Story at the bottom of the page
The Pasola is a confrontation between clans in Sumba Island – Indonesia, Its happens once a year. Some conditions must be met for the Pasola to take place. One of them is that the sea worms must come ashore the morning of the Pasola. If they dont, the Pasola is reported. This unpredictability make it difficult to sell this event to tourists.
The priests (Ratos) gather at sunrise on the beach. If the conditions are met, the omen of each warriors will be assessed by reading the guts of a chicken brought in by the youngest brother of each warrior. The Ratos will decide if this particular warrior can fight or not. The clans wait all year to settle their differences on Pasola day. The feuds have for origin debts unsettled, land sales gone wrong, or dowries unpaid. The warriors fight with javelins, chew bethel nuts – a stimulants that makes their saliva red – and are pretty pissed off from sunrise. The Ratos will line up in front of the the opposite clans ratos and yell abuse at each other until they can’t contain their warriors. The Pasola can now begin…