Nuba Wrestling
مصارعة النوبةThe ceremonial wrestling of the Nuba peoples in the Sudanese Nuba Mountains. It is held after harvest, without strikes, the aim being to put the opponent down.
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SudanCharacter & Origin
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About Nuba Wrestling
Nuba wrestling is the ceremonial wrestling of the Nuba peoples, who live in the Nuba Mountains in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan. It has no founder and no documented year of origin; this is a custom of a farming and herding society, passed on within family and village rather than a founded school. The specific years sometimes attached to it have no support in any source. Wrestling takes place after the harvest, when there is food enough and time for a large gathering. Villages send each other challenges and the wrestlers travel to the site accompanied by drums and singing; the meeting is at once a market, a festival and an occasion for young people to meet. The bout itself is short: no strikes are used, and the aim is to seize the opponent and put him on the ground. Whoever touches the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet has lost. Wrestlers rub themselves with ash before a bout, which improves the grip and carries ceremonial meaning as well, and they wear only minimal clothing. Winners gain standing in the village; the best wrestlers are carried on shoulders and their names are known to neighbouring peoples too. The custom entered world awareness chiefly through photographs from the middle of the twentieth century, which at the same time created a distorted picture of a closed archaic society. The reality is different: Nuba wrestling takes place in a region marked by long armed conflict and displacement, so its staging is irregular. It has nevertheless survived, and in quieter times the villages return to it.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.