproductive cockfight activities. Lastly, the ethnography explains that that it is men who are obsessed with cocks. In fact, most interestingly, the ethnography explains that whenever men meet, they are in most cases discussing their cocks, besides, in such meetings they always carry with them their favorable cocks (Dunning and Malcolm 102).

Conclusion

The ethnography has done great in proving the assumptions I have about human behavior since it is known that cultural beliefs and practices inform the behavior of individuals in particular situations. The society is diversified on the basis of beliefs and cultural practices. Some of the practices are ritualistic and are loaded with lots of connotations that are best understood by those practicing them. It is therefore not a coincidence that the Balinese people have their cultural beliefs and practices linked to cockfights. In short, every culture has its own ways of manifestation.

There are cases where people fear the perception of others about their culture; however, the fact is that every group of people should be proud of their culture. The ethnography explains clearly how the Balinese people are still proud of their culture despite the fact that the government of the Balinese Republic has banned or illegalized the activities of a cockfight. The government fears the foreigners will think the Balinese people are backward and primitive, but this does not seem to bother the Balinese people. This is a clear indication of how strong the culture of cockfight binds them together and helps them solve their cultural problems. it is therefore important to realize that there is no inferior culture and also that those who may view one’s culture as primitive and backward are only driven by ethnocentrism. Everybody should be proud of his or her own culture just like the Balinese are. The ethnography has also shown me that the beliefs and practices of my culture could have deeper meaning and more interpretations than what I already know.

Works Cited

Beers, William. “Women and sacrifice.” Male narcissism and the psychology of religion. United States, Wayne State University Press, 1992.
Dunning, Eric, and Malcolm, Dominic. “Sport: Approaches to the study of sport.” Volume 1 of Critical concepts in sociology, Dominic Malcolm. New York, Taylor & Francis, 2003.
Geertz, Clifford. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” 2010.
Green, Judith, and Thorogood, Nicki. “Qualitative methods for health research.” Introducing qualitative methods. United States, SAGE, 2004.
Mukerji, Chandra, and Schudson, Michael. “Rethinking popular culture.” Contemporary perspectives in cultural studies. United States, University of California Press, 1991.
Pink, Sarah. “Doing visual ethnography: images, media and representation in research.” United States, SAGE, 2001.

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“Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” by Clifford Geertz

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