"In Bali, to be teased is to be accepted."
The day after the police raided a cockfight in the village, the locals poked fun at the way Geertz and his wife fled with them instead of showing the police their "papers" and claiming special status. Here, Geertz remarks that these jests were in fact the Balinese way of welcoming Geertz and his wife into their community, as they had previously only approached them with apathy and boredom.
"For it is only apparently cocks that are fighting there. Actually, it is men."
In this quotation, Geertz reminds readers of one of the essay's major themes: the disparity between appearances and reality. Here, Geertz asserts that while it may seem to outsiders like cockfights are nothing more than brutal sport, there is actually a lot more at stake – specifically, the status and respect of the men whose cocks are in the ring.
"We're all cock crazy."
Geertz amusedly quotes the Chieftain of the village where he stayed, emphasizing that the double entendre of the word "cock" is as operative in Balinese language as it is in English. This quotation also, however, underscores how pervasive the practice of cockfighting is in Bali: the Chieftain suggests that cockfighting – along with caring for the cocks and wagering – is a fundamental aspect of Balinese culture.
"The center bet is a means, a device, for creating 'interesting,' 'deep' matches, not the reason, or at least not the main reason, why they are interesting."
As Geertz explains the rules and trends of wagering during cockfights, he comes to this conclusion. Here, Geertz asserts that the center bet and side bets are not only related, but also intricately reliant on one another – indeed, the center bet becomes the very means by which fights become interesting, as the higher stakes of the center usually reflect a relatively even match and therefore influence the wagering in the crowd.
"What makes Balinese cockfighting deep is thus not money itself, but... the migration of the Balinese status hierarchy into the body of the cockfight."
In this quotation, Geertz approaches the first half of his final conclusion, which is that cockfighting in Balinese culture is a reflection of the culture itself. This quotation is a distilled example of symbolic anthropology – for which Geertz is now well-known – in which studies are conducted of symbols in order to better understand the intricacies of a specific culture or region.
"The cocks may be surrogates for their owners' personalities... but the cockfight is... a simulation of the social matrix."
Here, Geertz distinguishes between the operation of cockfighting on an individual and society level. As previously discussed, the cocks themselves are often perceived as extensions of their (male) owners. But, Geertz argues, the importance of cockfighting goes beyond simply identifying the cocks as particular men. Instead, Geertz suggests that the entire fight – including the nurturing of the cocks, the strict rules, and the wagering that occurs both inside and outside the ring – is a recreation of Balinese society at large.
"The more a match is 1) between near status equals, 2) between high status individuals, the deeper the match."
In this quotation, Geertz distills his findings about wagering into a straightforward conclusion about deep play. He explains that the "deepest" match one could find would be between two high but equal status individuals. It is important to notice that it is the individual hierarchy, and not the specific characteristics of the cocks, that dictate the phenomenon of deep play.
"Whatever the cockfight says, it says in spurts."
Geertz makes a point to note that cockfighting is not a permanent or long-lasting phenomenon. Indeed, despite the wagering that takes place during matches, cockfighting does not actually alter the status quo or social hierarchy. Here, Geertz suggests that the symbolic nature of cockfighting reveals itself sporadically to an outsider, just as the Balinese do. Geertz goes onto explain that Balinese daily life is predicated on the extremes of "something" happening and "nothing" happening at all.
"It is a Balinese reading of Balinese experience: a story they tell themselves about themselves."
In one of his final conclusions about his subject, Geertz compares the Balinese cockfight to literature and to storytelling. This quotation encompasses his broader and more nuanced argument that cockfighting is both a reflection of Balinese society and a creator of it, a portrayal and a generator all at once.
"In the cockfight, then, the Balinese forms and discovers his temperament and his society's temper at the same time."
As the article concludes, Geertz returns to thinking about his subject through the lens of the individual. Having argued that cockfighting is both a reflection of Balinese society and a producer of its structures, Geertz imagines that an individual who grows up around cockfighting is simultaneously influenced by his own society and able to "read" his society as if from the outside.
