The road through Palmerin-Diakhanor is red dirt, rutted from the wheels of the old buses which rattle along it taking villagers elsewhere, or bringing them back again. It winds south, following the peninsula which juts out from Senegal’s Atlantic shore, heading down towards Djiffer, a small fishing village which marks the end of the road. At night, the buses stop and the village, 150 kilometres from the bustle of the capital Dakar, sinks into a darkness and silence usually punctuated only by the bark of feral dogs and the occasional light bulb strung up on the side of someone’s concrete house.
But on this weekend in May, that changes. Over the villages of Senegal’s delta region, where the rivers Sine and Saloum come together in a thousand tiny islands, lagoons, salt flats and mangrove creeks, is the buzz of female voices. Highly amplified, the repetitive melody and beat of their song soars high above the village, which could not possibly sleep, even if it wanted to. A full orchestra of sabar drums makes its mark on the night air, the rhythm bold and sharp, punctuated by dramatic pauses and frenetic catch-ups, which sound like gunfire in this normally peaceful part of the world.
Tonight, one part of the village is illuminated. The village square — a patch of sand between some homes and a couple of palm trees — is lit up with a string of bulbs. Beneath them is a show that people from this village, and from the next, and from those a dozen miles away, have come to see.
This is a traditional Serer wrestling tournament. Young women in colourful outfits of embroidered jacquard cloth and elaborately-twisted head scarves sit on long wooden benches to one side of the square, babies strapped to their backs with cloths that match their mothers’ boubous, the babies fast asleep despite the tremendous cacophony of music, drums and cheering. Beside the sabar orchestra, two women, older and dignified, sing into hand-held microphones, bestowing blessings in Arabic upon the village, upon the sponsors of this event and upon the participants.
The traditional wrestlers of this river delta have ridden mopeds and piled into buses and paddled canoes to reach Palmerin-Diakhanor for the second to last wrestling tournament of the season. Under the light of the bare bulbs they strut and they run and they douse themselves in magical herbal potions, which swim with verses of the Koran written on tiny scraps of white paper. The men, their heads elaborately shaved and their bodies festooned with leather amulets, throw chicken eggs into the sandy arena for good luck, then they warm their muscles by sprinting and lunging, puffing their chests and throwing back their heads so that their opponents can see how dangerous, how strongand how mighty they are.
The winner of this tournament will take home four zebu — the majestic hump-backed cows with long, sharp horns — and that, in these parts, is worth a year’s salary. He will also be named Le Roi de l’Arene, the King of the Arena, and here in Senegal, that means everything.
In West Africa, traditional wrestling has been practised by different ethnic groups, from Mauritania in the north down to Nigeria in the south, each group producing its own particular style. The sport, a show of strength and masculinity, was largely unregulated until the 1960s when a formalised form of “African wrestling” developed, the largest tournaments taking place in Niamey, the capital of Niger, and Dakar. But it is in Senegal that wrestling has evolved from a rural pastime to an urban business. Serer people — the ethnic group that inhabits the waterways and salt flats of central coastal Senegal — introduced their sport to Dakar when they sold their produce in the capital. The Lebou, the original inhabitants of Dakar, quickly recognised the financial opportunities in it and the Serer found that during their time off from planting millet and rice back home, they could earn money and livestock from their beloved pastime. And so Senegal saw the start of the sport’s rise in popularity, and the birth of the wrestling manager and promoter.
But it was sports promoter and out-of-the-box thinker Gaston Mbengue who in the 1990s saw an opportunity to make Senegalese wrestling a phenomenon. Introducing elements of judo and boxing — and most controversially, bare-knuckle punching — wrestling quickly became the country’s most loved sport, more adored even than football. Rather than the all-night tournaments set in Serer village squares where dozens of wrestlers practised their traditional moves, bare-knuckle wrestling pitted two equally-matched wrestlers against each other in a stadium. Following a long build-up of music, posturing and fanfare, one would knock the other down in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds. There was blood, drama, and millions of dollars in advertising revenue flooded into the game.
Despite, or perhaps because of, how controversial this was — Senegal is one of the few countries in the world where bare-knuckle fighting is legal — it became an instant success. Bare-knuckle fights these days happen in 60 000-seater stadiums, with the top-tier tickets going for US$85. When the nation’s stars are in town — singer Youssou N’dour, rapper Akon — it’s to the stands they go on a Sunday afternoon. The sport even has its own daily newspaper. Fights are broadcast across the continent and beyond, and the most famous bare-knuckle fighters — hulks like Yekini, Balla Gaye 2 and Eumeu Sene — earn around $250 000 per fight, win or lose, in a country where the average annual income is little more than $2 000. Only a ban on bare-knuckle fighting in France, which hosts a sizeable west African community, stopped promoters from staging fights in Paris; a Senegalese promoter, Luc Nicolai, recently announced a tournament in Japan in 2016. Senegalese bare-knuckle wrestling has become one of the world’s most talked-about combat sports.
In 2012, however, a shadow was cast over the modern version of this ancient sport when Luc Nicolai was arrested, accused of involvement in drug smuggling. This opened the door for accusations that the sport, with vast amounts of cash flowing through it, was a breeding ground for other illegal activities like money laundering. Bare-knuckle wrestlers were soon being arrested in droves and the national wrestling federation, which had never before taken the matter of doping seriously, recently introduced testing for performance-enhancing drugs. Some wrestlers have refused to be tested.
In the Sine-Saloum delta, worlds away from the star-studded matches and packed stadiums of Dakar, the scene is very different. Almost entirely populated by Serer people who work largely in agriculture, fishing, and salt-production, this region has kept to the form of wrestling closest to their roots. While some young men do head off for the bright lights of Dakar, most stay at home and practise the sport that their ancestors worked hard at for hundreds of years: African wrestling, with no punches allowed.
The financial rewards of traditional wrestling tend to be much less: a 50kg sack of rice, $10, a sheep, a mobile phone. But the opportunity to earn this money is almost weekly during the nine-month season, compared to the bare-knuckle wrestling fights which come around maybe once or twice a year. “Now wrestling is a job, it’s a breadwinner,” says Pierre Diogoye, a native of Palmarin-Diakhanor and a community wrestling tournament organiser. Traditional wrestlers may also keep their jobs in fishing or agriculture, but with regular income from wrestling it’s possible to help support a family without having to follow the steady flow of young people to the city. As well as the deep cultural connection that is so important to people from this region, traditional wrestling is a way for local young men to stay here and to thrive.
Early one morning during the Palmerin-Diakhanor tournament, the skies still hazy and cool, a group of 15 young men in tracksuits wade across a shallow waterway and onto the wide empty beach that edges the village. Casting off their flip-flops, they remove their tracksuits and set to work wrapping themselves in colourful strips of cloth, winding them between their legs, around their hips, securing them around their muscular waists. These are the alook, or loincloths, which they wear to protect their groin. But the cloths also serve a mystical purpose, says Pierre Diogoye. “They choose a cloth that their marabout has prayed over,” he says. “The marabout you choose is someone you trust, or someone you have heard is powerful.”
The marabout plays a central role in Senegalese culture, and particularly in wrestling. Part Sufi Islamic leader, part animist spiritual guide, the marabout leads prayer at the mosque and also performs mystical ceremonies to heal, advise and protect his followers. In the wrestling world, he is a key part of the ritual ceremonies that take place both in the elaborate preparations before a fight, and during the tournament itself. A good marabout, it is said, can make or break a wrestling career.
Ibrahima Faye, 21, trains most mornings on this beach and is hoping to triumph later at the tournament. “A real man should wrestle,” he says, adjusting his alook. “It shows strength of body and it shows rigour. When I am in the ring, all I think about is how to throw down my opponent.” Ibrahima dreams of becoming a lawyer, but he also wants to keep wrestling. “It is a tradition we have always had in our village, and tradition is very important to me.” To be a good wrestler, he says, you must master three things: you must not be afraid, you must have faith in yourself, and you must have a good marabout.
Ibrahima’s marabout is a warm-faced old man who lives in the house opposite his, across the sandy path that leads down through the village. Antoine Cissé isn’t technically a marabout — he is a Christian — but he performs the role anyway, acting as advisor, soothsayer, and medicine-man for the young wrestler, who doesn’t have a father figure around to support him.
The day before a fight, Antoine prepares a powder of special tree roots and wraps it up for Ibrahima to tuck into his alook. He gives him a special sea shell which, when Ibrahima gets into the wrestling ring, he will throw down onto the ground, “opening up the space to allow for victory”. Antoine also gets gri-gris, the small leather pouches prepared by a marabout, which contain verses of the Koran designed to keep the wrestler safe from spells cast by the opponent’s marabout, and submerges them in a calabash of water. Antoine can see, from looking into this calabash, if Ibrahima is destined for victory or not.
“I also give him advice,” says Antoine, standing in the doorway of his small, concrete bedroom. “A wrestler must be fast on his feet, and he must not wait. If you are shorter than your opponent, you must attack first. This generation wants to be big,” he says, bemoaning the fixation on developing body mass, “but it’s not just that which wins a fight. You have to have an open mind, and you have to be swift.”
For Ibrahima and the other wrestlers in this group, African wrestling has benefits that bare-knuckle wrestling doesn’t. While these young men dream of achieving the success and fame of their delta brother Yekini, they have other goals too. For them, traditional wrestling is both a way of honouring their deep connection to this region and of earning a living in an area that has very few jobs. The income from African wrestling can, for many, be steady and regular.
“Wrestling is a good way to earn money,” says Alassane Sarr, 25, a wrestler and a fisherman who trains with this group on the beach. “It brings in more money than fishing,” he says, while his friends squat around him in the sand doing an exercise that develops the thigh muscles. Alassane has in the past won money, cows, and a telephone. “Once I won two 50kg sacks of rice,” he says, “Though if you’re a big eater that doesn’t last too long.”
Ousmane Faye is Ibrahima’s brother. He is a student of communications in Dakar, but has come home for the wrestling tournament. “With bare-knuckle wrestling, you have to have connections with promoters, be popular enough to fill a stadium, and you put all your money into paying marabouts. It’s a business,” he says. “African wrestling is more like a job. You can earn money with it every week.”
While young wrestlers in this region are practising the traditional style of wrestling to support their families, the sport is also helping to develop the community in which they live. Michel Sarr is the chief wrestling referee of the area. He spends all weekend at the tournament, registering wrestlers in the late afternoon, checking their insurance cards are valid, and then watching closely in the ring to make sure that all the rules are respected. When he sees one of the competitors touch three limbs, or the head, to the sand, he declares his opponent the winner. He does it not for the meagre earnings, but because he wants to promote wrestling in the region.
“Wrestling really can advance a community,” he says. “All the proceeds from the tickets and sponsorship for this tournament are invested back in the village.” The community will build a shop for women to sell goods in, or create a fund for villagers to invest in sheep or chickens. In the past they have used the funds to build classrooms in state-funded schools Pierre Diogoye, who organises tournaments in the village, has used the proceeds to build bus shelters. They are simple lean-tos, but in the absence of adequate state-built infrastructure, something like a bus shelter in a small village can make a huge difference to the men, women and children who work punishing hours and rely on buses for transport.
For Pierre, helping the community — your wider family — is a part of growing up in this area. “Here, when you are a child,” he says, “it’s your parents who look after you and feed you. But when you grow up and you start to earn money, you have to come back home and bring money to your parents. You will not find someone who has been successful and then left their parents without anything. You come back to the source, and you give back. ”Organising wrestling tournaments and bringing tourists to the area to enjoy them is one way that Pierre has been able to help his community. “Everyone has their mission on earth,” Pierre says. “My vision is that, if my village is developed, it’s not that I am developed — all of us are developed.”
As Saturday night falls on Palmerin-Diakhanor, wrestlers queue in front of a table where the referees are checking ID cards and insurance, and asking the wrestlers to pull down their tracksuit bottoms to show that they are wearing the alook, a regulation set by the Ministry of Culture. Shorts are forbidden here.
The sabar orchestra is going at full speed now, winding up the crowd who take their seats around the ring, where wrestlers — these are the heavyweights tonight — are grasping cow horns, medicinal tree branches, and anything else prescribed by their marabout as spiritual ammunition for the fight to come. Lightweight wrestler Ibrahima Faye has not taken home a prize this weekend, but his brother is still sure that he has what it takes to succeed. While wrestlers paw, grab and throw each other into the sand, the drummers beat faster and the two singers cast their voices high into the air. The referees are watching every move, helping the fallen wrestlers up onto their feet, escorting them crying from the ring. When the fights have ended and the winner has been declared, the young women who have been watching patiently from the sidelines leap from their seats, bound towards the sabar drummers and dance, throwing out their arms and their legs until, by some invisible sign, that comes to an end too. And just as the wrestlers came to the village, so they leave, some triumphant, some bitterly disappointed, but all of them knowing that many more chances to become Le Roi de l’Arene lie ahead.
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