Nuba Wrestling

I’ve quite enjoyed this week; nothing especially new or exciting to write about in terms of my work and research, as both are progressing quite well.

I’m reading Emma’s War again. For those of you who are interested in learning more about the history of the war between the north and the south in the Sudan, this is an excellent read. Emma McCune was a British aid worker who married Riek Machar, one of the SPLA commanders in the Blue Nile region of the Sudan. Riek Machar was one of three commanders who launched a coup against John Garang, the leader of the SPLA, in 1991 and split the southern rebel movement for several years. John Garang often referred to this attempted coup and war amongst the SPLA factions as Emma’s War, and thought Emma was a spy sent to break apart the SPLA. I love the way the author, Deborah Scroggins, paints the history and circumstances of the conflict through both Emma’s story and her own experience as a journalist in the south. Now that I am more familiar with the wars, tribes, and geography of Sudan, I’m finding the book even more informative the second time around.

On Friday afternoon, a contingent of Harvard-Fletcher folks ventured to North Khartoum to watch a Nuba wrestling match. For the tribes who live in the Nuba Mountains in the south, these wrestling matches are held to uphold the honor of the village. Nuba wrestlers spend two weeks before a match preparing – eating, exercising, and greasing their bodies with oil, as they wrestle half-naked or wearing a few animal skins. If a wrestler loses a match on more than one occasion he risks being thrown out of the tribe, so the stakes are high. Here in Khartoum, the teams are organized by municipality and the wrestlers wear soccer uniforms in accordance with the local Islamic custom.

The match was a fascinating combination of wrestling and negotiation. A wrestler from one team came to the middle of the circle and the opposing team sent a group of three wrestlers to negotiate which wrestler from their team would participate. After negotiating, the three wrestlers return to their team to select a teammate to fight. This teammate then walks to the middle of the circle to meet his opponent; if he does not want to fight the man, he can return to his team and demand that another wrestler be chosen. We saw this same pattern of negotiation occur three times with one of the wrestlers the red team put forward to wrestle. As it turns out, this particular wrestler had a reputation for being a “killer”, meaning that he seriously injured or killed another wrestler in a previous match by breaking his neck or back. No wonder no one wanted to wrestle him! After the wrestlers have agreed to wrestle, the two lock arms and begin the process of trying to lift the opponent’s feet off the ground or knock him to the ground completely.