Camel rings
Camel wrestling ( Turk . Deve güreşi ) is the traditional camel fighting in western Anatolia. This originally possibly Yörük tradition has been documented since Ottoman times. Camel wrestling only takes place in the provinces south of the Marmara Sea in the Aegean region and southeast to Antalya ; it is not common in the rest of Anatolia. There are several well-known festivals, one of the most popular is that of Selçuk near the ancient city of Ephesus .
The fighting camels are a cross of two different species, a two-humped camel on the paternal side and a single-humped camel on the maternal side. These wrestling camels are called tülü . At least nowadays, they are almost always imported from abroad, mostly from Iran, but also from Afghanistan, Pakistan or other Asian countries, although there is also a breeding farm in Turkey (near Antalya ). The camel keepers are called savran .
competition
The fights always take place during the rutting season of the camels, i.e. in the winter months, mainly between January and March.
The day before the competition, the camels are traditionally decorated and presented - musically accompanied by Zeybek melodies by Davul and Zurna . The competition itself is held in a kind of open, sandy arena outside the city and takes on the form of a folk festival, with the spectators, often families, grilling meat and drinking the local rakish liquor at the same time .
In the competition, two male camels compete against each other. There are no binding rules. The size of the battlefield is also not fixed. A trio of referees is present at every fight. The camels have their mouths tied. This task falls to the so-called "binders" ( bağlayıcılar ). The arbitration tribunal is responsible for checking this. The task of intervening and separating the animals is taken over by the urgancı , the rope holders.
The winner is the camel that pushes the adversary away, makes them scream or brings them down. The camel owners can break off the fight at any time and thus give up. To do this, throw the retaining rope in the middle. Then the camels are separated with ropes. The average fight time is five minutes.
criticism
Some Turkish animal welfare groups describe the competition as animal cruelty and want to have it banned; the camel keepers, for their part, point out that the camels will not suffer any harm or injuries during the fight. The Turkish law expressly forbids "animals fighting against each other" (dog and cockfighting are illegal), but allows an exception for "traditional spectacles for folklore purposes that do not involve the use of violence", which the organizers believe includes camel fighting.
literature
- Ali Fuat Aydin: A brief introduction to the camel wrestling events in Western Turkey. SOAS Camel Conference, University of London, May 24, 2011
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Krumbacher, Greek Journey , 1886
- ↑ La Vanguardia, January 2, 2020