Senegalese Wrestling Essay

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SENEGALESE WRESTLING As one might imagine, the origins of Senegalese wrestling are ancient and ancestral. The sport is called ‘Lamb’ in Wolof, the native language of the Wolof people in Senegal, who make up 40% of the population. It used to be practised in the countryside at the end of the harvest, amongst the Serer and Diola ethnic groups. Wrestlers face up to each other, and the winner is the one who causes his adversary to fall to the ground first. This jousting battle used to be a means of measuring the strength of men, to determine the champion of each village. During French colonisation of Senegal, these fights continued to take place in the bush, without the occupiers really knowing much about them. However it was a Frenchman who organized the first official fights in the 1920’s in his cinema El Malik in the capital, Dakar. The wrestlers were paid thanks to ticket sales. It was around this time that a form of the sport began in which wrestlers could also hit their opponents (wrestling with strikes). After independence, this form of the sport slowly became professional and took hold in towns and cities. It used to be that all types of hits were allowed: punching, elbowing, kicking, kneeing, head-butting, biting and clawing. Some fighters even grew their nails, using them as weapons to blind their opponents. One wrestler in particular, who is still talked about, used to sharpen his teeth in order to bite off opponents’ ears, and used to enter the arena wearing a macabre necklace of these ‘trophies’. Since then, although the rules have become stricter, with head-butts being ruled out most recently, Senegalese wrestling has remained the only combat sport with bare-fisted punches and no protection, which is why it has not yet been sanctioned by the western world. Nowadays there are two forms of Senegalese wrestling practised. The first is

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