Black Combat Arts Institute.
CARIBBEAN · LIVING
Stick fighting
A stick combat practised in Trinidad and Tobago by the descendants of enslaved people, fought in the gayelle, the ring formed by the crowd, and carried by drums and songs. Victory by a bleeding hit.
ORIGINS & SOCIAL FUNCTIONS
Practised in Trinidad and Tobago by the descendants of the enslaved, stick fighting (kalinda) belongs to the carnival world and its confrontations: the gayelle, the circle formed by the crowd, its drums and its chantwells frame a duel that colonial authority repeatedly tried to ban.
THE GAME
Fought in the gayelle, carried by drums and song: two bois-men circle, feint and strike; victory goes to the blow that draws blood, under the eyes of a crowd that is judge, chorus and memory.
PLACE IN THE FAMILY
Trinidad's stick pole of the family: the wounding blow is real, yet the whole apparatus, circle, drum, song, the crowd's verdict, converts it into regulated performance. The chantwell's praise and provocation tie the duel to the sung, collective register found from the Nuba hills to the Guadeloupean lawonn: the community as the true stage of the game.
SOURCES
Olivier Malo, La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles, 1905–1984 [Capoeira and the Black combat arts: erased history, invisible techniques (1905–1984)], doctoral thesis in History, Université des Antilles, 2020.
HOW TO CITE THIS ENTRY
MALO, Olivier. Stick fighting. In: The Atlas of the Black Combat Arts [online]. Black Combat Arts Institute, 2026. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/atlas-en/stick-fighting [accessed date].
RELATED PRACTICES
→ Mayolè, Caribbean stick complex
→ Tiré baton / Tiré machèt, Stick fencing, Creole world
→ Cocobalé, Stick combat in the ring
→ Kandeka, Stick combat elsewhere in the family