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Marsh Mares of Almonte: Rounding Up Wild Horses in Andalusia
| Article
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12934 |
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Section : |
Culture
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1987 |
8,342 Words |
| Author
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Michael Dean Murphy
Michael Dean Murphy is associate professor of anthropology at
the University of Alabama. He has conducted fifteen months of
ethnographic research on the pilgrimage to Rocio in Almonte
and wishes to acknowledge financial support from the U.S.-
Spanish Joint Committee on Educational and Cultural Affairs as
well as the University of Alabama Research Grants Committee,
Capstone International Program Center, and the College of Arts
and Sciences. Special thanks go to the people of Almonte and
to Milady Khoury. This article is affectionately dedicated to
Cesar Grana. |
Although Andalusia proudly bears the title the Land of Mary the Most Holy, in honor of the Marian focus of popular religion there, that fabled region of southern Spain might with equal justice be called the Land of Celebrations. In a landmark compilation of information on Andalusia's fiestas, or festivals and rituals, Salvador Rodriguez (1982) has organized accounts of over three thousand celebrations in eight hundred of the cities, towns, and villages where some 6.5 million Andalusians live.
Not only are fiestas ubiquitous features of the Andalusian calendar and landscape, they are also well attended. The grandest of them--like the Holy Week processions, April Fair of Seville, or the annual pilgrimage to La Virgen del Rocio (the Virgin of the Dew)--attract millions of Andalusians and tourists. Even local public ceremonies are attended each year by increasing numbers of participants and spectators, as the region enjoys a celebratory boom.
Yet numbers alone, however impressive, do not convey adequately the social and cultural importance of fiestas in Andalusia. Andalusians take their fiestas seriously, if not solemnly, and any complete account of their culture must of necessity include a careful consideration of these festivals.
Regrettably many observers, even some very eminent ones like the philosopher Ortega y Gasset, have trivialized the underlying significance of the Andalusian passion for the fiesta, either by summarily dismissing it as frivolous or by using it to buttress tried stereotypes of regional character. Fortunately, the recent work of ethnographers such as Encarnacion Aguilar (1983), Stanely Brandes (1980), Josep Maria Comelles (1984), David Gilmore (1975), Isidoro Moreno (1985), and the aforementioned Salvador Rodriguez has demonstrated clearly that many insights into Andalusian society, culture, and psychology are to be gained from the serious study of the region's traditional festivities--Holy Week rituals, Carnaval, May Crosses, pilgrimages, fairs, patron saint feasts, and the like.
Festivals of Almonte
Almonte, a town of only 14,500 residents located in the southern cone of the province of Huelva, enjoys a particularly vivid reputation for its enthusiasm about festivals. The fame of Almonte's people is founded upon their single-minded devotion to their immensely popular patroness, La Virgen del Rocio, a beautiful gothic statue of the Virgin Mary. The Almontenos exert a jealous, some critics say fanatical,
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