Nuba Stick Fighting
From Karate, Kungfu, Wrestling, Mixed Fighting Information Source
 |
Nuba Stick Fighting is much more of a contest, but considered as a martial art, conducted by the Nuba people. Participants are given a stick and a shield as their weapons for combat. This sport is always carried out at the end of autumn and the beginning of harvest, and it is completely forbidden during the cultivation season, in case it puts the youths off their work. Stick fighting is part of the ceremonies that follow the harvest, in which thanks is given to God for providing a good harvest.
The fight always begins by an invitation from one tribe to another. The invited tribe may detain the dispatched envoy just for provocation and excitement. The hosts have to make their way to fetch their messengers; and, thereafter, they engage in fighting. Another way of starting the competition is by symbolic provocation. For example, a man, aged 17 - 20 years old, may hold the hands of his rival’s fiancée for a couple of minutes, or cut her bracelets made from beads. When a would-be her husband hears about this, he instantly declares the fight by tying a handkerchief or piece of cloth on his competitor’s house at night, so that the contending should begin in the next morning.
The fight can be between two individual fighters from different villages, or between two villages themselves, fighting collectively.
