430 Part V: Southeast Asia
crazy about cockfighting” sort. He then describes cockfights: razor-sharp four-
inch blades are attached to the ends of the bird’s feet, they are ruffled and
antagonized or have chilies shoved up their anus, and then are set into the mid-
dle of a ring of men, when “cocks fly almost immediately at one another in a
wing-beating, head-thrusting, leg-kicking explosion of animal fury so pure, so
absolute and in its own way so beautiful, as to be almost abstract, a Platonic
concept of hate” (p. 422). It is a scene of bestial rage, of
aroused masculinity and the destructive power of loosened animality fused
in a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, violence, and death. It is little wonder
that when, as is the invariable rule, the owner of the winning cock takes the
carcass of the loser—often torn limb from limb by its enraged owner—
home to eat, he does so with a mixture of social embarrassment, moral sat-
isfaction, aesthetic disgust, and cannibal joy. (Geertz 1973:421)
Over the top of this intense drama, men are placing bets. In the placing of
bets, the social order is expressed and on display. There are the main bets and
side bets; the main bets are the official ones, involving owners of the best cocks
and the leading men of the village. The side bets are lesser status men whose
cocks are not directly involved. The main bets are often so large that they are
equivalent to many months’ income for a typical Balinese, and often bettors
pool contributions from allies in order to come up with large amounts. These
are also always equal bets, even money. On the periphery, smaller bets seek
long odds. As soon as the fight is over, all bets are paid immediately.
But whose cock is fighting whose? Who is betting against whom? Here is
where the sociology of Balinese communities comes into play. The four stron-
gest kinship groups bet with and against each other, and side bettors show their
loyalties with their bets. Competitors outside the cock ring bet against each
other. A defeat is a humiliation. A win is a triumph that will be long remem-
bered. The fights with the strongest social resonance evoke the highest bets;
fights with little sociological significance produce smaller bets. If somehow
your social loyalties come into conflict with the particular match so that there’s
no good place to lay your bet, better to go out for a cup of coffee.
The melding of meanings in the cockfight—combining powerful symbols
of masculinity, violent animality, staged aggression, and heavy bets against
social competitors—produces a cultural site of great intensity, or “deep play”
as Geertz described it. Everyone is in over his head. Every piece of the social
drama is overdetermined. Much of it is sublimated. That is what gives the
cockfight such enormous emotional power.REFERENCES CITED
Andaya, Barbara Watson. 2004. History, Head-hunting and Gender in Monsoon Asia:
Comparative and Longitudinal Views. South East Asia Research 12(1): 13–52.
Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. 1942. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis.
New York: Academy of Sciences.