Do as you want to do. That seemed to be the message of the day, however trite. The morning was a general call to archaeological arms, but… Saturday is our half-day, and we are free to do as we like in the afternoon. Dr. Rick entreated us to an early-morning start, but somewhat hopelessly said we could “taper off” when we wanted.
So, because I love things that go beep, I went a-theodoliting. Apparently it was a dude thing; all four guys volunteered. It was warm, so we went in t-shirts and shorts across the mounds, twirling a prism for the theodolite’s laser to catch. As time went on, the crew at the theodolite station itself became more and more confused – it was registering a constant 4 cm. error on all known points. The crew on the prism – Body & I – checked the pole, the ground, our pockets – everything and anything that could be throwing it off. Eventually Prof. John decided that the earth had moved since we’d last recorded fixed points around the site. Since 1995. Go figure.
We broke for lunch, and a strange rumor reached our ears. Maria, Prof. Rick’s sister-in-law & fellow archaeologist, was talking to one of the site leaders about an upcoming lucha de gallos, that is – cockfight. After one of us finally got our heads around the translation (it is close to, but is not, “cookie fight”) we altered our afternoon. The fight was scheduled to begin at 2 P.M., and though that meant missing fieldwork (pity) we could finally get down and dirty with Chavín’s culture.
Milling around after lunch, something seemed to hang on us. After we ran out of funny contexts for “cock” etc., we started thinking about what we were about to attend. Will it be legal? Frowned upon? How do we feel, personally, about watching animals kill each other? Is it so different from a bullfight? The answers varied – we came from very different places. Still, most everyone shelled out the five soles and climbed the rough-hewn white concrete steps to the second floor of the civic center.
We arrived, like good little Americans, ten minutes early. Plastic chairs, a dirty white, ringed a concrete brick ring. Inside, there was only dust and dirt, worked into small hills and whorls. We took ringside seats in near silence, and I, for one, wondered what the ring was used for, if not for these fights.
As time passed, Chavínos began to fill the space, ribald and often drunk. They weren’t a slice of Chavín society, either; whole families came wearing town colors or shirts with “Chavín” embroidered somewhere on the front. A sound crew set up behind us and began rattling empty chairs with bone-shaking bass. Toddlers seized the ring and marauded between rows, chased by mothers with back-slung infants. Fathers gathered by weathered coolers, shaking the ice off of monumentally large beers, most of which read simply, “El Negra.” The dark one.
The drunker townspeople clapped and cheered when men entered with the first roosters. They came in red stiff plastic totes, not unlike a grandma’s shopping bag. From inside, over the incessant thumping Latin music, came the odd squawk or scratch.
A portly man in a straw hat took the ring with microphone in hand, declaiming something in Spanish too fast for me to hear. When we slowed down enough, it became clear that this was a turf war – Chavín was competing against the town down the valley for bragging rights. He introduced a smaller man, who was dressed in astonishingly well-made, clean corduroy pants and an alpaca sweater. He was the alcalde del pueblo – the town mayor. Though no one would ever say it, especially not at a town pride event, this cactus needle is responsible for a whole lot of embezzlement. Still, he looked pretty suave in that sweater. Like Chavez.
But back to the cocks. (Sorry, it’s irresistible). While the mayor was pontificating on the honors of hosting a death match, the… I don’t know… coaches?... of the roosters were getting them pumped by bringing them close to each other, letting them strut on the side of the ring, and doing something very special to their talons. From each side, an old-timer brought forth a worn wooden box. In Chavín’s old red velvet held a set of the most wicked-looking hooks I have ever seen. They ranged in size from small scythes the size of marbles to larger ones the size of an orange slice. The largest was selected, and as the old-timer moved to bind it to the cock’s ankle, it glinted in the fluorescent light.
Properly spurred, the cocks were again let within foot of each other. Caro, one of the team members from Ecuador, says they are bred to be vicious. It certainly seemed so – each strained at the hands of their keeper to peck the other’s eyes out. Chavín’s cock even sliced the keeper’s hand open in his urge to die.
A white board, the size of a card table, was placed between the chickens. With an <“¡arriba!” it came up, and left the two freed chickens on the ground, facing each other across five feet of gritty soil.
They paced, circling each other with one eye cocked to the opponent. The circling went on and on, and the only sound in the room was that of the soft “skrit, skrit” of their claws in the dirt. Well, that and the raucous yells of some drunken guy in yellow.
With a rush, each hurled themselves at the other, flapping their wings as if for take-off. In milliseconds, they had met in mid-air, a whirling ball of brown and iridescent green writhing some three feet off the coliseum floor. There was little to see as they fought – you could only hear their raucous squawks of pain and the sick glint of the razors.
They fell in a small hail of ruby droplets, though each still held their crests up. Circling, circling, circling… always so slowly… each facing on a tangent, as if too proud to look at the other.
The Chavín cock attacked unexpectedly, driving the stranger to our side of the ring with a vicious charge. The foreigner leapt to lock claws in a backflip and met the Chavín rooster in mid-air. There were two flashes of something silver, and the Chavíno fell to the ground and crowed. Behind him, blood pulsed wet and sickly from it’s opponent, who had been gutted as thoroughly as if by a butcher. It twitched once, and lay still, like so much meat. The crowd cheered in its bloodlust, and the keepers rushed in to gather the living and dead.
I stayed for one more. There were eight scheduled, and though I felt a bit sick, I didn’t want to be the only one who left. I videotaped the second one, and as soon as the second cock fell limply to the soil, I backed my chair out, made some excuse to my neighbor, and nearly tripped down the concrete white stair.
Back at the hotel, there were a few more people who had left, or had just decided not to go. Dr. Rick took the opportunity to teach a few people about lithics (stone tools), but I grabbed the theodolite gear and headed back to the site with Ignacio to gather an hour’s worth of data.
We gathered some 300 points, and trooped back just as Ivan, the site archaelogist, was running out of the ticket booth, a key in hand. He invited Ignacio & I to see something he’d just turned on – a surprise, he said. Ignacio and I left the gear at the entrance to the Lanzon gallery, and followed Ivan into the depths.
Deep inside, the Lanzon, Peru’s national symbol, was bathed in deep crimson light. With a switch, Ivan cycled the lights through all the colors of the rainbow, and, strangely, began cursing. Ignacio agreed, and joined in. From what I could understand, both men were both extremely impressive cursers & were very upset with the lights. I suppose it makes sense… what if we kept the Declaration of Independence lit by strobe disco lights?
We took a few pictures and hurried back for dinner. After-dinner announcements were interesting. Dr. Rick had heard more people were interested in lithics, and had postponed his lecture until the faithful had a chance to congregate. Now that the meal was over, he invited us to stay, and listen to an hour or so on ancient stone tools. I figured it was sort of telling-by-asking, so I grabbed a shower and returned to the room, which was packed with attentive faces.
Turns out, there are a hell of a lot of ways to hit and break stone. Dr. Rick had the group’s absolute attention as he discussed “bulbs of percussion,” “angular shatter,” and “unifacial scrapers,” which largely sounded like terrible intestinal diseases. The crowd did not share my unenthusiasm, so I turned my head back to Dr. Rick. You know what they say: “When in Rome……”
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