February 25, 2019
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This document is linked to :
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Florabelle Spielmann, « Combats de bâtons de Trinidad », Géographie et cultures, ID : 10.4000/gc.6681
In Trinidad, stick-fight is a form of combat performed during the carnival season between two men each armed with a fighting stick or bois. The duel takes place in a circle of drummers and singers known as the gayelle where each stick-fighter attempts to draw blood by striking his opponent. Stick-fighters negotiate their identity from values acquired mostly during childhood that, once integrated, are more or less fixed. The matter of self and collective construction is linked, grounded, rooted into family territories. Fixed territories, but changing identity narratives, constantly recreated, formed, transformed and performed every year through the ritual enactment of carnival. Expressing social solidarity, the stick-fighting ritual engages practitioners with an experience allowing the creation of symbolic routes to connect and to embrace memorial places of their history.