Joc maonès: a Menorcan martial art
Joc maonès (which means "game from Maó" in Catalan) is a fighting technique that comes from the Eastern part of the island of Menorca (Balearic Islands) and mostly the city of Maó.
Similarly to boxing or martial arts, it's "played" with two people who fight each other through arm and leg movements. Players know certain movements to attack, others to parry, and others to counterattack. The most valued things are surprise attacks and a quick reaction to the rival's movements, and being respectful towards the rival, attacking without getting hurt nor injuring the rival. The series of movements that the players learn are done in response to the rival's movements, which means that two skilled players are very unlikely to injure each other because they're reacting to each other with standardized series of movements. There's no referee, so the game goes on until the players have made it clear who has played the best. At that point, the game finishes with a winner that they both agreed on, and the game can restart, and repeat as many times as they want.
It's not clear how old joc maonès is or how it started. Collective memory says that it was typically played by harbour workers and sailors, but no written documents talk about its origin (which isn't surprising considering it was a working class hobby). Elderly people who practised the game and remember what their masters told them about how they got started would take it to at least the mid-1800s, but it's not possible to trace it further back with oral memory. There are different theories that explain its possible origin:
Some say that it derives from older forms of karate or kungfu which would be brought to Menorca in the 1700s, when the island was a British possession and an important British navy port in the Mediterranean. It might have been brought by East Asian people who were also British subjects, or by British sailors themselves.
Others say that joc maonès derives from chausson or jeu marseillaise, a kind of boxing typical from Provence, but joc maonès also has similarities with English boxing. This origin would be explained by the French and British dominations of the island in the 1700s. Boxing was popular in France and the UK in the 1600s and 1700s, that's when the first rules for British "bare-knuckle boxing" (1719) and French "savate" (1794) date from.
While French savate uses kicks and other leg movements, British boxing is focused on arms. For this reason, joc maonès is more similar to French savate. Some theories say that French boxing might have arrived to Menorca in the 1700s or in the early 1800s, either from the southern coast of France or from Northern Africa (French colony at the time). Neither shore is far from Menorca, and the island was integrated in trading routes relating to both, particularly the cereal trade in Northern Africa. In the early 1800s, there was also a significant Menorcan emigration to Algiers. However, savate is more simple than joc maonès, and this alone doesn't explain the similarities with East Asian martial arts, so some add that those influences would have been brought by the British.
In any case, joc maonès has its own characteristics, so regardless of its origin it evolved in Menorca and became its own discipline.
The earliest depiction of joc maonès might be this large oil painting made by an anonymous artist in 1835, titled "Storehouse in Maó harbour".
This painting, kept in Menorca's Museum, represents the Eastern harbour of Maó. It has 112 people who represent all the different social classes (bourgeoisie, clergy, sailors, workers) and jobs that take place in the harbour, each one with the clothes they wore and some carrying the tools their job used. The second term shows the process of distilling alcohol. In the back, the Dutch consulate.
In the centre, there's two sailors fighting, surrounded by people watching them. The position of their legs is exactly the "on guard" position in joc maonès, but it's a very simple position so it's also possible that it happened by chance and it represents any simple fight.
Joc maonès reached its peak in popularity in the 1910s-1930s among young working class men in Eastern Menorca. However, the game was forbidden by the fascist dictatorship that emerged from the Spanish Civil War in 1939. People kept practising it in secret, usually in garages, but by the 1960s it has fallen out of popularity.
Nowadays, there only about 12 masters left, all of them over 60 years old. A few hundreds more (including some women) have practised it but are not knowledgeable not enough to pass down the discipline. Many young people from Menorca, and many people of all ages in Western Menorca, don't know what joc maonès is.
Information and 1st photo: Patrimoni Cultural Immaterial de Menorca. Second photo: David Arquimbau/EFE. "Storehouse in Maó harbour" painting: Museu de Menorca.
