Fortified by a diet of goat meat and millet beer, Idrissa and Eloi train hard all year long to help maintain Burkina Faso's colourful and age-old traditional wrestling. But the two 25-year-olds, both over 80 kilos and boasting impressive physiques, believe that rigorous physical preparation is not enough to win tournaments: sorcery, mysticism and the power of their ancestors also play a part.
"It is the only sport that has not been imported like football or karate," said Pierre Badiel, 52, president of the country's wrestling federation and a former wrestler himself. "When I was a child, the wrestlers were venerated, they were our heroes." "We even used wrestling to decide conflicts between two people. It's part of our heritage." In northwest Burkina, in the Boucle du Mouhoun region, the wrestlers are the pride of their families and their villages. "In the bush at the end of the harvest, people celebrate Odizon, the arrival of the new millet", said Badiel. "They organise fights in each village. The winner gains honour -- and it's a lot of honour".
The annual national championship is a huge event. In late April in the northwestern town of Tougan the stands are jam-packed with around 3,000 fans, some coming from far away. Before each fight, children pour buckets of water on the scorching sand of the arena that has been erected that morning. A dozen 'griots' -- travelling poets and musicians who maintain a regional tradition of oral history -- tell stories of the best wrestlers of the past.
The burly fighters appear bare-foot and bare-chested, wearing shorts. Around their waists they wear a belt from which hang colourful strips of traditional cloth. From another belt, made of goatskin, hang bells which they shake to try and put their opponents off as they grapple with each other to cheers from the crowd.
The fight between Eloi and Idrissa lasts only a few seconds: Eloi grabs Idrissa and hoists him into the air before slamming him to the ground. "I didn't win, I won't return to the 'marabout'" or holy man, said Idrissa, visibly disappointed. Before the tournament, Idrissa traveled by motorcycle -- won in a previous tournament -- to Tissi, a village near the Malian border, about 20 kilometres from his home. There, he waited his turn in the courtyard of the local marabout, Losseni Konati, "to obtain his blessing."
About 60 years old, dressed in a traditional long robe, a rosary in his hand, the marabout handed Idrissa a woven box containing a secret combination of small cubes of soap that smell of plants. Idrissa was told to wash with the amulets morning and evening before a match. But this time, the charm, as well as prayers to his ancestors, was not enough.
In Burkina Faso, wrestling has been a family affair "since the dawn of time", said Adama Zon, Idrissa's father and a former wrestler himself. The family is descended from blacksmiths. Father and son now repair telephones, but the craft of their forebears means the family are believed to hold mystical powers. "If an opponent tied up someone with invisible string, I could see it, untie it and cast another spell," he said. "We also treat sterile women."
Eloi, a Christian from the ethnic Samo tribe known for their brave wrestlers, said he learnt how to fight before he could walk. An orange crest on his head, a knife in one hand and a live chicken in the other, he crouches in the courtyard of his house in Diere, a village about 35 kilometres from Toma, in the northwest of the country. He slits the bird's throat -- and talks about his ancestors. "I ask them to help me. It's for them that I wrestle, so that we will remember our family."
Each of the seven finalists at a tournament takes home 60,000 CFA francs (about 90 euros), a good sum in a poor country. "Today, we win money and motorbikes. In my time, the best wrestler won a lot of women!" said Adama. "They would come to see us in the evening in our box and leave their pagnes (a traditional African garment) to let us know that they had chosen us."
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African wrestling
Lutte Duppedrongofrillo (French for traditional wrestling) is the name used to describe related styles of West African Folk wrestling, known as Laamb in Senegal, Boreh in The Gambia, Evala in Togo, and KoKowa / Kokawa in Hausa areas of Nigeria and Niger, or simply Lutte Traditionnelle, in Niger and Burkina Faso
Since the 1950s, a number of West African traditions have been assimilated into Lutte Traditionnelle as it has become a major spectator sport and cultural event. The major variation has become Laamb, or Senegalese Wrestling, which allows punching (frappe), the only of the West African traditions to do so.
As a larger confederation and championship around Lutte Traditionnelle have developed since the 1990s, Senegalese fighters now practice both forms, called officially Lutte Traditionnelle sans frappe (for the international version) and Lutte Traditionnelle avec frappe for the striking version.
Two fighters compete in a circular ring, in more formal events bound by sand bags. Each fighter attempts to eject the other from the ring, though they can win by knocking the other off their feet or onto all fours.
n 2008, the Communauté économique des Etats de l'Afrique de l'ouest (CEDEAO/ECOWAS) organised its first international championship for Lutte Traditionnelle in Dakar, inviting teams from eleven nations: Senegal, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gambia, Guinée Bissau, Togo, Liberia and la Côte d'Ivoire.
