The Cora dance has a number of different steps which when in a group seems like a battle march and when they challenge another person to a duel there is a specific procedure that seems to be thread challenge, and fight and then retreat, these moves you can see in the video. The opponents take turn striking the “sables” ( battle axes), some with different degrees of force. I was told that even though these fights were “mock” sometime people can settle scores or get bad feeling out of their system. In terms of injuries , there are many injuries to hands and during the coarse of the next few days lots of men have their hands wrapped with cloths due to injury and bleeding. At least 17 men were taken to the clinic and 1 was evacuated to the hospital some 90 kilometers away. It was interesting to watch the captains and other men converge on a pair of fighters to back them off from hurting each other. The lesson of this to me was that community rules are enforced by the community. Some times the knot of men gathered to stop a fight would be up to 50 men. The guy that seriously injured the other fighter was restrained by the captains and was taken away and put him under house arrest.
At this point the men take over the square and continue to battle all night to the sounds of drums and flutes. There are flute of all sizes and some are made from Plastic tubes and sound like didgeridoos from Australia.
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