During one of his visits to
Tenerife, quite close to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, James Young was
invited to a cockfight. He had always been an intrepid traveller and explorer
of different cultures and accepted the kind invitation with pleasure.

In fact it was the gardener
at the English Library in Puerto de la Cruz who introduced him to a gentleman
they called El Perico. He was a
small, roundish and balding man with an inviting smile which turned into one of
cunning when the conversation turned to cocks. He was considered the master in
the world of cockfighting in the Orotava Valley. El Perico first took James to see his collection of champion gamecocks
which were kept in the middle of a banana plantation and where they were conditioned for increased stamina and strength. James Young later
discovered that the breeder was not the proud owner of the magnificent
birds but the keeper of them for a local aristocrat.

It was believed, not so long ago, that the sport, if one can call it a sport,
had been banned. However, Andalucía and the Canary Islands remain the only provinces in Spain where cockfighting is still permitted. The law allows it on the islands but tries to make it disappear “naturally” by blocking its expansion. But, as you can see from
this poster, cockfights still manage to be well organised events.

 

 

But in the early years of
the 20th century cockfighting even took place in the patio of the
old San Francisco convent, just down from the Marquesa Hotel. It was often a distraction for dignitaries and aristocrats, like those in this painting of Emile Claus, “The Cock Fight in Flanders”, which portrays men of means in Waregam collected around a small arena.

 

 The charming old Marquesa Hotel
still exists, but the convent was burned down in 1966 and only the chapel
remains. By then the cockfighting had moved elsewhere, to a great extent because
British visitors were very critical of them, forgetting perhaps that
the sport once existed in the British Isles too. 

It was a hot and dusty
Saturday afternoon when James Young was led on horseback to a circular earth
arena surrounded by a low wall of volcanic stone specially prepared in the
fields close to the Botanical Gardens. It did not seem to be a massive
crowd-pulling event but James counted about sixty men gathered around the arena
and there was a collection of important-looking cars parked at a safe enough
distance from the dust raised by the fighting birds. Their chauffeurs waited
obediently for an order.

More than a spectator sport
James Young soon realised that it was organised as a betting event. He noticed a lot of money
being handled by a couple of slim little men with anxious faces and
sweating brows. The foreigner declined an offer to place a bet and his horse was taken
away under the shade of some distant eucalyptus trees. Horses were known to
become nervous by the sight of blood and by the roar of men driven to the brink
of savagery or on the verge of winning or losing one hundred of the old
pesetas.

The only things of beauty
James Young saw were the big birds. They were like princes dressed for battle
with magnificent arrays of red, purple, blue and green plumage glistening in the
afternoon sun. They looked so proud and elegant. But that was before the
contest. James Young had no idea some combatants often had their necks shaved for
battle. That was his first warning and to start with he thought it made them look a little ridiculous. In fact they were shaved to allow the enemy’s sharp
beaks and spurs to cut mortal gashes as near to the jugular as possible.
Nevertheless, far from seeking a quick battle, the best contests were those
that took longest for one bird to collapse or to die in a pool of blood.

Often
the principal objective for a fighting cock was to peck out the opponent’s eyes.
Once both its eyes had been destroyed a doomed bird could remain upright and at
the mercy of the winner for a long time. It would wander about aimlessly while
the other, an eager combatant at all times instead of merciful, would peck
and peck and spring up to bring its spurs down over and over again until it too
could do no more killing, while the victim’s blood squirted out in all
directions like Spanish surreal paintings.

Some birds, usually the favourite
and owned by the wealthiest landowners, were fitted with artificial and
sharpened metal or bone spurs, like the best gladiators in ancient Rome.

The cockfight was the
only thing James Young disliked about the Orotava valley. He had seen enough blood
and savagery during his brief spell in France in the First World War. He hated
cruelty. He thanked his host El Perico
very warmly and rode away from the scene very soon, wondering why he had wanted
to witness a cockfight at all. He didn’t do anything to show any disrespect
for the tradition of others. Nevertheless news quickly spread around the valley
that el señor inglés preferred other
amusements.

Some historians trace the
origins of fighting cocks to 6,000 years ago in Persia, whilst others refer to cockfighting being religious or political institutions in Athens, “for preparing the seeds of valour in the minds of their youth”.
There is no doubt, however, that James Young had not read about the belief that the first fighting cocks in the Canary Islands arrived from England and
might even have been traded in exchange for fine Malmsey wines by merchants
whose ships anchored off towns like Garachico.

 

Opponents to the sport claim it isn’t a sport at all but a barbaric and
cruel spectacle whose principal aim is to make money by betting. They insist
cockfighting should, in the civilised world we Europeans claim to live in, be
banned. Like bulls which are teased and stabbed to make them aggressive before
a bullfight they suggest these magnificent birds are sometimes given strychnine
or cafeine.

                              

Supporters hang on to suspect virtues like history, tradition and the fact that fighting cocks will fight each other in the wild anyway, like deer in the forests, for territory and hens, and that they possess a congenial aggression towards all other males. They claim gamecocks are not necessarily trained for mortal combat. Yet breeders take their profession very seriously, possibly because of the growing anti-blood sport movements, so feeding, grooming and vaccination under proper veterinary conditions are of utmost importance.

 

In his diary James Young referred to the cockfight saying, “I have no doubt certain people of my class will always go to see one, but I doubt very much if they would enjoy what they witness, or wish to see one ever again. It is a sickening sight.”

 

By John Reid Young, author of “The Skipping Verger and Other Tales”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Skipping-Verger-Other-Tales/dp/8461596323