It's Now Too Hot for Bareknuckle Boxing in Africa

Christmas morning in New York City felt like mid-spring. No, that's not entirely right. Christmas morning in New York City felt like the end of days. Outside my window trees were budding, dew was on the grass, god was in his heaven, and everything was falling apart. Every bird on the wing and every flower in bloom was an alarm bell going off: The seas are rising, the ice caps are melting, and it's all our fault. I don't even celebrate Christmas and my Christmas was ruined.

And not just Christmas. Other great traditions were buckling under the weight of global warming this weekend as well, unforgiving weather conditions mocking them as surely as they mocked our dreams of fiery hearths and snow-dappled carolers. Things have gotten so bad that even bareknuckle boxing in rural South Africa collapsed in the face of the world's new impossible heat. Nothing is sacred.

Right now, in the fields of Tshifudi, a small village in the Limpopo province of South Africa, the Venda people are in the midst of their weeks-long New Year's festivities, and by tradition those festivities should be revolving around the bare-knuckle boxing fights known as Musangwe. Hundreds of spectators should be gathering around the makeshift fighting pits in the fields on the outskirts of town, howling as the men of the village swing wildly at each other. And those men should be fighting until blood is shed, a knockout occurs, or one of the fighters gives up, those being the rules of Musangwe—along with no guns, no knives, and no kickboxing. Muti, or witchcraft, is permitted.

This is what should be going on in Tshifudi: days of fistfights as culturally significant and beloved as carol-singing or tree-trimming. But just as temperate weather conditions made a joke of Christmas here on the east coast, extreme heat in Limpopo is threatening the Venda's Musangwe fights. On Thursday in Tshifudi it was 101 degrees, and festival organizer Tshilidzi "Poison" Ndevane said that some fighters, brave and reckless men who would happily risk their lives in the name of honor, were hiding out under trees like delicate flowers. "It is very hot, temperatures are very high," Ndevane said, adding that even many spectators had given up on the fights and sought out shade.

It's strange that the Musangwe fights, which have been used by the Venda for centuries to help prepare men for the struggles of life and to prevent what one fight organizer calls "naughty boys" from "turning to some silly things that could land them in jail"—both a highlight of the Venda social calendar and an act of social service!—could be derailed by a little heat, but this is the way things go these days, I guess. Because of our carelessness, because of our wild indifference, because of our centuries-old all-consuming blind orgiastic narcissistic industrial fever, we can no longer have the nice things that bring us together during the holiday season and fill our hearts with joy: not snowflakes falling, not chestnuts roasting, and not angry young men beating each other senseless in a field in South Africa.