Black Combat Arts Institute.
AFRICA · LIVING · REVIVED
Evalas
Inter-canton wrestling encounters of initiatory value, held by the Kabyé people of Kabyé country, in Togo: three consecutive years of fighting lead to the status of Ezakpa, which opens the right to marry.
ORIGINS & SOCIAL FUNCTIONS
The inter-canton wrestling meetings of the Kabyé people of Togo — an institution of initiation: the contests are the passage by which boys become men before the assembled cantons.
THE GAME
Wrestling by age class: three consecutive years of combats lead to the status of Ezakpa, which opens the right to marriage.
PLACE IN THE FAMILY
The evalas states openly what the family's games so often are beneath the surface: a rite of passage, the duel as the community's instrument for making adults. Its pairing by age class — skill tested against equals, not mass against mass — is the same equity device the Nuba wrestlers apply, a continent away.
SOURCES
Olivier Malo, La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles, 1905–1984, doctoral thesis in History, Université des Antilles, 2020.
HOW TO CITE THIS ENTRY
MALO, Olivier. Evalas. In: The Atlas of the Black Combat Arts [online]. Black Combat Arts Institute, 2026. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/atlas-en/evalas [accessed date].
RELATED PRACTICES
→ Essoda-lubié — Kabyé country wrestling
→ Krikara watita — Initiatory wrestling by age class
→ Kokowa — Rite-of-passage wrestling