Grima: the machete fencing of Puerto Tejada ^{CEFR B2}

In Puerto Tejada, a mainly Afro‑descendant town in the southern Colombian department of Cauca, a small group of masters preserves an ancestral martial art called grima, or machete fencing. The practice traces to the colonial era, when enslaved Africans working sugarcane fields transformed the machete from a tool into a weapon and a means of self‑defence. Grima blends African martial traditions with European swordplay; practitioners train with a machete in one hand and a defensive stick, the bordón, in the other.

Training takes place at the House of Cacao, home to the Academia de Esgrima de Machete y Bordón. Maestro Miguellourido, a recognised master, says the art has been preserved across generations and calls it "an art of freedom and resistance." Alicia Castillo Lasprilla, an educator and researcher, links grima to cuisine, medicine, music, oral tradition and artisanry, and argues that safeguarding it helps protect broader Afro‑Colombian culture.

Grima faces threats as younger people adopt urban, mestizo culture and the number of masters falls. The practice currently lacks official entry in the National Registry of Colombian Cultural Heritage, so masters and activists, including Maestro Porfirio (who trained under Héctor Elías Sandoval), are campaigning for recognition at municipal, departmental and national levels. Porfirio notes that foreign visitors value the art while the government has not yet recognised it. Activists hope recognition will bring publicity, programmes and funding, but others warn that some heritage listings — for example in Palenque after a UNESCO declaration in 2005 and the commercial effects on viche after its 2021 recognition — have harmed source communities. Meanwhile, masters continue to teach and pass grima to new students at the House of Cacao as the debate over formal recognition continues.