A man and his cock – Amed area, Bali, Indonesia
“I have great, strong cock,” a young man tells me. I tell him I’d love to see it and take some pictures. He leads me to his house where chickens roam freely through the yard.
The cocks don’t, they are kept in cages and fed to become strong. The average cock costs about 13 euros, he has six. His brother has three, one cousin has two, another cousin has four. They’re used for the popular cockfights where two cocks are released in a small cage with each other and fight until one of them dies. The winner returns to it’s cage and gets to fight another day, the loser becomes someone’s dinner. Of the six he has, three have won before and three haven’t fought yet. The owner wins money from the illegal gambling surrounding the cockfights. I ask him to take me to a fight. “Now is no good,” he tells me, the police have made an issue out of it and are actively looking for the illegal gamblers and cockfights. He explains they do that sometimes. I ask why sometimes. He says most of the time they gamble along with the rest.
– Owner kept out of picture for obvious reasons
