|A man dressed in a red and yellow costume representing the devil, known as El Colacho, jumps over babies placed on a mattress during traditional Corpus Christi celebrations in Castrillo de Murcia, near Burgos, northern Spain June 10, 2012. The northern Spanish town has for centuries chosen to protect its young from evil spirits with the unusual ritual in which a man dressed as the devil leaps over mattresses each holding four or five babies. REUTERS/Ricardo Ordonez.Source: |
Called El Salto del Colacho - or the Devil's Jump - the custom dates back to medieval times.The yellow suited man represents the devil himself. The display is featured in a pageant in the village of Castrillo de Murcia marking the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi.
The tradition involves men dressed as a 'Colacho' leaping over infants born in the village during the previous year to cleanse them of original sin. The exact origins of the ritual are unclear, but Spanish Catholics celebrate the festival throughout the country with colourful processions of dancers dressed as demons and angels.
Call me skeptical. Many priests were illiterate back in those days and common folk certainly did not read or write, or own a Bible. In fact, in some areas it was illegal for a regular person (serf) to own a Bible - not that they would have been able to afford one anyway. Until the invention of the printing press in 1440-50 by Gutenberg, books were a very expensive proposition, and only the wealthiest could afford to own books. They were a sort of ultimate status symbol. So I can understand a great deal of ignorance about the tenets of the Roman Catholic faith which is supposed to be biblical (but as everyone knows, is totally not), but why would the church allow this tradition that seems so obviously pagan? Interesting that it's done in June. I'm thinking this tradition is related to an ancient ceremony to greet the summer and is a sort of "christianized" (sanitized) version of it; possibly it involved the sacrifice of a child or children. Yes, ghastly, but no more so than the Inquisition.
As I mentioned above, it is very interesting to me that in this tradition it is the Devil who has the power to remove the original sin and protect the souls of the babies, not Christ. As Isis would say, the old switcheroo, perhaps pointing back to a time before everyone in Spain become catholicized. Here's the final picture from The Daily Mail story:
|After the devil has performed his jump, young girls throw rose petals on the babies. Getty images.|
Now, about those dates. I found the top photograph yesterday and it is from June 10, 2012. The story at The Daily Mail is from June 27, 2011. It's not a misprinted date because June 27th hasn't happened in 2012 yet (well, maybe in some weird parallel world or something). So then I thought perhaps the top photograph actually was taken in 2011, not 2012, and Yahoo news had the wrong date in the caption, but a close inspection of the jumping "devil" in the top photo shows that while his "devil" costume looks pretty much identical to the costumes of the jumpers in The Daily mail article, he has different shoes than any of the jumpers in those photos. So, no mistake on the dates.
A few other thoughts. This ceremony is held in conjunction with celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi, which itself is an extremely interesting concept -- check out this quote from a website on Andalucia region in Spain:
Corpus Christi is the Catholic holiday in honour of the presence of the body of Christ in the holy water. It is celebrated throughout Spain and is held in either May or June depending on when Easter occurs. To calculate the next Corpus Christi date, look for the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday (the eighth Sunday after Easter) and you’ll know when the fiesta is set to begin in towns and villages throughout Andalucia.
Another tip-off -- a religious celebration regarding "holy water." Of course the original holy water was Goddess blessed :)
The history of Corpus Christi in Granada is particularly interesting as the Catholic kings used it as a tool to Christianise a population that had been under Muslim rule for some eight centuries. According to historical accounts, they even instructed the town hall to invest large sums of money into the fiesta and urged the town to celebrate until they “appeared crazy”. Being the obedient citizens they were, the “Granadinos”, as they are known in Spanish, willingly complied.
In the beginning the people of Granada just celebrated the festival on the actual day of Corpus Cristi. However, in the 17th century someone had the bright idea of starting on the eve of the big day. From there it was only a matter of time before the religious event was merged with the annual fair in one of the biggest celebrations of the year.
Party, party! And those are some of the cutest babies I've ever seen. Whatever the Spaniards are doing, keep on doing it, you are producing gorgeous children.