If you like festivals, you will love Spain. A taste for the
theatrical and a largely benign climate give the Spanish every excuse to head
out and celebrate events from the sacred to the downright strange. Some of the
more high-profile bizarre spectacles include grown men encouraging tetchy bulls
to chase them (Fiesta San Fermin in Pamplona) and the sea of pizza topping that
the Valencian town of Buñol becomes during the annual tomato-throwing fest of
La Tomatina, but here are a half-dozen of the quirkier ones you may not have
heard of:
Goat Throwing
A curiously large number of Spanish festivals seem to
involve either animals or throwing things, but the Vicente de Martir festival
goes one better by doing both. Held in
Manganeses de la Polvorosa, in the province of Zamora, in northern Spain, the
event is so controversial that it has been banned, and villagers have been
threatened with heavy fines if they continue to celebrate St. Vincent’s Day
(22nd January) by throwing a live goat from a bell tower 50 feet up. Not surprisingly, animal rights activists are
appalled by the activity, even though a tarpaulin beneath the tower is designed
to catch the goat.
For anybody wondering whether there is a reason for all this
goat madness, the practice commemorates a particularly famous local goat, which
wandered into the bell tower one Sunday and leaped out in fright when the bell
rang for Mass, only to land on a tarpaulin below.
Despite the ban on goat-flinging, councillors claim they
cannot be held accountable for the actions of those who engage in the
practice. The participants are usually
teenagers who show equal disregard for the ban on goat-flinging and the ban on
underage drinking.
Baby Jumping
You really have to see this one to believe it, but here goes
anyway: Every June, the people of
Castrillo de Murcia celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi by placing babies
born in the previous 12 months on mattresses in the street and allowing local
men representing the devil to jump over them.
El Colacho dates back to 1620, and, despite initial impressions, the
strange practice of allowing fully-grown men to jump over fragile babies is
designed to protect the newborns against disease and possession and to
eliminate original sin. And to make
matters even weirder, members of the Brotherhood of SantÃsimo Sacramento de
Minerva, which organises the festival, arm themselves with whips and spend the
day chasing people through the streets.
Flour and Egg
Throwing
Snow is not something you usually associate with Alicante,
but you’ll think you’ve arrived in the middle of a blizzard if you visit the
town of Ibi on December 28. For the past 200 years, inhabitants have marked the
Day of the Innocents by dressing in mocksoldier’s uniforms and staging a
symbolic coup d’état – which involves a
very enthusiastic flour fight in the town square, called els enfarinats. Eggs are added to the mix, as citizens battle
with the town council for the power to create and enforce new laws. These new laws are valid only for the day,
but anybody who breaks them must contribute to the poor box.
Mud & Ant
Throwing
Flour-flinging might seem quite benign when you hear that
the people of Laza in Galicia throw wet rags, mud, and ants at each other
during the 1,000-year-old celebration of Farrapada (“the ragging”) on the
Monday preceding Lent. The flinging of
the first muddy rag sparks a good-natured battle, but things get really intense
when ants doused in vinegar are added to the ammunition. Other bizarre elements of this festival involve
a masked moreno running through the streets with a cow’s head on a stick,
lifting the skirts of women with the cow’s horns and generally intimidating
people.
Goose Decapitation
Antzar Eguna (“The Day of the Geese”) is a 300-year-old
competition peculiar to the Basque fishing village of Lekeitio, where residents
celebrate the San AntolÃn festival on September 5th by trying to behead a
(dead) goose hanging from the town harbor.
Participants try to grab the grease-coated goose as their boats pass
underneath, while onlookers on either side vary the tension on the rope in an
attempt to knock the competitor into the bay. If he fails in his efforts, the
next participant takes his place. If he
succeeds, he gets to keep the goose.
Near Death Festival
Las Nieves is a charming little town in Galicia, but every
July 29th, it shows its dark side with a rather grisly festival. As part of the Santa Marta de Ribarteme
festival, people who have narrowly escaped death are carried through the
streets to the church of Santa Marta de Ribarteme in open coffins. (Relatives act as pall bearers, so probably
best not to ask your uncle with the dodgy heart if you want to avoid another
near-death experience). After a
(temporary) visit to the graveyard, the fortunate survivors leave tributes at
the statue of Santa Marta before celebrating their return from the edge with
displays of fireworks and an enthusiastic brass band.
Aoife O’Carroll is a staff writer for Nova Car Hire, a
convenient website for arranging car rental in 26,000 locations worldwide,
including car hire in Spain.
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