Posted
on April 26, 2014
It's
a parade.
It's
a festival.
It's
a fireworks show.
It's
a huge fiesta.
It's...a
funeral? For a fish?
The Burial of the Sardine Festival is a very popular event in Murcia, Spain. It is the last event of the Carnival / Lent / Easter season, and it dates back to 1850, when a group of students paraded through the streets with a sardine.
I'm
not sure if that long-ago group used a real sardine—which is, let's
face it, small and stinky—or if they used a larger papier-mache
sardine, but these days Spaniards use a papier-mache effigy.
Many
groups of street entertainers have make the city merry in the days
before the festival. Last night “Lady Sardine” read a humorous
speech from the balcony of town hall.
Today
the street entertainers are making a cavalcade (parade) that winds
through the streets with “giants” and “big heads” and bands.
There are also Brazilian samba groups and torch bearers and men
dressed up as women, pretending to be widows mourning the sardine.
Best of all, there are floats dedicated to the Olympian gods; people
on the floats throw thousands of toys out into the crowd!
 |
| "Giants" |
 |
| "Big Heads" |
 |
| Floats - the "gods" throw hundreds of thousands of euros' worth of toys into the crowd! |
After
the parade, the sardine is not buried—it's burned! I guess the
sardine represents fasting and abstinence—but does its cremation
mean “we're done with all that now”? Actually, I gather that the
destruction of a symbol by fire means putting away the problems and
faults of the past, and putting away the excesses of Carnival time,
and starting anew.
Along
with the burning of the sardine is the fireworks display. And then
the people party!
(By
the way, there are “Burials of the Sardine” in other Spanish
cities as well. Murcia's festival is unusually big, wacky, and late
in the year compared to others.)
Also on this date:
Plan ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
No comments:
Post a Comment