Of Casteadores, Gallos Y Galleras: the Cockfight World in the Canary Islands
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DOCTORAL THESIS Of casteadores, gallos y galleras the cockfight world in the Canary Islands Ontillera Sánchez, Ricardo Award date: 2020 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 09. Oct. 2021 Of casteadores, gallos y galleras: the cockfight world in the Canary Islands by Ricardo Rodrigo Ontillera Sánchez A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Social Anthropology Department of Life Sciences University of Roehampton 2019 2 3 ABSTRACT The aim of the present work is to explore the world of cockfighting in the Canary Islands, where over three consecutive years (2016-2018) a wide range of issues were researched. Given its legal status, the cockfight in the Canary Islands is not a prohibited event held in secret locations, where those who attend may be prosecuted, as is the case in the UK and most European countries. Therefore, the study was not restricted to the fights themselves, but it was also an exploration of the encompassing world of cockfighting, including breeding, training, and socialising, that brought about those public fights and performances. To achieve that, I adopted an ethnographic perspective in which participant observation and interviewing were essential methodological tools. By presenting detailed ethnographic accounts of this world, this thesis shows the importance of understanding the rearing of gamecocks to fully grasp the meaning given to the fights by Canarian breeders and aficionados. With the help of narrative fragments and quotations from my interviews, I also offer an ethnographic description of cockfights according to eight different aspects of the event. Essentially, aficionados go to watch and admire the drama of the contest, the fighting birds’ performance. In the Spanish archipelago, breeders can compete both in single-date championships (campeonatos) and weekly leagues (contratas). These two methods of organisation represent one of the singularities of the cockfights in the Canary Islands where also the relatively low importance of betting, in comparison with other regions, represents another peculiarity of the event. Lastly, by introducing several quotations from the fieldwork in which breeders and aficionados give their views on roosters, this thesis demonstrates how breeders perceive fighting birds as animals of a unique nature. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Notes on how this thesis works ……………………………………………………………..7 Who is writing? A note on positionality …………………………………………………...10 Approaching cockfighting Introduction …………………………………………………………………………….14 1. Research Rationale ………………………………………………………………...23 2. From Southeast Asia to the Canary Islands: a history of cockfighting ……………35 3. Epistemological starting point and methodological perspectives …………………55 Entering the world of chickens 4. Travelling in the Canary Islands: Fieldwork challenges ………………………......68 5. From the egg to the cockpit ………………………………………………………..95 6. Riñas de Gallos (Cockfights) described …………………………………………..133 7. A season in a Casa de Gallos .…………………………………………………….192 8. The Canary Islands: a very particular case within the world of cockfighting …….232 9. Fighting birds are not puppies ………………………………………………….....256 Coda ………………………………………………………………………………………282 Appendix ………………………………………………………………………………….286 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………294 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am immensely grateful to Prof. Garry Marvin and Dr. Istvan Praet for their continuous support, comments and reviews. Their suggestions and ideas for interpreting the ethnographic materials have been an invaluable help. It has been an honour and a privilege to have them as my supervisors. I am also very thankful to the ‘chicken people’, particularly my PhD colleagues Giovanna, Eva, Mel and Pete. This dissertation was possible thanks to the project “Cultural & Scientific Perceptions of Human-Chicken Interactions”, funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council. I would also like to express my gratitude to the University of Roehampton and the Royal Anthropological Institute for their guidance and financial support. Let me proceed, from this point onwards, in Spanish. Por encima de todo, quisiera expresar mi más sincero agradecimiento a la Federación Gallística Canaria y a todos los casteadores y casteadoras. Canarios, peninsulares, cubanos, dominicanos, venezolanos…, todos me abrieron las puertas de sus casas en un momento difícil para esta práctica. En un trabajo etnográfico como el que se presenta, ellos son los verdaderos protagonistas. Es imposible nombrarlos a todos, pero han formado parte de una experiencia inolvidable. Por otra parte, este viaje no hubiera sido posible sin el apoyo de mis amigos: los biólogos, la gente de la UAM y la UPO, Swansea, Saconia, Garden, los Griegos, los Parrillanos, los emigrados por un sistema indecente y unos políticos corruptos, etc. Mi padre, mi madre, mi hermana y Chus han sido siempre una fuente de inspiración y libertad, una profunda lección de vida. Una vida a la que se ha unido Olivia Fiona, que ya apunta maneras. Como su tía Marta, quién ha mostrado el coraje de compartir el estrés, la alegría, el amor y el aprendizaje de estos cuatro años. Gracias. 6 NOTES ON HOW THIS THESIS WORKS This dissertation is based on my fieldwork experience. As will be seen further on, participant observation, informal conversations and interviewing are an essential part of this thesis. In light of this, and to avoid misunderstandings, when quoting from a cockfighting breeder or aficionado, his/her quotation will be centred, in English, and in “speech marks” as follows: “… so they could not say we are all dodgy”. (José 01/04/2016)1 In the case of an excerpt of an interview or dialogue with two or more interlocutors, including myself, it will be centred and without speech marks as follows: Manuel: That is the Canarian trimming. Ricardo2: What is the trimming? Francisco: The trimming is a particular way of… When quoting scholars, their quotations will be indented on the left-hand side using 1.5 spacing between the lines: 1 “… para que no digan que somos todos unos mataos”. (José 01/04/2016). When not stated otherwise, all translations from Spanish are done by the author. Rather than a literal translation word by word, I have tried to interpret the quotes as a whole. In any case, the original words in Spanish are always present in the footnotes. 2 The name “Ricardo” always refers to the author of this dissertation. 7 …the great majority of the people calling “five” or “speckled” so demonstratively are expressing their allegiance to their kinsman, not their evaluation of his bird, their understanding of probability theory, or even their hopes of unearned income. (Geertz, 1972:19)3 When quoting short pieces within a sentence or paragraph the quotation is enclosed in ‘single inverted commas’, e.g., ‘situated knowledge’ (Haraway, 1991:183). Narrative reports will be centred, using a different font, as follows: Casteadores and aficionados were coming slowly to the arena where fights take place. This ancient practice had seen better times… Spanish words, when isolated out of the quotes, are shown in italics, as follows: gallera. Notes on translation: Spanish has a masculine-feminine approach to grammatical gender, where the use of the neuter is very limited and generally restricted to abstract categories (e.g., lo malo). However, although English has three gendered pronouns, it lacks grammatical gender in the sense of noun class distinctions. With this in mind, and given that Canarian cockfighters usually use the masculine pronoun when referring to their roosters, in the dissertation roosters will be referred to 3 Quotes from non-English languages, when not stated otherwise, are translated into English by the author. 8 as ‘he’, e.g., he opened his wings. Throughout the thesis I have offered translations of key terms relating to the event, its process, and its culture. However, I have also included a translated glossary of specialist and key terms in an appendix at the end of the thesis. Notes on writing in third and first person: This dissertation has been written using the first and the third person. I have tried to use the first person as an exercise of reflexivity and honesty, particularly when I describe my fieldwork experience. Notes on bibliography: in order to facilitate access to the different materials cited in this dissertation, the bibliography has been organised in various categories such as news from printed and electronic press, visual and audio-visual materials and legislation. For ease of reading, when references are used for paraphrasing, in-text citations have been added as footnotes. The cockfight is a legal event in the Canary Islands and many breeders and aficionados would have gladly appeared in the dissertation using their personal names.