The following excerpt is from Whitman Mead’s Travels in North America [1820.]
The author refers to an incident he witnessed in 1817
while travelling though Georgia.
Such gatherings, according to Mead, occurred 2-3 times
per week where folks would gather to fellowship, feast, drink, dance, gamble, exchange
wares, and often following the ever-present horse-race a public challenge may
be issued.
At which time:
“A ring is
formed, free for anyone to enter and fight…After a few rounds, they generally clinch,
throw down, bite and gouge, and the conquered creeps out under the ring as a signal
of his submission.”
Mead tells of meeting several past combatants who had
noses bitten off, eyes gouged out, and more than a few who had been castrated
in such affairs.
Many of these now unsavory tactics were not mere desperation
moves in the heat-of-battle but sought for targets-of-acquisition with their
own strategy and methods.
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