Andarias Lu’ku loves to fight chickens. I ask him why one day. Why, in Toraja in South Sulawesi, do people like watching chickens battle to the death while they bet tens or even hundreds of thousands of rupiah on the winner?
Andarias, his head topped with gray hair, smiles. He says it’s a little complicated to explain. “No one can get rich gambling on chickens,” he says. “And an owner’s bet on their chicken doesn’t say anything about their treatment of the chicken.”
I ask him if forbidding the Torajan people from raising chickens and holding cockfights would meet resistance from the community. “Maybe if there wasn’t a transparent process,” he replies. “But these kinds of events will keep happening.”
“My father focused on chickens”
Andarias was introduced to cockfights at a young age. His father, Manda Datuan, now 80, is famous around Toraja and lives in an area called La’bo. His house is humble, not flashy. His yard is small, his floor patterned plastic.
But Manda Datuan has been sick for the last few years. He can’t sit for long and he’d suffered a stroke. When I greet him, we don’t lock eyes for long. After five minutes of sitting on the sofa, he stands and is helped by his wife to his bedroom for a lie down. Most of his life is now spent lying in bed.
He bears a scar, inflicted by a spur usually tied to a chicken’s leg, on one of his calves. When Manda Datuan speaks, his voice is slow and sentences are hard to discern. There’s a clock on the wall of his house with a chicken in the background. “Oh, this chicken? This chicken was the best,” he says. “But what can I do when I’m like this? You can see my condition for yourself.”
“When he was healthy, he didn’t go to the rice fields. Chickens were like both a hobby and work. That continued until he was sick and couldn’t walk… Even now he still enjoys chickens. There’s nothing wrong with that. Eventually when I have a kid, and he or she likes chickens, I won’t forbid it.”
I ask Andarias how it felt when chickens died in the arena, after he’d worked hard to raise them. Did he feel sad?
“Why do you have to feel sad? It’s just a game. If they lose, then they lose. Today they’ll win, maybe tomorrow they’ll lose. That’s how it is. If they win, you’re happy,” he says.
To see things for myself, I go to dozens of cockfighting arenas in Toraja. Surrounded by cheering spectators, I witness the fighters, the ones who win, and the ones who lose. I pay attention to their faces. There’s no hostility; they even joke around with one another.
In Randan Batu, I approach someone who’d lost 20 million rupiah (US$1,420). He tells me that this is just how the game works; there’s no need to feel sad, gloomy, or angry. The man who beat him sits nearby. They laugh together and share a lighter for their cigarettes.
I feel conflicted witnessing such scenes. Despite the violence of the animals’ pitched battles—often resulting in death—the fights aren’t unlike parties. People set up booths selling fish, food, sodas, beer, and snacks. The larger fights start in the morning and finish only when the sun sets, but there are smaller half-day ones too. The ones that start in the morning, until midday, are called “GOOD MORNING”. Those from midday to night are called “GOOD AFTERNOON”.
Meeting chicken admirers over my two weeks in Toraja feels like observing a magical social connection, a group embrace. “You won’t understand why chickens make us Torajan people happy, unless you truly become part of our community,” says 25-year-old Atto.
Creatures of the sky
71-year-old Palimmi is a friendly person. He’s Christian, but some of his practices are based on his ancestors’ beliefs. He has a few chicken coops in his yard; he raises them for his community’s ritual needs, and for food.
He’s never entered one of his chickens into a cockfight, but he’s attended a few. I tell him that the Torajan Church, as the region’s majority religion, opposes cockfighting. “That’s true. But it’s still difficult. Because a few rituals include fighting chickens. It’s done at funerals,” he says.
Those who like cockfights have to jump through some hoops to see them. The news is spread by telephone, and the fights start when people gather. Two places I visit in Tandung postponed the fights due to uncertainty over a newcomer—me.
They have reason to be wary: a police raid on a cockfight a few months before had left one person dead. A few people, speaking in whispers, tell me it had begun with a fight with a police officer. “You’re not a spy, right?” one person asks.
In the epic, the warrior Sawerigading of Luwu seeks out the princess We Cudai in a Chinese kingdom. To enter the palace, Sawerigading has to win a cockfight. He’s aided by gods who change a cat into a chicken that then wins the fight. The victory makes Sawerigading famous, allowing him to meet the princess. Their child is named I La Galigo.
This is the story within the ancient Bugis manuscript, believed to originate from the region of Luwu and to have spread to the Bugis-speaking community. But cockfighting is known almost everywhere in South Sulawesi, and the other ethnicities in other areas—like Makassar, Mandar, and Toraja—have their own myths.
For the Torajans, creation comes from the highest god, known as Puang Matua. It was Puang Matua who created the eight elements of life—humans, buffalos, chickens, iron, cotton, rain, wind, and rice—from pure gold.
The first human, Bura Langi, was sent to Earth with the seven other elements, as well as rules, called aluk, that must be kept. Bura Langi married Bura Tana, and the succeeding generation, Tandi Limo, built the first traditional Torajan tonkonan houses, with their banana-shaped roofs. Life was comfortable at that time, since Bura Langi had brought chickens, buffalo, and rice paddy with him to Earth.
“Our needs were already met. Life was prosperous. There was food from paddy, chicken, and buffalo. Even iron for equipment,” says Palimmi.
“Today, people only see the chickens as a point of conflict. It’s not as simple as that. In Toraja, we recognise chickens as animals that give food as well as being part of our rituals.” Chickens retain a prestigious position in Toraja. They’re a ritual offering for the poorest of people, but are also considered to bring perfection to the highest of rituals.
Chickens for all occasions
According to the Torjan, every chicken has a separate function, depending on their colour. A chicken with black feathers, for example, is used for rituals for departed spirits. Sella chickens, which are red in color, are used as offerings for gods and spirits. Koro chickens (black, white and a bit of blue) mark important moments in time. Burittik chickens (a mix of black and white) are offered to palm trees to produce good tuak, or palm wine. Burik chickens, (spotted white, black, and red) are used to solve disputes. Barumbun chickens, (deep red and black) are used in rituals to heal the sick.
Even the parts of a chicken are important. When a ma’pallin ceremony is conducted, as a way to apologise and atone for past mistakes before moving into a new house, Torajans will sacrifice black chickens. A pastor, or to minaa, takes the chicken and chops it into small pieces. Speaking in high Torajan, he faces the west and offers the chicken’s head to Puang Matoa. The heart, feet, and wings are given to To Pangala Tondok, the god of bravery. The rest is given to To Padatindo, the hero of Toraja.
In Toraja, a full funeral is held when a citizen dies. Dozens, or even hundreds, of pigs and buffalo will be slaughtered as a show of wealth. But the chicken is the first victim in this whole process.
On the day of the death ceremony, before the corpse is buried, the family will carry out the process of paramisi. This is meant to entertain the family and the corpse, and it includes three cockfighting match-ups, sometimes with spurs attached to the chicken’s legs.
I’m told that the cockfighting is known as sembangan suke baratu. Chickens armed with spurs are set to fight and people put money into a stalk of bamboo, called suke, regardless whether their chickens wins or loses. After all the battles are finished, the collected money is given to the grieving family.
“So it’s actually grievance money (often collected at funerals in Indonesia). But now, there are very few people who do it, because many are embarrassed they’ll be seen as poor,” Palammi says.
Additionally, fights are also performed in a ritual, known to Torajans as silondongan or bulu londong. It’s a way to deal with conflict. The involved parties choose their own chickens to represent them in a duel. The chickens battle it out until one is defeated, and that’s how the dispute is resolved.
Losing their prestige
The Bolu market, a 10-minute motorbike ride away from the centre of the North Toraja district, is the heart of the local animal trade. Pigs and buffalo are constantly on display, but chickens are limited to only twice a week, Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Bush, a young man who goes by this nickname, accompanies me to the chicken market. A hundred people sit scattered around, each holding a chicken to be sold at a fixed price.
Bush likes to fight chickens, but he doesn’t raise them, because it’s not as easy as it might sound. Some raise chickens using the money they’ve won from victories in the cockfighting arena as capital. While we walk, he eyes the chickens, lifting them up for closer study. If he likes the look of one, he tests it by setting it against other roosters.
“I like seeing how they punch (striking out with their feet). If they punch well, I’ll take them,” he says.
Bush comes from a generation that’s less focused on the details of each chicken. “What’s important is that it can fight,” he says.
Other oral traditions also say that the bija is joined by the arae. It’s believed that a bija, which is typically a hen, won’t run when the arae comes, because she thinks it’s a rooster, and the descendents of the arae will never be defeated.
“We believe that the arae exists. There are many who have seen it. Even though I’ve never seen it. But it definitely exists, because if it doesn’t, then how is it possible that our ancestors carved it into wood?” says Andarias.
Traditionally, the local chickens were seen to be infused with mythology, and were raised with diligence. They were placed in sarong and brought along when their owners went out, and were given frequent massages. One cared for one’s chicken as if it were one’s child.
For the most part, however, the members of this group don’t raise local chickens anymore. They breed chickens from the Philippines and Peru, bringing in animals from the Philippines to Manado, Makassar, then onwards to Toraja. The price of chickens ready to fight varies, from hundreds of thousands, to millions of rupiah.
30-year-old Yosia Rerung raises chickens. She tells me that the imported chickens fight fast without technique, and they’ll keep going until the end. “If one of the imported chickens was freed then met another imported chicken and fought, then they won’t stop until one dies,” she says.
“For my chicken, it went [on] until its head was cracked. For local chickens, it could have run or lost. But with imported chickens, they don’t run,” she continues.
It’s a stark contrast with the ways local chickens fight: these foreign birds are much more brutal. I personally find the local chickens more elegant fighters—instead of competing on brute strength, they appear to fight with more calculated moves. Sometimes one chicken jumps, and the other waits for the best time to strike as it returns to the ground.
When the chickens clash in the ring, the audience gazes on in reverent silence. Noises and voices almost disappear. A chicken is declared the loser once it can no longer move. The dead chicken is lifted up and the foot tied to a spur is cut off at the thigh. It’s then handed to the victor: a bounty from a battle won.
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