Camel Wrestling, Turkey

Assalamualaikum.

For my fourth entry, I am going to share to you guys about another unique festival that has been celebrated in Turkey. According to the citizens, they just continuing the tradition of their ancestors which means this festival has been celebrated for such a long time. This tradition is over 2400 years old and every year more and more tourists are joining in the show as they get to learned about this rather unique and odd tradition.

While the Spanish  have bullfights and the Italians cockfights the Turks have camel wrestling. Camel wretling is a sport in which two male Tulu camels wrestle, typically in response to a female camel in heat being led before them. It is most common in the Aegean region of Turkey, but it is also being practiced in other parts of the Middle East and South Asia.

Now we'll move to the history of camel wrestling. 

Camel wrestling is originated among the ancient Turkic tribes over 2,400 years ago. During the 1850's an American military officer was inspired by the popularity of Camel Wrestling in Turkey and set out to establish a Camel Wrestling tournament in Texas. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful due to the part to the start of the American Civil War in 186. in 1920's the Turkish National Aviation league has held Camel fights as fundraisers in order to purchase planes for the Government of Turkey. The government of Turkey began encouraging the competitions as part of Turkey's historic culture. Camel wrestling was also a popular event at the Lahore Horse and Cattle show but on 1961 it was excluded from the program during the visit of Queen Elizabeth II as it was deemed "too fierce" for the Queen.

Enough with the history, lets find out on how the festival takes place

The festival will be held at the beginning of the year or to be precise in January during the mating season due to the motivating factor of a nearby female camel. However, the practice of using a nearby female for motivation is not used as frequently now due to the degree of violence it causes. So, to make the camels be more aggressive the organizers attempted to entangle two camels together or starve the camels.The camels fight by using their necks as leverage to force their opponent to fall down. If his competitor falls to the ground or flees from the fight, he will be declared as the winner.

Camels wrestle with others in their same weight class. They have different tricks and the contest organizers match camels with different skills. There are some camels wrestle from the right and some from left, some will trip their opponent with foot tricks and some trap the other's head under their chest and then try to sit and some push their rivals to make them retreat. In the heat of the tournament, the camels spew foamy saliva in their excitement. Camel wrestling is one of the most popular forms of entertainment among rural villagers in western Turkey to the tourism value. 

However, the popularity of this sport is declining as the relative costs of caring for such animal rises as well as concern for the animals' welfare. Several animals right organization have criticized the practice, characterizing it as cruelty to animals.

Two bull camels wrestle in an arena in Selcuk, Turkey

A wrestling camel adorned with colorful ornament is paraded through the town.