Istunka (Somali Stick Fighting)
A Somali stick-fighting festival in Afgooye. It is not individuals in a bracket who fight, but the people of the two riverbanks against each other.
Quick Facts
SomaliaCharacter & Origin
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
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Catalogs & Databases for Istunka (Somali Stick Fighting)
About Istunka (Somali Stick Fighting)
Istunka is a Somali stick-fighting festival held every year in the town of Afgooye south of Mogadishu, on the Somali new year and at the same time the main harvest. It is not a tournament in the usual sense. The contest takes the form of a mock battle between the people living on the two banks of the riverbed that divides the town, so what meet are not individuals drawn into a bracket but two parts of the town facing each other. The accompaniment matters as much as the fighting itself: each side is supported by poets, singers and dancers, and the festival lasts all day. Its origin is placed in the medieval Ajuran period, and it reached a competitive form under the Sultanate of the Geledi, when Sultan Ahmed Yusuf gave the competing sides organised support. Originally it was fought with real weapons, that is with axes and blades; for reasons of safety these were later replaced by large sticks and batons, and in that form the festival continues. In the 1970s and 1980s istunka turned into a cultural attraction rather than a competition, and despite Somalia's political instability it is still held annually in the Afgooye region. The date of 1600 is approximate; the Ajuran period is older and the Geledi sultanate younger, so the dating captures only a part of the development.
Similar styles
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