Jeremy Carter-Gordon is a young dancer and musician from Massachusetts. After completing his studies the anthropology of dance, he won a one-year Watson Fellowship to study sword dancing from around the world. He dances traditional English rapper sword dance along with longsword dance and Morris in his home in Boston. In August of last year he started his journey all over Europe as capstone of his studies. After observing dances in France and Italy he came to Basque Country to have the opportunity to see see sword dances in the towns of Elgoibar, Eibar, and Beasain. San Fermin in Navarre Aldapakoaren sword-dance was a traditional folk dance by a small group of San Fermin. He visited Basque Country, Huelva, Cordoba and explored places where sword dancing is found. After his time in Basque country he traveld to England, Scotland and Ireland and has plans to go to Italy, Croatia, and Turkey, among others.
Jeremy during his journey, he writes an interesting blog that you can follow at http://starofswords.wordpress.com/

He has been to Ziganda. On the 8th of February, we received a visit. He presented some of his research to the LH 6. mailako students, talked about sword dancing and showed the basic rapper dance step. Then the students of the school dance team had the opportunity to learn a few moves!

I got to chat with some of the teachers and play banjo in the break room, but the highlight of the day was working with the school’s dance class for a period. The teacher gave me the class entirely, with the stipulation that I had to make them speak in English. The kids actually spoke quite good English on the whole, so this turned out not to be much of a challenge. We went down into the dance studio and learned the stepping facing the mirror before handing out the swords and forming teams.

I asked the group (10 people exactly, awesome!) to split into teams by hight and we dove right in. I was a very different experience teaching in English for the first time in a while, reversing who is struggling with language.  We learned nut, curly, changing of the guard, and princess (sorry to my UK friends, I’ve reverted to US names). A few teachers wandered in to watch for a while and we ended the period with a mini-rapper dance performance with a big finish!

I ate lunch at the school and made my way back to Eibar via Donostia for that evening. Yesterday was the last practice with Kezka and saying goodbye to those who aren’t going to Italy with us. Quickly went through some new figures for the video camera and solidified stepping (it’s getting very good!) At 7:30 tonight, I’m on the bus Italy bound!

P.S. I’ve updated my Watson Fellowship Travel Map, but google won’t let all the locations display on one page. Anyone know how to solve this?

We got through a huge amount of material in just a few hours and by the end we were able to put together a mini sword dance, which was lots of fun. I’m always amazed when a group of flat beginners are able to pick up the dancing so quickly without anyone in the set who really knows what they are doing.

That night I spent with Arantza’s daughter and her boyfriend in San Sebastian and spent much of the next day exploring and visiting museums in the city before heading to Eibar.

There was a lot of excitement that Saturday, as this was the carnival in Eibar! I had been practicing with Kezka, the dance group, since I had come back, and they had found me a costume so I could go out and dance with them!

In addition to the hideous mask and better part of a sheep strapped over my shoulder, I had a belt of bells, big blue overalls and shirt, and a pig’s bladder on a string tied to a stick. We aren’t talking about fake things here either, this had been taken out of an animal and had its fair share of meat still attached! This was (of course) for hitting people and scaring children! We all met at 7:30 in the morning, got kitted up and headed to the market square where we ran through the food stalls, menacing men, women and children with pitchforks, sticks, bladders, and brooms! We performed our dances, sang and crowded into vans to drive up the mountain and start the day in ernest.

Most of the group were Koko-dantzaria, dressed in white trimmed with red shawls and flowers, and carrying two short wooden sticks. This was a similar outfit to the one the dancers at the Arrate sword dance wore, but with the addition of the shawls, flowers and masks (it is carnival after all!) In the above picture you can also see the Aixerixak, the two dancers covered in fox skins and carrying a fox on a pole between them. They are covered in blackface and run around as a unit throughout the festival.We started near to Arrate and made our way down the valley on foot, as it had started to snow that morning and the vans couldn’t make it down the slick, narrow roads. The plan was to perform at each farmhouse in the valley, and we walked until we got the the first one

Upon nearing to it, we stopped and set off a rocket that would explode over the house with a loud bang that reverberated in the snowy valley. Then the musicians would sound their horns and the music would start up as we paraded and danced to the door of the house. The dancers (with sticks) would proceed in formation, but most of the other character would run around freely.  Above you can see a Burburixua carrying a pitchfork to clatter on the ground and at the feet of bystanders. They would charge at the inhabitants of the farm as we got closer, scaring and delighting kids and adults alike! Below is the Harza or bear, an important figure in carnival. In Basque mythology, humans decended from bears!  Instead of Groundhogs Day, the bear is the one who worries about winter, and when he gets up, he starts dancing in carnival! The basque bear has horns and I was later told that the february crescent moon is an upwards pointing crescent, the same shape as the his horns! I was also told that after all that sleep the bear was horny!

When we arrived at the house we did a partner dance, with all sorts of wild combinations of men, women, foxes, bears, priests, bushes, cross-dressing brides and whores, and other such things. We finished with a song talking about how it was carnival and we had gotten all dressed up in disguise and asking for food, drink, and money. Koko-moko zaria bete moko/Gibel, gibel, afarittarako/Dirua baneuka, patrikarako. The Mamarrua, dressed in burlap from head to toe and holding horse-hair brushes, would bring forward baskets to be filled with food. The obliging hosts would either give groceries, money, or bring out trays of ham, cheese, bread, and sausages and drink for us to feast on!

This was quite common and we ate well throughout the day. Good thing too, because we were doing tons of walking and everyone got rather tired! After we were done and had collected our loot, we sang the second half of the song and went on our merry way, sticks clacking, bells jangling, music playing and everyone jumping around! At some houses we did a special dance called which was danced with five couples: the bear and whore, the priest and women, the Koko-buruzagia (captain), a blacksmith and widow, and an old man and his masculine young bride. The dancing starts about 25 seconds in and the Koko-moko song is at 6:05. Earlier in the day we had split into two groups so we could cover more houses in the time we had. At around 2:30 we met up with them and performed jointly at a few houses, which just made things go wild! While the rest of the group had lunch I went back to the university and had a short nap, as I had not gotten nearly enough sleep and was thoroughly wiped out! We reconverged in the evening and got ready for part two: Carnival in town!

We gathered en masse in the center as crowds started to form. We had gained a brass band and a few extra members who had gotten off work and set about attracting a crowd and menacing small children. As I looked around I could see hordes of kids running this way and that, pursued by a masked figure waving some implement of terror. The music started up and we all danced wildly in the streets, joined by onlookers, but when it stopped or switched into something else the deamons were unleashed and we rushed down the streets in pursuit! We stopped every few minutes to repeat the performances of the day on the packed streets, complete with the circle dance, which had become more sexual and rowdy as the night went on. 

We have also been joined by a Italian dance group from the town of Rocca Grimalda, a few hours away from the sword dancers in Bagnasco! They perform their carnival dances in alternation with the Basque ones, which mostly involve couples dancing, including many dances that I remembered! Altogether, it was a good deal more civilized than Euskera customs!

After we had all danced ourselves into exhaustion we took off the costumes, showered, and met up around 10:30 in the cider hall I visited last time. We ate lots of food and drank lots of cider and actually got to talk to the Italians! At one point a man grabbed out his fiddle and started to play some dance tunes. The Italian group tried to teach a circassian circle dance, but were thwarted by lack of space and people falling over. The Basque dances seemed to go over well, and we even danced a familiar seeming line dance, to a familiar seeming tune!

It was a lot of fun, complete with more falling over and trying to comunicate in Spantalian. A bunch of they younger Basque and Italian dancers decided to go out to the clubs, and we danced the night away. I finally left at five in the morning and the party was still going strong! Tomorrow (in real time, not blog time) I’m traveling to Italy with Kezka to do the other half of the 2012 carnival exchange! From there I will stay in Italy seeking out more carnivals for a few days before taking a ferry to Croatia to watch another carnival with sword dancing!

Jeremy Carter-Gordon is a Sword dancer from the United States dedicated to studying European sword dancing. A few months ago on his blog, Jeremy described living in Basque Country, and now he has been surprised by the carnival in Zubieta! He has a great report and photos!

A few days into the visit, Arantza and Eire took me to a carnival a few hours away that was a joint celebration of three towns (but we mostly stayed in Zubieta, south and east from San Sebastian) and while there wouldn’t be sword dancing, they promised it would be a fun time! We walked around the idyllic farms and woods between the towns while waiting for the party to start and I was surprised to see how much it reminded me of Ireland, with green moss covering everything, even in the winter. By then the preparations were in full swing!

There were to be many parts of the carnival, but one of the central parts were these dancers with huge bells on their backs, sheepskins strapped around their waists and tall, colorful hats who would dance from town to town. Of course, most of it was just mayhem!

The first hint of this total madness I got (it came in increasing stages) were children imprisoned in cages, pulled by people dressed in sheepskins and tattercloaks.

There were all sorts of characters dressed up for the occasion, and the real tumalt of the day had yet to begin! Most of the costumes were somehow agriculturally related, with farm implements, food, skins of animals, and work boots. Oh, and there were even tractors!

This tractor turned out to be full of little demons who all rolled out the back as soon as it pulled into the main square and start pelting the bystanders with eggs, sawdust, and fruit!

I spent my time dodging the little demons while trying to take photos of them, little knowing that there were greater terrors in store! The crowd got into it, running away from the handfulls of dust and other projectiles. Next up was a fellow running around WITH A RUNING LAWNMOWER! Who thought that was a good idea? Not only that, but he would charge directly into the crowd, leaving people to jump out of the way to either side and run screaming. The safety hazards that were so obvious left me wondering about the differences in litigation practices between here and in the United States. Maybe in certain southern states pushing a running lawnmower at people is considered good sport, but I have a feeling that most places that game would end up with the cops (hopefully before the ambulance!)

Yes folks, that would be a dead badger! This kindly women was nursing it back to health which involved feeding it and smearing some sort of cream all over its butt. Charming. Anyway, the dancers were just about ready to start doing their thing, so attention briefly shifted off of the craziness to watch them start their dance. I say briefly as it is never a good idea to completely turn your back on crazies with lawnmowers! 

The dance consisted of two lines of dancers tramping up and down the square with bells ringing and long brushes in their hands. They wove back and forth, turning the set inside out when reversing directions, and then heading out of town, over the bridge, and on to the next village. 

The set seemed to be organized from tallest to smallest, ending with a bunch of young kids! While the adults kept time with their bells by bouncing on every step to jangle them, the kids had to take several steps to catch up, leading to a few extra jingles!

There were around thirty dancers in all, each with bells, hat and brush. They were lead by a man holding a horn made out of, well, a horn! The bells were strapped on around the sheepskin very tightly. Watching them get ready looked like the pictures one sees of ladies in waiting fastening a corset onto a girl. Two men would grab each side of the rope and pull in opposite directions to tighten the bells before tying it on.  Didn’t look very comfortable, but no one’s bells fell off! Better than can be said about some morris teams! After they had gone a bunch of tractor-pulled carts arrived to hand out food, drink and other yummy things!

Great decorations too! After eating (it’s Basque country, we are always eating!) we headed down the road to where the party was continuing.  

Another menace of the carnival were masked figures dragging tree branches and trying to hit you with sheep skins. Yuck! Fortunately being tied to trees slowed them down significantly.

While the whole day was a bit drizzly, a rainstorm hit halfway down the road and a bunch of folks took cover in the porch of a a nearby house. We had to wait for the other towns to come to us anyway. While we were waiting a bunch of the men started to sing and play music, so I joined them. One had a word sheet, and so I got to sing along which was great fun. We all huddled under the umbrellas, drank wine and made music until the dancers and costumed folks from the other town caught up to us. They marched along the river and made it to the town.

By now there were closer to 100 dancers in all, but the other towns had brought even crazier contraptions with them! Scantily clad figures streaked with dirt hurled mud (i hope it was mud) from wheelbarrows, while two dog-headed beasts whizzed by on a motorcycle, tearing through the crowds with no hands on any sort of steering device. A donkey was in the process of being shoed by two blacksmiths while being suspended from a wooden stand on a moving trailer.

Probably the most ridiculous contraption was this old red car that carried three chained figures in cages. I was somewhat surprised the truck could even move without the extra weight, and even more amazed at the faith the prisioners put in it, going over the little bridge into the town and precariously dangling over the edge in the process!

At the end of the procession came the “fire department” freely spraying foam at anyone who came too near! It turned out that umbrellas were a good thing to have that day.

We finally had had enough food and craziness for one day and made our way home, rather wet, but mostly having escaped the monsters (Eire did get attacked by one mudslinger).

Next up: I teach rapper dancing and raise a ruckus of my own. Basque Carnivals Part II!

Hordes of young people were staggering around in the streets, still dancing to the brass band that woke me up, having partied and drunk all night.  Also present were many of the sword dancers. The leader, the middle-aged man who had found us a place to stay the night before told me, “Of course I stayed out all night! If I didn’t stay and party, how would I be able to lead the group!” There was a big brass band playing for the occasion, playing popular songs from this semi-traditional repetoire that seems to exist in Spain. It wasn’t the pop music of the night before, nor was it the traditional music sometimes played, but everyone loved it. If I had thought a second longer in my morning confusion I would have remembered that the sword dance is done primarily to a drum, and certainly with no brass band, but here I was and everyone was having fun.

Having fun primarily dancing to the same eight or nine songs and then sitting down in the middle of the road. This might have been due to the amount being imbibed. The whole throng went up and down the streets of the town greeted by people in their PJs from their balconies and doorsteps. Also present were the Cabezudos, which I guess translates to “head-guys,” who ran around with their oversized paper-maiche heads. In the past, we were told, they used to carry fishing poles to “fish for children and young women.” An older man told me later that they sometimes held animal bladders on sticks to hit people with. In any case, it seemed like they had given up on the children, but they were still after the young women, including Ela. Sometimes they were surprised when the girls fought back!

Many thanks to Ariela Knight who took many of the photos in this post

The dancing continued for most of the morning, during which we followed everyone around and talked with anyone who interested (and sober enough) to talk to us.  The main friend we made was a young man named Sebastian, who had actually taken the little bus to the town with us. I told him about how I was doing a Watson Fellowship on sword dancing, which he thought was pretty cool. He spoke some English and insisted on giving us aguardiente (Fire-water), a Anise-flavored liquor traditional in the town (and other places with different recipes). It is a clear liquid that is mixed with water, at which point it becomes a milky white.

Not my favorite flavor, and we hadn’t had breakfast, but we struggled through, filming and taking pictures while on the hunt for food.

Sebastian told us that while the town normally has a population of around 350 people, during the fiesta all the young people who have left to go work in the cities come back, so that currently there were nearly 700 people! There was a break in the music playing and falling over, and everyone went into the bar for more drinking and singing! Sebastian pulled out a guitar from somewhere and played while an old man led some of the others in serenading the company. I finally decided that I was just too hungry to function and went back to the library to break into my emergency stash of food. Revived slightly, we went and caught the last moments of informal dancing before the sword dancers came.

Everyone made their way down into the center of town again where the sword dancers finally made their appearance and led the procession to the church in the center of town where everyone went in and had mass (well I guess a lot of the younger folks went and took a nap!)

It reminded me of the sword dance and mass I saw in Fenestrelle, with the sword dancers sitting in the place of honor at the front, while a few rebellious ones hung around outside. There were songs and religioney things and a collection and communion and we stood in the back to watch. Oh, and the smallest sword dancer of the town! He tramped up and down the isle of the church waving his garrote (I have been referring to them as sword dancers, but to be precise they are dancing with garrotes. The dancers however claim that it is effectively the same thing and on occasion refered to the dance as a “sword dance.”) After the completion of Mass, everyone exited the church with the sword dancers bearing San Sebastian, the patron saint of the town on an elaborately carved litter festooned with pillars of flowers.

The litter was apparently really heavy, as pretty soon the sword dancers switched out and  started dancing, with the rest of the crowd taking turns supporting the saint. The dance started with the dancers forming up in a line that was zig-zagged to from two rows. The step is a heavy, outward-swinging motion that actually is similar to the manner in which the litter is carried. The figures consist of different kinds of tunnels, with the final sword dancer scraping their garrote along the ground or hitting the swords overhead. The dancers occasionally stretched out into a single file line, and then curled back into the zig-zag pattern to process. They paraded around town, joined by the girls in traditional dress, the beauty pagent girls to go up and down just about every street, stopping at some houses of important people, or those who were sick or to old to come out and see the celebrations.

The party headed up to the top of the town where the Saint was brought to the hermitage that overlooks the little village. The dancers circled around the litter and then we headed back down into the town along the beautiful, palm tree-lined trail.

There was an exciting moment when crossing the bridge, where the sword dancers could get across fine, but the litter was just a little bit wider than the bridge. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take pictures, just video. Basically everyone crowded underneath and they went across the little metal bridge anyway.

Oh by the way, did I mention they like to fire off guns?

Because they do. Throughout the procession there would be men on the balconies firing off weapons, temporarily deafening anyone nearby. Sometimes one of the dancers would leave the dance (the numbers ranged from 7-11, but usually 9 sword dancers) to go run into their house, grab a gun and fire it off a bit. Goodness. Anyhow, we returned to the church where they plopped San Seb. down in the doorway and declared that they wouldn’t unblock the door until they got money.

This was accomplished by auctioning off the four red pillars of carnations from the litter which went for upwards of 150 euros! Then it was time to auction off bouquets of flowers, which were also expensive. Finally they moved the patron inside and everyone went back to drinking and partying. We were picked up by Tomás, the man from Puebla de Guzman from whom I had learned about sword dancing last year. He kindly drove us to the bus station in his town (since there were no buses until evening the next day) and I got to catch up a little bit. It was really nice re-encountering people and places that I had seen before and we stopped by to briefly see his family before taking the bus to Huelva. Unfortunately, this turned into an extended visit when I realized that in our haste to leave, I had left my computer in the library! Forgetting things has to be the worst feeling ever, and we took a bus back to Tomás, who very kindly helped us recover it and let us spend the night at his house. We taught his kids card games and had a lovely dinner before bed. Tomorrow: Seville (revisited)

What is this pile of sticks for?

I had probably walked into this one with the less of contact in advance than any other sword dance. That is to say, there was none and I knew next to nothing about the festival. None of my Spanish or Basque contacts new anyone in the town, even people who lived 15 miles away. I had no information about the festival except the date. First fellow we asked was an old man who apporached us as we were looking at the carnival rides. My mind felt a bit rusty being thrown back into spanish mode with no transition, and he had a fairly thick accent, but I eventually communicated that I was here to study the dance and wanted to know who was in charge of the festival. He took us down a few back streets until we bumped into a women and the four of us had another conversation which sent us back to the bar on the main street where the leader was having a drink. We found him and I started to explain our situation and immediately another man came over and told us “you don’t want to talk to him, talk to me!” I explained my project and asked if he knew a place where we might stay. Questions about the dance and traditions were put aside for the moment as the bar (and much of the town) was thrown into activity trying to find us a place to sleep that night.

The whole bar was soon talking about where we were going to stay; most were helpful and many phone calls were made to friends and others. One man got annoyed and said that we couldn’t expect to find a place to stay in a small town and the others all told him off and said he was being “typical Spanish.” During all the ruckus we managed to get some delicious Spanish olives (I’ve missed them so!) and a bit of food, as we hadn’t eaten all day. Finally, we were told that there were some mattresses in the Adult Community Center near the library that we could spend the night in. We me the librarian who showed us the bathrooms and our beds and told us to come back at 6 for the key, the festivities would start at 8.

We dumped our stuff and set out to explore the town a bit and get oriented. We ended up wandering down old coal railroad tracks to a railroad bridge and then to a river! I think Huelva is a beautiful place, and it was really cool to see how it had changed since I was last there in October! There was some nut that Tomás had me try when I was here last that was absolutely ineadible. I found it this time and it turned out to be quite tasty. Apparently the best jamon comes from pigs in that region which are fed on this nut, yum! After a while we made our way back to town and just caught sight of a man carrying a bundle of sword-like objects, we quickly followed him to the Hermandad, eager to see the swords and find out more. As it turned out it was a total false alarm, as the objects turned out to be fireworks. I guess those are exciting too…

We took our place by the side of the hall as the preperations got nearer to starting. I started talking to one women who turned out to be the “Person of the Year” for the town. She told me about the plan for the festival, including what we had suspected but didn’t really want to believe: The huge pile of trees right next to the houses in the center of the town was to be set on fire. The ceremonies were starting so she ran off and the procession entered. Three young girls in traditional outfits came down the center isle of the hall, which had around 300 people in it, a large part of the town.

There were three older girls dressed up like they were going to a beauty pageant (they were) escorted by three men. They were followed by a number of women holding staves with crosses and finally the sword dancers. Well to be accurate, they weren’t swords at all, but garrotes, metal rods with a curve at the end for a handle.

The dance was fairly simple with a few figures repeated several times. The dancer at the end of the line held a shorter sword which he alternately scraped along the ground and hit against the swords in the “tunnel” figure. After the dance one of the girls was imediately crowned “Queen of the Festival” and we were thrown into endless speechs. The longest was by the women we had met, who jumped between stories of hope, to tales of drunk driving, and then thanked everyone she had ever met (and some she hadn’t met) as well as God, San Sebastian, and ended with “this prize really belongs to you all.” Judging from the audience’s reaction they were as please as we were when she finally drew to a close and sung some flamenco to conclude.

Some little girls in the audience were already learning how to dance along! Then the fun started! We went out into the street following everyone else heading towards the the pile of wood. Nothing was going on when I arrived, so we ducked into a bar and got some dinner. Just then we heard the sound of the drums signaling the sword dance and ran out again in time to see the dancers coming up the street.

They danced around the pile as it was being lit and almost imediately the crowd around  the bonfire had to back up several meters. The fire was so hot that you couldn’t stand within 6 meters without discomfort. The dancers hastily finished up as the fireworks were being shot off and then the party started in earnest!

We finished up our dinner and hung around for a while, but eventually headed off to bed. Too much traveling! The sounds of fiesta continued late into the night…

We drove back to Eibar and filled each other in on our lives. It turned out that yet again I have stumbled into a great time to visit Basque country. Due to going to a carnival in Italy later in the month, they pushed up the date of their own festival to next week! My accidental timing is impeccable yet again! The bad news is that the government is withdrawing their funding from the office due to the crisis in Europe. Man, this is what really gets me angry about all those bankers gambling with other people’s money! Not only does it hurt individuals, but it ends up hurting arts institutions like this one that are responsible for documenting, teaching, promoting and celebrating traditional culture.

Oier and the others in the office have decided to spend a few unpaid months looking for new funding, but it looks like the end at the moment. If anyone has any ideas where a organization promoting Basque dance might find funding in this economy, please let us know! It would be very appreciated!

Also appreciated would be anyone who attended the 2008 Sword Spectacular in York who has pictures or videos of Kezka, the Basque group who performed there. For some unknown reason, the official video of the event failed to include any footage of the team and their own video was destroyed by computer failure. They are deperately looking for anyone who might have records of their performance, so please ask your friends and colleuges who where there to check it out.

They are easy to identify as they have more dancers than anyone else and are dressed in white with red trimmings. Please send anything you might have my way (starofswords@gmail.com) and I will pass it on.

Goals this time in Basque country:

Learn some Basque song and dance:

Learn some Basque language (and it’s tricky!)

Go to more festivals!

Jeremy over and out.

The first few days in the UK I spent at the  Longsword Dancing Competition Hosted by the Redcar Sword Dancers. In particular I got adopted by Newcastle Kingsmen, and met with Monkseaton dancers, some of whom had been in Basque country and met my friends there!

I ended up joining the Kingsmen and dancing out with them several times. A great bunch of guys and I learned a lot!

I also ended up dancing with Carlisle Morris and Sword, Hexham Morris Men, High Spen Blue Diamonds (Rapper), and even squeezed in some time with Sallyport (Rapper).

Hexham Morris Practice

One of the highlights of the trip was living with Frank Lee and learning how to make rapper swords.

Frank is an amazing source of knowledge about rapper, life in the north of England and the production of rappers (and engineering in general!) I am honored to have been able to work with him and learn so much.

Also while I was in England I joined a band called Holy Moly and the Crackers and played a few gigs with them on banjo.

We had a great gig all about whisky and I ended up living in their house for a bunch of my visit. Thanks guys!

One last tidbit was the Occupy Newcastle movement. On the day I arrived in Newcastle I met a bunch of people sitting around Earl Grey’s monument with Occupy signs. I spent a few nights there and many days and am pleased to say that Newcastle is still occupied!

I’ve just come from filming a sword dance in Villanueva de los Cruces in Huelva, Spain with my friend Ariela. That will be the subject of the next post!

Hasta pronto!

If things got too close, there were small wooden shields by the walls where they could run behind until the bull left. The point of the whole thing seemed to be to get the bull to wear itself out running. After a little while there was another call of the trumpets and a mounted spearman came out on an armored horse. While the pink-caped men stood around the horse drew the charge of the bull, and the rider stabbed it above its neck while it tried to gore the horse. I was amazed that the horse seemed not to fear the charge until I realized that it was wearing a blindfold of sorts.

The force of the bulls horns would cause the rider and steed to lean in at quite an angle. After this part was over, three men would come out on their own holding two colored rods with spikes on the end. One at a time, they would run up to the bull, dodge its charge, jump, and thrust the spikes into the animals neck or upper back, leaving the bull running around with six colored rods sticking out of it. After this it was time for the real show, judging by the crowds reaction (and storybooks I read as a kid) The toreador entered, dressed up in an outlandishly sparkly and skin-tight costume.

He waved his cape at the bull and let it charge, sometimes drawing two or three charges in sequence, to the delight of the crowd. The hard-core fans were all closer to the center, and there seemed to be specific moves that drew applause, cries of “ole!” (Yes! For real!) and cheers. As far as I could tell, it was a bit like pouring cider in Basque Country; the closer you get to failure (being skewered) and the greater the image of nonchalance you project, the better the performance. Several times after a series of frantic charges and misses, the matador would turn his back on the bull and simply walk away, to howls of delight from the fans. The matador would finally go and exchange his sword for another one at the edge of the ring and set about to kill the animal. The death blow was dealt by passing very close to the charge and thrusting the sword into the upper back of the bull, I assume into the heart. I had always thought that this bit would be quicker (and I think it is supposed to be) but the bull took a long time to die.

It would stand there, swaying, walking back and forth, while the pink cloaks surrounded it, waving about to confuse it. Finally it would stagger and fall to the ground, at which point the toreador would have to retrieve his sword and an assistant would us a small knife to sever the spinal cord of the animal, instantly killing it. The crowd would be going wild by this point, singing, cheering, and waving small white handkerchiefs in the air. Music would start and a team of horses would be paraded out, lashed to the bull, and drag it out of the stadium. A team of grounds crew would rake sand over the blood, there would be a short break and the whole thing would start again. And again. And again. I didn’t stay for the whole thing, but it by the time I left at least six bulls had been killed. It also seemed like everything that could “go wrong” in a bullfight did. While I was there, several pink capes and toreadors had been thrown by the bull and the rest of them would have to run out and distract the bull to rescue them.

A bull ended up jumping over the fence around the arena into the area where the support teams were all standing. They looked terrified and all jumped the fence into the ring and the bull charged in circles around the outside until someone thought to open a door to the center and everyone jumped the fence again. One toreador lost his sword and had to get a new one and when his bull finally was stabbed he went to get it back, only to be charged and thrown by the bull in its last struggle for life. I have to say, before too long I was rooting for the bull. If anyone is wondering, yes it is just as barbaric a tradition as you think it is. I think it would be a good thing to for it to be shut down, and the idea of so many people taking so much pleasure out of the torture and killing of an animal is a little bit sickening. Part of it is that it just doesn’t seem fair to pit a fully rested man against a bull that has already been run in circles lanced, and stabbed with the colored rods. All of this said, I’m glad I saw it before it disappears. It is a cultural phenomenon that already seems as something out of the distant past. Though I would have seen it anyway, I also am a bit glad that I was given free tickets and didn’t end up supporting it monetarily. One last thought before I go to bed: Did anyone else read the children’s book about a bull that was given a pardon for fighting well? I can’t remember the name, but I’m sure one of you does!