Pasola: a Mounted Spear-Fighting Competition
Sumba Island
For the Sumbanese, pasola is what soccer is for the English. One can even imagine that if pasola originated in England it would have spread across the entire world.
The game is a competition between two riders who throw spears at one another. In fact, the word «pasola» translates as «spear.» A legend says that this horseback game was first created by the residents of one Sumbanese village in order to console their chief, who was grieving the loss of a beloved. Unlike the dull spears that are used for this sport today, in the past, the participants used real spears with metal spearheads. The blood that as a result was shed in great abundance was considered sacrifice to the deities and spirits, and was supposed to fertilize the soil before the new rice-planting season. Today pasola is played every year in February or March in nine different parts of the island.
The ritual that determines an auspicious day for pasola takes place two weeks before the game. Because of this floating date it is difficult for international tourists to plan a visit to Sumba that would coincide with the festival. An important social aspect of pasola is that on the day of the game all family members gather together. On the eve of pasola one can behold a colorful sight: riders with spears in hand galloping along the road against sunset, going home.
The pasola opening ceremony takes place at dawn on the ocean shore. Every element of the ceremony is an aspect of an ancient ritual, which means it is often incomprehensible to foreign guests. Only select participants—men and the children from their clans, I was told—are allowed to take part in the morning rite. The section of the beach where the ritual is to take place is marked by twigs dug into the sand, and all strangers are asked to vacate the area. Approximately twenty men and children have arrived before dawn, and in the beginning no activities took place. As the sun rose, the rite’s participants began to crack open the coconuts they had brought with them, drink coconut water, and eat rice. It must have been a ritual meal accompanied by prayer.
After this, eight or ten riders galloped to the site and stopped, waiting for the arrival of the community leader. He arrived mounted on a horse that had been selected as the lead animal for the holiday. Taking the horse by the bridle, the animal's owner and the master of ceremonies approached the waterline and stood there for several minutes, watching the ocean and praying. After that, the community leader and one of the participants in the ceremony mounted their horses, rode several circles around the beach, and threw lances at each other, thereby symbolically marking the beginning of the game. Immediately afterward all the riders mounted their horses and galloped, shouting, to the site of the competition. All the participants of the morning ritual also headed to the site on foot.
The competition takes place in a large field encircled by spectators. There are also risers for guests of honor. Pasola is most reminiscent of a major sporting event when it comes to its attributes: the participants, the officialdom, the audience, the police officers, and the food and beverage vendors. Several ambulances are parked on the side—pasola trauma is quite common.
Two clashes are taking place on a large field. Two teams of approximately 40 riders are competing against each other. Each of the riders is actively moving around the field and throwing his spear trying to hit a member of the opposing team while at the same time dodging the spears that are launched at him. The audience greets successful throws with shouts the way it would greet a goal scored against an opponent. People tasked with the job are running through the field among the horses, picking up spears, and handing them back to the riders. I saw one of them get hit by a spear. A dangerous task!
Most of the time the competition carried on in a rather orderly fashion: one or two horsemen would gallop out of the groups that faced each other, and, rushing past their opponents, would throw their lances at them. But at one point the action on the field turned into a veritable combat scene. Almost everyone in the two teams began to attack the others, shouting loudly and throwing their spears at close range. The emcee yelled through the loudspeakers, beseeching the players to stop the battle. When eventually police officers helped break up the fight, a break was announced. They say there have been incidents when at the end of a game of pasola the competition would turn into a wrestling match, and that occasionally it would be fatal.
One has to mention separately the fans. In my estimation there were about 10,000 people in the audience. They were very emotional! They shouted, they gestured vigorously. Many watched from the hillocks fairly far from the field, and paid attention primarily to the playing tactics, which are hard to follow for an outsider. Some of the spectators arrived at the site of the pasola game on foot, some rode in open public transportation trucks packed to the gills. At the end of the game there was a long line of those trucks, trying to leave. Of course there were foreign tourists, too. But one can definitely say that pasola is not performed for the tourists, and that only the hotel owners and tour agency employees pay any attention to them.
