Hello Spaneasiers! We hope that you’re doing fine and that you are enjoying your time in Madrid. Let´s continue discovering Spanish culture together. On today’s post we will show you some celebrations that are unknown even for some Spaniards as they are celebrated in small towns and if you aren’t from the place or its surroundings it will be a mystery for you.
On the one hand, in a small town of Pontevedra called As Neves we can find a celebration called Os Mortos Vivos (in Gallego we could translate it as the Coffin Procession) where we see the neighbors of the place carrying open coffins with someone inside to celebrate that those people inside were near death but they defeat it. If you would like to see it with your own eyes, it’s celebrated on July 29th of every year.
In a town named Bérchules, in the province of Granada, in the first weekend of August we will find its neighbors celebrating New Year’s Eve. Seems crazy but this town suffered in 1994 a power outage during the New Year’s night and the mayor decided to celebrate it on August. This started to be a tradition and they have been celebrating it since then.
On the other hand, in Burgos El Colacho is celebrated in Corpus Christi day. In this celebration we can find a man that wears yellow and red clothes and goes with an ox’s tail whipping it to the neighbors. If it looks weird, this isn’t everything, as on his way he will find an altar with flowers where there are some babies and he will need to jump over them so he can release them from the evil.
Lastly but not least, in a small town located in Teruel called Calanda, we can find La Rompida de la Hora. This one is celebrated on Good Friday, where at twelve o’clock in the afternoon every resident is dressed in a purple tunic and they gather in the town’s square with a drum to start playing it when the big drum starts playing. Everyone plays different marches and it’s a beautiful spectacle.
Did you know any of these celebrations? Were they strange or does your country have something weirder? Let us know in the comments! If you want to learn more about Spain’s festivities you can’t miss this post were we talk about Cadiz’s Carnival.
See you in the next post!