It’s not bullfighting’s big leagues. But in small-town
California, a handful of passionate people like Dennis Borba give the dramatic clash between man and beast life in the United States.
Borba, outfitted in his ”traje de luces,” the snug ”suit of lights” meant to keep horns from snaring the garment, says a traditional pre-fight prayer and checks on his ”banderillas.”
These poles are traditionally capped with brightly coloured fringe and with metal spikes on their opposite end, and from Madrid to Mexico City are lunged into a bull’s neck area at the climax of a fight. Crimson bull’s blood often splatters over the torero and the sand.
But this is California.
People aren’t supposed to go around killing animals for sport. So Borba, back in 1980, invented ”banderillas” that have velcro on their tips instead of the sharp metal tips that pierce the bull’s flesh. They catch onto special patches that are put over the bulls’ haunches.
”Putting in banderillas is a crowd pleaser and bullfighting essentially is entertainment,” says Borba, a breed apart as an American bullfighter who has been in the ring for 15 years.
US laws do not permit bullfights in which the animals are killed. And in 1957, the state of California outlawed all such fights.
But two years later, members of the local Portuguese community managed to get authorities to accept a variation of the fights that are held in their country — in which the animals are not killed — which are traditionally held on some religious holidays.
”Bullfights are an important part of the social life of these (California) communities,” said Marilia Coquim Wiget, president of the Sacramento Portuguese Cultural and Historic Society, referring to events held in towns such as Stevinson, Thornton and Gustine.
Nowadays, she said, ”they are held during summer festival times. It is a show, everybody is there and it does not serve as much a religious ritual function.”
Bullfighters from around the world — particularly from Mexico, Spain and Portugal — have dropped in to check out the California breed of fight.
Of course, it takes them a while to get used to the velcro tips, Borba smiles.
Still, ”those guys get their bones broken all the time (fighting in California), because the animals are not jabbed” with the banderillas, says Coleman Cooney, who runs the only bullfighting academy in the United States in San Diego.
”Those bullfighters get caught, they get crushed, they get tossed and they fight some big bulls up there,” he said.
The San Diego school is lobbying for the legalisation of the traditional bullfight, to the bloody end.
For now, it seems a rather distant goal. ”It is disappointing, because I think it is a matter of personal freedom and I think people in America misunderstand the nature of bullfighting,” Cooney said.
”We really appreciate what the Portuguese community has done, working with legislators in California to effectively create a dispensation for that form of bullfighting, but it doesn’t have much to do with us,” he explained.
For Cooney, there’s no fight without the fatal finish.
”We don’t think it’s any different than eating … if you are an active meat eater, you are as engaged in animal cruelty as a torero who kills the bull,” he argues.
Borba is proud of his velcro bullfighting innovation. But he says he is also convinced a ”fighting bull is born to die in the sand.” – Sapa-AFP