Cori Baynes

"Tell yuh mud­dah doh cry, tell yuh sis­ter doh cry, tell yuh chil­dren doh cry. If yuh loss yuh teeth, re­al bois man doh cry. If yuh die yuh die, re­al bois man doh cry."

That chant, to­geth­er with the sound of the drums, res­onat­ed through­out Guaracara Park, Pointe-a-Pierre, draw­ing stick­fight­ers in­to the gayelle like moths to a flame. Or­gan­ised by the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs, the Na­tion Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and the Re­gion­al Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, the fi­nals of the Na­tion­al Stick fight­ing com­pe­ti­tion were held on Feb­ru­ary 3. The crack of the rope sound­ed as loud as gun­shots, as colour­ful­ly dressed jab-jabs start­ed off the event by stand­ing face to face in the gayelle, beat­ing each oth­er with ropes. Four of the na­tion's top gayelles–Princes Town, Gran Chemin, Tal­paro and Long­denville–all squared off against each oth­er for the chance to be called the top gayelle. The four were di­vid­ed in­to two groups. Three mem­bers of each gayelle were re­quired to com­pete in­di­vid­u­al­ly to de­ter­mine which camp would ad­vance. Start­ing off the fight­ing were the Gran Chemin and Long­denville gayelles, whose mem­bers, even though they dis­played skill with the bois, were con­ser­v­a­tive in their strikes. "Doh dance. Pelt wood. What hap­pen to al­lyuh. Is wood we want to see," one spec­ta­tor shout­ed from his seat."

"Why you doh hush yuh tail," was the im­me­di­ate re­ply from an­oth­er, much to the amuse­ment of the crowd. Long­denville went on to win all three bat­tles to make a clean sweep of the first round fights. The sec­ond group was much more en­ter­tain­ing, with the mem­bers of the Tal­paro gayelle tak­ing the fight ag­gres­sive­ly to Princes Town. As Tal­paro's Moses Ralph squared off against his much younger op­po­nent An­der­son Mar­cano, his ag­gres­sion quick­ly made him the least favourite fight­er in the gayelle.

"Ad­van­tage stick. Da man play­ing ad­van­tage stick," mem­bers of the crowd shout­ed an­gri­ly as they booed Ralph. The crowd be­came even more in­censed as Ralph dealt Mar­cano the first "buss head" of the event. This was loud­ly con­test­ed by the Princes Town camp, which claimed Ralph's strike was il­le­gal and made by a stab­bing mo­tion with his bois. Nev­er­the­less, the judges award­ed the bout to Ralph, re­mind­ing the crowd that once blood flows in the ring, the match is over. The med­ical tech­ni­cians on hand to treat wound­ed bois men were kept busy, as a few min­utes lat­er, dur­ing the sec­ond match be­tween Princes Town's Pe­ter Odile and Ralph's son Evon, the bois ac­ci­den­tal­ly flew out of the lat­ter's hand and struck a spec­ta­tor. The in­jured man, bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly from a wound just be­tween his eyes, was im­me­di­ate­ly treat­ed and tak­en out of the venue. The younger Ralph went on to draw blood from his op­po­nent, end­ing Princes Town's chances of mak­ing it to the cham­pi­onship round. The third fight in the round al­so end­ed with a "buss head," on­ly this time it was Gilbert Fred­er­icks who tast­ed his own blood at the hands of Princes Town's Ter­rence Mar­cano. In the bout to de­cide which gayelle would take home the $5,500 third prize, not a bois was thrown, as the mem­bers of Gran Chemin all con­ced­ed vic­to­ry to the Princes Town stick­men. This for­feit, much to the crowd's dis­may, was be­cause all six bois men from both camps were re­lat­ed.

Af­ter a se­ries of hard-fought bat­tles, Long­denville's Daniel Bart­ley sealed vic­to­ry for his gayelle as a crush­ing blow from his bois land­ed across the left side of Fred­er­icks' face, "bussing" his head for the sec­ond time that night. As he dou­bled over in pain, the crowd went in­to an up­roar, as Bart­ley was hoist­ed on­to the shoul­ders of his fel­low stick­men in cel­e­bra­tion. The oth­er as­pect of the com­pe­ti­tion fea­tured the in­di­vid­ual fights for the ti­tle of King of the Rock, with the fi­nals be­ing be­tween Evon Ralph and An­tho­ny Bineal. Even though it last­ed on­ly a few sec­onds, the si­lence that de­scend­ed over the crowd of spec­ta­tors at Guaracara Park felt like min­utes as all eyes were fixed on the gayelle, all ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ing the first blow. The chant of the drum­mers im­me­di­ate­ly changed to "Pret­ty man nuh play in de Gayelle," and the bois men stepped up their game in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the $13,000 prize for plac­ing first and win­ning the King of the Rock ti­tle. It took all of the al­lo­cat­ed three min­utes, as well as two ad­di­tion­al min­utes of fight­ing, for the judges to bring the com­pe­ti­tion to a close and de­clare Ralph the of­fi­cial King of the Rock 2010 win­ner.

Bineal took sec­ond place and $8,500, while the third place prize of $5,500 went to Nigel Jones. So in­tense were the feel­ings among the spec­ta­tors, that a few rushed in­to the gayelle, caus­ing the ring­mas­ters to call for po­lice to main­tain or­der. "Now that is stick," one vis­i­bly pleased woman said. "Long time you could not have stick with­out the po­lice be­ing called in­to the gayelle. "Is long time I eh en­joy my­self so," she said.