There was and still is stickfighting all throughout the Americas.

In Trinidad it is a national event during carnival. My roommate says his uncle was a stickfighting champion as a child. (Of course he doesn´t know how to :-()

See this article from here http://209.94.197.2/feb99/feb9/features.htm:

No challengers for Ras Munifa
story and photo by TREVOR BURNETT

HER husband once dared to step into the ring with her and she drew blood with one blow.
A woman who took the chance of challenging her also ended up with a bust head. Up to last Friday evening, another woman's brother-in-law begged for her after the woman almost rushed in where angels fear to tread.


That's the kind of reputation female stickfighter Ras Munifa has earned herself-and that's why she remains unchallenged for her stickfight crown this Carnival.


Ras Munifa was christened Ucil Munifa Benjamin. She hails from Cleaver Woods, D'Abadie.


This Carnival, Ras Munifa has sent out an open challenge to any woman to step into the gayelle with her. The 34-year-old stickfighter was born in the village of Erin. Her father, Eugene Benjamin, was also a stickfighter who ironically tried to discourage his children from stickfighting.


Ras Munifa explained: "It was not until we moved to Talparo at the age of 17 that I became actively involved in stickfighting through King Frederick and his family.


"As straightforward as it sounds, stickfighting requires a lot of technique," she said.


"First your wood or bois must be sturdy, cut in the right moon and well-balanced.


"Your choice of songs with the drummers must set you in the right mood for your dancing feet when 'karraying'.



Ras Munifa, the champion female stickfighter, goes through her shadow training with calypsonian Scrunter outside her Cleaver Woods, D'Abadie home.


"Then there is the wrist movement for the execution of the shots and the setting up of an opponent by duping him into flaws and countering swiftly.


"I shadow-train hard and have no friends in the gayelle, because the old rule is, 'if yuh cyah play, doh play'.


"Some years ago I remembered my then common-law husband, Waldron 'Beta Boy' Fredericks, opposed me because women wouldn't fight me and I 'bust' his head with a clean blow," she recalled.
Ras Munifa has fought in gayelles all over Trinidad and Tobago, but usually in exhibition bouts with men because women bluntly refuse to fight with her.


The last stickfight she had with a woman was in Point Fortin in 1991.


"It was a Friday evening," she says, "passing through Point with some friends when we heard a commotion outside a shop.


"There was a woman gallerying with a stick in a gayelle with $250 on the ground. I called the drummers for my stickfight song, 'Gayelle, Gin-Gin', made my challenge and set up the woman, feinting to the left, then feinting to the right. And as she was open, I surprised her by pulling my bois behind her head, busting her head and the fight was over.


"Last Friday night in Dinsley Junction, Tacarigua, I almost got a fight.


"On my arrival, there was this woman gallerying with a bois and suddenly she bend down and take up the money in the gayelle and put it in her bosom.


"I stopped her dead in her tracks and told her 'woman, yuh don't pick up money in the gayelle without busting my head'...and the gayelle got hot.


"A man came to me and apologised on her behalf, claiming to be her brother-in-law and told me she was drunk," Ras Munifa said.


Ras Munifa will be on exhibition at the Arima Priority Mall gayelle at the national stickfighting championships tomorrow night. On Saturday, she will also be present for the open gayelle at Scrunter's Forest in Sangre Grande from 10 a.m.

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another one http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Places/places_East-Port-of-Spain_history.htm: