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The last masters of Afro-Colombian machete fencing
“The legacy of this art is a liberatory one — our people, Black men and women, were principal actors in the fight for freedom throughout Colombia.”
In the Afro-descendant town of Puerto Tejada, in the southern Colombian department of Cauca, a handful of master swordsmen represent one of the last bastions of the traditional martial art called “grima,” or machete fencing. Drawing on African martial traditions merged with European styles of swordplay, Afro-Colombians developed grima — a contraction of the Spanish “esgrima,” meaning fencing — as a practical and distinctive form of self-defense. This is an arduous task, and we’re facing an uphill battle for recognition,” says Maestro Porfirio, who studied under the legendary Héctor Elías Sandoval — a researcher, storyteller, filmmaker, and poet, in addition to a master swordsman.
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