The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) shut­tled the en­tire stick­fight­ing com­pe­ti­tion in 2020 af­ter a dis­agree­ment over the pay­ment of fees to the fight­ers could not be re­solved. Bois men com­plained then, on Feb­ru­ary 7, that de­spite their skill, and will­ing­ness to put their safe­ty at risk, they are not treat­ed with re­spect.

Some be­lieved the can­cel­la­tion of the stick­fight­ing com­pe­ti­tion sig­nalled the be­gin­ning of the end for the in­dige­nous mar­tial art.

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, to ad­ver­tise the se­mi-fi­nals the NCC used an im­age of a for­mer King of the Rock, David Matthew Brown to ad­ver­tise the com­pe­ti­tion which was then abort­ed. In a grim fore­telling of his fu­ture, Brown's life was cut short mere months lat­er on June 21. His mur­der re­mains un­solved.

Brown was shot in the chest and died in the bed­room of a fe­male friend the ini­tial po­lice re­port de­scribed as his wife. His killer stood out­side the bed­room win­dow to fire the fa­tal bul­let. More than a year lat­er the case of who killed him and why is still be­ing ac­tive­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Brown's death is not the on­ly trag­ic loss to the stick­fight­ing fra­ter­ni­ty. Ju­ly 31, 2021, just a lit­tle more than a month af­ter Brown's mur­der, marked the sec­ond an­niver­sary of the shoot­ing death of an­oth­er cham­pi­on stick­fight­er Karl "King Kali" Swamber.

But David Matthew Brown re­mains a leg­end among stick­fight­ers. He had many names. He was known as King David, Acid or King Acid.

For Brown's friends and ad­mir­ers, the fact that his case re­mains un­solved is par­tic­u­lar­ly galling. Moru­ga is a small vil­lage, and ru­mours abound as to what hap­pened to a man that many de­scribed as one of the best to have en­tered the gayelle.

In his lat­er years, he was an avid teacher of stick­fight­ing. In an in­ter­view record­ed by his stu­dent Kee­gan Tay­lor in 2019, he speaks of giv­ing "ven­omous" en­cour­age­ment to his stu­dents. He lat­er ex­pands on his love of teach­ing say­ing that some of his pro­teges en­ter the gayelle think­ing that they know what to ex­pect, that they have what it takes...But it is on­ly through train­ing that they can come to un­der­stand the sport, and them­selves.

Jamie Philbert, a point­er, or di­rec­tor of Bois Acad­e­my, an or­gan­i­sa­tion that was cre­at­ed in 2010 by Kee­gan Tay­lor and Ron­del Ben­jamin to bring stick­fight­ing, or kalin­da, out of the shad­ows in­to the light agrees with Brown's sen­ti­ments.

Brown, she says, was "an ex­am­ple of what a bois per­son is in­side of our space." He was "a rebel, com­plete and to­tal. He was the epit­o­me of lib­er­a­tion."

Philbert does the work "that helps peo­ple bet­ter un­der­stand what kalin­da ac­tu­al­ly is, be­cause, in the space, peo­ple on­ly know it as stick fight­ing."

She prefers to use the word kalin­da be­cause "this is a spir­i­tu­al prac­tice," she says. "This is a way of life."

David Matthew Brown

'It is very hard to be a kalin­da per­son in this space'

While Philbert and her as­so­ciates sup­port and pro­mote kalin­da and its prac­ti­tion­ers, Trinidad does not seem to have a lot of sym­pa­thy or re­spect for stick­fight­ers.

In Philbert's own words, it is "very hard to be a kalin­da per­son in this space (Trinidad)."

On that Fri­day night in the Ari­ma Velo­drome in 2020 when the NCC stick­fight­ing com­pe­ti­tion end­ed long be­fore it ever be­gan, bois man Ter­rance Mar­cano, who com­ment­ed on both the im­passe and on how they are per­ceived by the ad­min­is­tra­tion and the pub­lic, said, "They done call­ing us pipers al­ready. Give we some­thing. Up­lift we! This is we game, up­lift we."

Moses Ralph of the Moru­ga A Gayelle was more di­rect. "NCC so long know­ing war­riors. See­ing how they die. See­ing that a man lost a fin­ger. A man dam­aged, and if they don't have that con­sid­er­a­tion among stick war­riors, they have no heart."

NCC has as its vi­sion to make Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val the glob­al leader. Its mis­sion is "to pre­serve the tra­di­tion­al her­itage of Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val whilst en­sur­ing its sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment as a vi­able in­dus­try." But mak­ing our Car­ni­val a "vi­able, na­tion­al, cul­tur­al and com­mer­cial en­ter­prise" has been a chal­lenge. Most com­pe­ti­tions are state-fund­ed, and Car­ni­val or­gan­i­sa­tions are more known for their de­pen­dence on gov­ern­ment funds than for their self-re­liance.

Dar­i­an Mar­celle is the NCC com­mis­sion­er with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Re­gion­al Car­ni­val and Tra­di­tion­al Mas. De­spite the can­cel­la­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion in 2020, he said, "NCC will nev­er not be in­volved in stick­fight­ing, but the ques­tion is in what role?"

Mar­celle was on site on the night that the event was can­celled and could be seen con­fer­ring with fight­ers. He said there was nev­er any at­tempt by the body to not pay the fight­ers. A mis­take was made and their cheques were left be­hind in er­ror. "This was sim­ply, you know be­cause is Car­ni­val, there is so much go­ing on and it's sim­ply a pack­age was left, was for­got­ten, and the staff went for it, so it was on its way," he ex­plained.

For fight­ing in the pre­lim­i­nary round, each stick­fight­ing gayelle, which is made up of a man­ag­er and three fight­ers, was en­ti­tled to $3,800. Mar­celle in recog­ni­tion of the er­ror of­fered to pay the fight­ers for their trans­port as well, but the of­fer was re­ject­ed. "I mean there's a time where you have to draw the line," he says. "You can't hold us to ran­som. We love stick­fight­ing. We love it. It's part of us, but the NCC has a re­mit, and you have to draw the line some­where. As painful as it was."

Mar­celle said the time may have come for in­de­pen­dent pro­mot­ers to step up to the plate. That they may have to take up some of the work to make stick­fight­ing more at­trac­tive to the main­stream. To ad­ver­tis­ers and au­di­ences be­cause the work of the NCC may on­ly go so far.

But Brown's cousin and stick­fight­er Ray­mond De Leon who is al­so a NCC ring­mas­ter for their of­fi­cial com­pe­ti­tions isn't sure that in­de­pen­dent pro­duc­ers can lift that load with­out the as­sis­tance of the State, al­though he is aware that even the State has its lim­i­ta­tions.

"Right now in­de­pen­dent peo­ple ent re­al­ly have the funds to sup­port it, right? The Gov­ern­ment much bet­ter," he says. "What hap­pen, as peo­ple say, the mon­ey not re­al­ly quite cor­rect, but is what the Gov­ern­ment give NCC. It's what they (have to) work with," De Leon says.

The sit­u­a­tion, much like Brown's mur­der, re­mains un­re­solved.

Raymond De Leon and son with stickfighting gear.

Play­ing in the gayelle

When we met up with reign­ing King of the Rock Roger Sam­bury and De Leon in Moru­ga on a Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon in Ju­ly, they took up their bois and car­rayed in the street for our cam­eras.

The can­cel­la­tion of the 2020 com­pe­ti­tion meant that Sam­bury re­tains the ti­tle he fought for and won in 2019. Speak­ing about Brown, he says, "This last year be­fore he die, he stand up with me. We gone Ma­yaro, me, Acid and Ray­mond, and every­body back­ing. Every­body back­ing in Ma­yaro. Hear me nah! Next year he come and he die. It hurt me in my heart, you know."

Sam­bury said in the year pre­ced­ing Brown's death he tried to get him back in­to the ring by form­ing a gayelle with him and De Leon.

"In 2019 Acid re­al per­form. Like, I don't know like some­times in life, peo­ple know they go­ing to meet their mak­er, they does see a sign," Ray­mond De Leon says.

"And 2019, Acid re­al per­form and he sup­port Roger Sam­bury re­al big. Be­cause of what he had done, he in­spires Roger that he could go for­ward more."

When Brown first of­fered to train Sam­bury, ini­tial­ly he wasn't too sure about it. "I say boy, you can't show me things, cause this is a...some­thing where you pick up your na­ture, your style." But he re­lent­ed. "And the shot where I prac­tice with Acid, me ent let go that yet," he says with a smile.

The reign­ing King of the Rock is com­ing back with a se­cret weapon when­ev­er gayelles re­open. "Them stick­man ent know what I com­ing with yet!" he says.

Sam­bury said when he told his cousins that he want­ed to step in­to the gayelle, they warned him not to, but the call was too strong. "My cousins tell me I's a mad man, what you like that for? But it in my blood. This is a gen­er­a­tion thing, you know?"

De Leon's sons were with him when we vis­it­ed. He said they al­ready love the sport and he would not pre­vent them from en­ter­ing the gayelle when they get old­er. De Leon said he no longer wants to be a ring­mas­ter to ref­er­ee the bouts. "I doubt very much I will be do­ing ring mas­ter­ing. I want to go and play in the gayelle."

The teacher in David Matthew Brown may be thrilled to see the fight to en­sure kalin­da pros­pers de­spite its chal­lenges.