Obnu Bilate

From Karate, Kungfu, Wrestling, Mixed Fighting Information Source

Obnu Bilate (or just "Obnu" in its original form) is a South African style of fighting based mainly around striking, trips and leg sweeps, and stick/machete fighting. According to Oliver Noman's _Unarmed Fighting Arts of the Near and Far East_ (Boston: Recede, 1978), Obnu was originally a tribal system practiced near Gabarone (Botswana), Mmabatho, and North of Pretoria. During Apartheid, Obnu spread south under the name "Obnu Bilate", but was outlawed because of its use by Black South Africans fighting against the Afrikaner National Party of South Africa. Once a fairly well-known fighting system in this region, the outlawing of this art was effective to the point that its practice has all but died out.

In his autobiographical work _Letters from Africa_ (Johannesburg, Boksburg Press, 1969), Niemand L. Nul mentions a practitioner of this art named "Pappa" Nat Whylch (although he indicates that this might have been his Dutch name). "Pappa" Whylch served as guide to Nul until he was implicated in attacks on a police base, at which time he disappeared from Nul's service. In Nul's account, Whylch combined the traditional stick fighting and wrestling techniques of Obnu with Savate, which he had learned through Dutch traders in his youth. Nul's reference to Whylch and this fighting art (albeit a brief one) is the first recorded reference to Obnu with the second part "Bilate", which suggests that Whylch was the one who created modern Obnu Bilate and coined this specific term.

Whylch was rumored to have resurfaced in the late 1980s or early 1990s around Johannesburg, where he worked in a variety of odd jobs and temporary positions. He was seen working as either a handy man or as a day-laboring stunt man on various American film projects that were completed in South Africa during the late 1980s and 90s, and is rumored to have taught Obnu Bilate to his last student during this time.

Inquiries into Whylch's whereabouts after the end of Apartheid concluded that he died at some point during the late 1990s. Although his body was never found, the various military cases against Whylch were permanently shelved. Obnu Bilate is presumed to have died out with the death of Nat Whylch.