Fight Club – Bali Cockfighting – Cameron Herweynen

Originating as a blood-spilling sacrifice to purify the soil, only in the last 50 years has this cultural ceremony been corrupted by gambling. As men bet everything from money to cars, their home, and in some cases betting (and losing) their wife!

Breathe in the thick dusty cigarette smoke filled air, as tattooed hands wave wads of notes – and bets are placed. Squatting in the centre of the arena, a pair of handlers clutch two crowing gladiators.

With a flurry of feathers that is too swift for the eye to follow the fight gets underway. Two hundred men roar with deafening force at the very first sight that a wound has been inflicted.