Kholekile Nonyukela showing off his stick fighting skills. Photo by Siyabonga Kalipa.
8 July 2014
Traditional stick fighting is one of the sports being taught to children in the school holiday programme set up by the City of Cape Town.
The City has about 500 programmes in six districts from 30 June 2014 to 18 July 2014. The programmes are divided into outdoor programmes such as soccer, netball, basketball, cricket and hockey, and indoor programmes such as board games, gymnastics, rope skipping, karate, pool, and indigenous games.
The Xhosa traditional game of stick fighting is one of the indigenous games offered.
Stick fighting was traditionally practised by herd boys. In Xhosa stick fighting, each fighter has two sticks, one for defence and the other for offence.
Zulu stick fighting is played with one stick and a shield.
Traditionally stick fighting was used to measure who was the stronger of the two fighters. But in modern times stick fighting is used to celebrate in weddings and when a young man comes back from the bush. It is still mostly practised in the Eastern Cape and more rarely seen in the Western Cape.
“We are trying to bring stick fighting back to our communities. It is part of our culture and children these days don’t know much about it,” said Jabu Mdlankomo, a facilitator at Bardale Multipurpose Centre one of the City’s holiday programme venues.
“It is something new to most of the children here. Some love it but others are afraid of getting hurt. We will continue to teach them so they can also pass it down to others after them,” said Mdlankomo.
Eighteen year old Kholekile Nonyukela said, “It’s my first time stick fighting and I loved it. It is part of who I am as a young Xhosa man. I won’t stop stick fighting and I’m not scared of getting hurt - injuries are part of sports.”
The board games in the programme include the local Morabaraba which is similar to chess but not as complicated and the pieces used are very different. A player wins by cleaning out the opponent’s pieces.
Bonga Sobekwa, 15, said, “I’ve never seen this game before. I saw it here for the first time and it is not difficult to learn. It is my favourite game at the centre.”