by Gina Cariño
Home >> A Backward Procession
Maderuelo is somewhere on the border between Segovia and Soria. Our friends’ cottage was on the edge of a plateau. Down there below us was a tongue of arid Castilian land bordered by a strip of river. Close to the tip of the tongue was a Roman bridge, immersed in water except for its upper parts.
The widening and swelling of the river caused by the erosion of land had made a second bridge necessary, and there it was, connecting the left side of the tongue to the old town, a cluster of austere, ochre constructions lorded over by the tower of the parish church. One night we were in the church square, grown-ups and children alike, partaking of the town fiesta.
In the morning we were awakened by the racket of folks who had danced and drunk all night, and by the drums of a parade of big-headed monsters on stilts.
Bells were ringing. We rushed off to High Mass in the hermitage somewhere off to the right of the cottage, still on the plateau. Of course there was no more room for us in the temple, so we stood outside.
The town folk and their kin from surrounding municipalities were in their Sunday best. It was the Feast of Our Lady of Castroboda, who, after the service, was taken from her niche in the altar and placed on a flower-strewn float.
Her devotees gathered before the statue instead of behind, and, facing her, arms raised, began a jumpy backward procession. To the beat of a very loud and out-of-tune brass band, they kept up the backward dance all the way down to the previous night’s church, where the Lady was to stay a week.
I was not around for the following Sunday’s reverse jota.
[Now it’s your turn to describe a unique or memorable procession.]
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2007-03-29 10:00:00 +0200
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I loved this week’s letter… I had never heard of this “backward procession.” Sounds rather interesting…
As far as memorable processions go, I once attended a Corpus Christi procession in the United States. They carried the monstrance with the Sacred Host around the streets into the local ghetto where the majority of the street gangs and their members looked on in curiosity, trying to figure out what would prompt such a large procession (there were over 200 people – not bad for the States).
Word of the procession spread to neighboring suburbs and even made its way into the local paper the following day, complete with photographs… you see, it was the first time the procession was celebrated in that municipality and there was much cause for celebration. Jesus was one of them and walked along their city streets and the neighbors were happy about that!
For many Irish people Easter is strongly associated with 1916 when Irish patriots rebelled against British rule. It is often referred to as The Easter Rising .
My childhood memories do not include many processions but rather lots of chocolate Easter eggs and my parents’ garden awash with daffodils
Whether you are a Christan celebrating the Resurrection or a pagan marking the Spring Equinox and the coming to life of Gaia, this time of year is invigorating and optimistic.
Whenever life seems dark and miserable I always remember the words of the greatest English poet after Shakespeare, Percy Byshhe Shelley
Happy Easter everyone.
I cannot wait till Easter is over. The chocolate stacked on the shelves of Woolworth’s will be on sale. I picture me and fellow choco-addicts piling up in front of the supermarket’s glass doors, ready to empty the shelves in less than five minutes.
I remember my first procession in Spain. I went to a small town near Burgos with a friend. We stayed with his parents who told me constantly “come y calla!”; I ate more in those few days than I do in an entire week, including some really good (before I knew what it was) and revolting (after I knew what it was) blood sausage. I regress … at night we went to the cathedral and waited for the procession to begin. I remember seeing the hooded figures advance towards us. I was shocked! Why was this town full of KKK members?! And what did they have to do with Easter?! And why is everyone acting so normally?! Shouldn’t someone do something, say something? Nervously, I asked my friend about it … oh those ignorant foreigners!
It’s been quite some time since I last heard that spooky crescendo of drums indicating the approach of floats borne by penitents and escorted by brotherhoods recalling the Ku Klux Klan with those cone-shaped hoods. And I have yet to be in a place like Seville during Semana Santa. It must be an acutely moving spectacle and experience. It must be spooky indeed but I would like to see “in person” those pasos being inched through crowded narrow streets and stopping when, from a sidewalk, balcony, or patio, a woman, in evocation perhaps of the weeping women of Jerusalem (or can it be a man, too?), breaks into a saeta. I want to hear “in person” those haunting melodies with clear echoes of exotic cultures, those hoarse hurt voices, broken howls. It’s mysticism, yet it’s visceral.
Your description is very interenting, Gina. I like this week, because it’s time for meditating , or at least it should be that.
I like the procession of the silence, it’s on Friday, and usually all people go behind the Crucifix in silence. It’s very curious but generally the weather is very bad in that day.!!!! Conchi.
Zamora is famous for its Semana Santa too. It is second only to Seville in lavishness of Passion processions. The floats, some dating back to the 16th century, are on display the rest of the year in a sort of shed, and they are chronologically arranged so that they are like the Stations of the Cross. My son, then five, pointed out an artistic inconsistency, asking why Christ’s feet were hammered to the wood together with a single nail to later appear parallel, perforated separately.
My experience with processions is limited, though I am not sure I would refer to a paso as a “float,” which brings high school homecoming parades to mind.
Processions like the one Gina mentions are happy and have something to celebrate or honor. I have a feeling that the processions of Holy Week are yet another grim and spooky remnant of an Inquisitional Church that was.
That said, I am not one to eliminate traditions, instead believing that we can adapt them to who we are today and use them to remember who we once were. And what better moment to remember than this season of renewal for everyone?
Happy Easter! (Passover, too!)
Good report Gina!!
I’m so sorry but I don’t like Easter or procession. Ages ago, I had an unpleasant death in my family. Since then, I didn’t want to know anything about Church.
I have never been in a procession, and for the moment I don’t want to go.
Something positive about this week “chocolate” !!!
Bye,
Leticia.
Hello, Gina,
Do you know the way that people celebrate the Holy Week at the villages of Teruel (Aragon)?. There is very typical the use of drumps and the noise. I were there a Holy Week and it was very spectacular and very noisy. It was at Andorra (Teruel), and there the “rompida de la hora” is at 12 o’clok in the thursday’s night. All the people begins to play their drumps at the same time, and it is like an very strong explosion. I remember that after all the night of drumps and noise, when I woke up at nine o’clock in the morning, I could hear yet the drumps on my hears. At the begining I though that it was an ilussion, but after I opened my eyes, I saw that the noise was real, very real.
Here in Madrid the processions are more quiet, and the city also is more quiet. I like stay at Madrid by the Holy Week. You can “live” the city with more intensity, because there isn’t so much people.
Happy Holidays!.
Conchi Calvo
Since Michelle mentioned blood sausages, let’s talk about meat. I was talking about Zamora. Zamora is just as much a carnivore’s haven. Our host treated us to an assortment of entrails and muscles in dingy fluorescent-lit eateries. The specialty is cachuela, pig guts that are simultaneously rubbery and crispy. I actually honestly relish these disgusting delicacies, so unlike a “foreigner.”
Hello,
I’m afraid I don’t know much about processions. My childhood memories are similar to Dónal’s but with Valencian features. But I remember one time I spent the Easter holiday in a village in Teruel. I don’t remember which. There were many people in a square and they were hitting their drums until their hands bled. I admit that I was impressed.
Kind regards,
Ramón
Hello Gina¡
I don’t like the processions so much but I think is interesting to know something about the villages, the way of live of the people who live in the small countrys, their traditions and their culture.
I live in Madrid and the thinks are diferent in the big citys.
It’s better to go to small villages to see a good procession.
David
Hello everybody,
I like the Easter week and your processions, for me are a magic days if you enjoy and life the Easter as a member of processions.
I like very much the processions of children in Monday in Albacete, the children to wear religiosal clothes and walk for the streets in processions.
In Castille the processions are very interesting and famous, over all, in Valladolid. But I prefer the processions in Sevilla, are fantastic and very goods.
Greetings.
HAPPY EASTER from New York!
Hello everybody from Alicante.
In Spain all the cities and little towns celebrate the Easter Week of differente ways.
I like Easter holidays but I don’t live the processions of Easter week. I prefer a typical procession in Alicante the next 19th of April, the Santa Faz procession. This a a local holiday with a short walk between Alicante city and the Santa Faz church. All the people go with one of the three copies of the face of Jesus in a sheet.
In this procession thaere are many places with all kinds of gifts, mud bells, mud jugs, typical sticks of olive trees and, why not, a big fair.
In Easter Week I prefer be with my wife and my three daughters.
See you.
Carlos
Hello everybody,
I like Easter as I like any other holidays, but Easter has these beautiful processions that give Semana Santa a unique religious atmosphere mixed with pagan celebrations.
It’s amazing all the people that go to see processions and follow traditions. Also how cities and tows are paralized during these events and streets are crowded with people that want to the sacred images.
Regards,
Cristina
Hello Gina,
It’s a very curious history. It seems to me very graceful, but I imagine that it will have a sense!
Here in Seville, during the year there are processions, but the most important happen in Easter. “the Easter is lived very much; there is a tradition, there are a lot of “Fraternity = Hermandades” that during the year are preparing for “Easter” – one week where the death and Jesús’s resurrection is lived.
It’s one week for the Christions very important, The famiy takes part and of course also it has turned into a business.
Truly in Seville there is greatly art and when you see a procession, the staging, the regard, the feeling, the art…... they will impress you.
Gina, since you like travelling, you can note down in your agenda “to go to Seville in “Easter” AH!!!! if you decide it, you will have to reserve (book) with a lot of time of advance.
See you soon !
Reyes.
Hi all!
I am not believer, but I am agree with Cristina that this Easter time is really the only moment of the year we can breathe a truly religious atmosphere, so respectful, in my opinion more than Christmas time … I am so amazed when I see those people shoulder the Virgin´s figure, during a long time ago, crying if their power are exhausted or if the weather impede go on … and overcot, impress the silence … it´s very emotive!!
Bye!!
Hello everybody!
I have been in several Easter Processions in Spain, but there are only three which have come to my mind today. I remember the one in Huesca city, when I was 16. It was the most boring event I’ve ever seen.
I was also in Calanda (Teruel) 8 years ago, where drums shake the village all day (some of you talked about this one). It was really great.
And I was in Las Cabezas de San Juan (Seville) for Easter in 2001. The way people live those days there is impressive . The silence when the “paso” is taken off the Church, through a door which has not the right dimension for it and that forces carrying-men to lower down at the same time. Or the breath-taking emotion when someone sings a “Saeta”. You must be really unsensitive not to feel anything.