page_title: Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight
section_title: Culture of cockfights
hierarchical_section_title: Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight / Culture of cockfights
caption_attribution_description: English: Cockfighting
context_page_description: "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" is an essay included in the book The Interpretation of Cultures, written by anthropologist Clifford Geertz. The essay, which is considered Geertz's most seminal work, addresses the symbolism and social dynamics of cockfighting in Balinese culture. It is an important example of Geertz's use of "thick description" as an anthropological approach.
context_section_description: In "Of Cocks and Men," the second section, the essay describes how cocks are taken to stand in for powerful men in the villages. He notes that even the double-entendre sense of the word "cock" ("Sabung," which also means "hero," "man parts," and "champion") exists in the Balinese language as much as in English. He also wrote of the intimate connection that many Balinese men have with their cocks, which includes grooming them, feeding them, observing them, and discussing them amongst each other. Geerz wrote, "cocks are symbolic expressions or magnifications of their owner's self, the narcissistic male ego writ out in Aesopian terms, they are also expressions--and rather more immediate ones--of what the Balinese regard as the direct inversion, aesthetically, morally, and metaphysically, of human status: animality."
  In "The Fight," the third section, the essay describes how cocks are sheltered and fed in preparation of matches, followed by a description of the matches and their rules. The last half of the essay describes the rituals of betting (toh). He concludes that the cockfight serves as the Balinese commentary on themselves, as it embodies the network of social relationships in kin and village that govern traditional Balinese life.
  The title of the essay is explained as a concept of British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), who defines "deep play" as a game with stakes so high that no rational person would engage in it. The amounts of money and status involved in the very brief cockfights make Balinese cockfighting "deep play." The problem of explaining why the activity prevails is what Geertz sets out to solve in the essay.
caption: Example of a cockfight in Bali circa 1958.
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