1 post tagged “bull butting”

Kids with guns

This weekend I had the joy of heading out to one of the other Emirates, Fujairah, to be a spectator of the weekly bull butting competition that occurs.

When you hit the corniche at the end of the main street, there is a paddock where every friday, after afternoon prayer, the locals gather to pitch bull on bull.

We arrived, after a 2 hour ride through the mountains from Dubai, to no bull fighting. Surely we had the day right... only to chat to a local to find the fight today had been called off due to a death. Nooooooooooo Flanagans luck.. surely not..... so we prepped ouselves for a long and disappointing trip home... well.. at least we got to see the billboard posters of children holding guns... 

Thats one big pappa

Regardless, we grabbed something to eat and hoped for the best... to our luck, shortly after we see the first bull get carted in. Here is here.. one big pappa... and I can tell you, he was not happy.... snorting, pawing at the ground.. and that was all before they bought in the next bull.. and the next bull... and the next until there were 40 odd bull all teethered up ready to fight.

Sometime around 5.30PM, all the bulls are tied up and the locals are all gathered around to watch the main event. Big 4WDs surround the arena, men

Tie me up

selling home made packed peanuts and bottles of water start touting their wares and the commentator bellows out for the first bulls.. spark and spice.

Bull butting was apparently introduced to the region by the portuguese in the 17th and 18th centuries. Two men lead their bulls into the arena, then the bulls lock horns and pit their strengthen against each other.

Round one ends rather spectacularly... the biggest bull out of the two... looks about and then, once deciding this isn't a sport he wants any part of.. legs it into the crowd and makes a hasty escape into the car park.. I have never seen so many dish dashes scatter and run... brilliant... if this is the beginning.. I can't wait for the end.

 The goal of the fight is for one bull to have another

Lock

bull on its knees, for the other to run off or ... a tie... no one gets anywhere. Watching them trying to stop a fight is priceless. Simply blowing a whistle or calling off the bulls doesn't work. Instead... about 15 spectators run out into the field and grab an end of the rope tied around the bulls neck to try and prise them apart. It is priceless.. you can't imagine the entertainment it provides.

Every one in

One of the easiest things to do in Dubai, is to only visit the hotels and clubs and to ignore anything that evolved prior to 1980. Traveling to Fujairah and getting to be a spectator for something that has been happening for hundreds of years... much more interesting and involving than heading down to the local hotel for brunch. Not that I don't enjoy a good brunch.... sometimes its easy to forget there is more to the desert than that... if you let it.

Crouching agent

The traditional sport of bull butting helps you to appreciate the essence of the desert .. its an essence of dust.. chaos... male virality.. community... disorganisation....