During my last two posts I wrote about my adventures during my "Spring Break." In reality, it wasn't really a Spring Break, but a week off for celebration in Spain: Holy Week. Instead of hiding Easter eggs and eating candy on Easter Sunday, the Spanish are a little more intense in their celebrating and dedicate the whole week to eating, socializing, and watching processions. This tradition dates back to the 16th century! I don't want to say every Spaniard, but pretty dang close to almost every Spaniard is Catholic and during Semana Santa they sure show it proudly.
There are many Semana Santa celebrations around Spain, but the one in Sevilla is the most important. Sarah and I did not want to miss out on all of the festivities, so we raced back to Sevilla on Good Friday to see some of the celebrations. Many students traveled for the entire week, but I am so glad that we came back to see some of it. Sevilla was transformed with the thousands of people there to witness the processions!
Pasos
During Semana Santa people from all over the world join the Spaniards in watching the processions. The processions consist of many people and two pasos; one with the Passion of Christ and one with the mourning Virgin Mary. Pasos are very large floats that are made of wood, and covered in gold or silver. They date back to the 16th century and are decorated with flowers, candles, biblical scenes, and a figure of either Christ or the Virgen. These Pasos weigh A LOT and to keep up with tradition are carried on the backs of MEN. The processions last all Holy Week, with a schedule of different processions going different days.
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| The mourning Virgen |
Churches around Sevilla have their own procession with their own floats. The processions leave from the church, make their way through the city to the Cathedral, and then make their way back to the church. Because of the weight and how fragile the pasos are, the processions go very slowly. They are hours long, some taking even 12 hours! When it is not Semana Santa, they keep the figures of Mary and Christ in the altars in the church.
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| Virgin Mary in the altar |
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| Jesus Christ in an altar |
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| The beautiful detail of the manto de la Virgen. A cloak that the figures where. |
The week before Semana Santa Sarah and I visited the different churches around our barrio (neighborhood) with her host mom to see all of the different Christos, Virgenes, and Pasos that were being set-up.
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| Look at all of those candles!! |
The People of Semana Santa
Each procession is organized by a different brotherhood from a different church. The brotherhoods organize and upkeep the whole procession process for their church. Every brotherhood is represented by a different color cape worn by the Nazarenos.
Nazarenos
The Nazarenos are various people from the brotherhood who walk alongside the pasos. They wear tall, cone-shaped hats that cover the face. This reminds Americans of a very unpopular group from history, but do not worry, because the two are not related. This type of dress symbolizes their rising towards the heavens, which brings their penitence closer to the heavens. They cover their faces to mourn the death of Jesus Christ. Nazarenos are traditionally all male, but in recent years some females have stepped into the role as well. They carry long candles and other religious treasure.
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| You can pay for a seat by the Cathedral to watch all of the processions go by! |
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| Little kids would walk in the processions for hours, throwing out candy to the children watching. |
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| There is no age requirement! |
Costaleros
These are the men who do all of the muscle work. There are up to 40 men carrying one heavy float on their backs. They march underneath a cloth, to make it appear that they are not there. They need to walk in synch and sway the float back and forth to the music while they march. To make it out of the doorways of churches they often times need to crawl on their hands and knees out the door with the float on their backs. During the weeks before Semana Santa, I witnessed these men practicing through the streets many times!
La Banda
The music of Semana Santa was my favorite part! Behind the pasos there would be a marching band playing traditional Semana Santa music, which consists of minor keys and sorrowful sounds. Even though it had a sad sound to it, I loved hearing the music! The musicians were all so good (I could also hear them practicing around town before Semana Santa started), and the music gave me chills to hear!
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| The Spanish have to take a smoke break even while playing their instrument in a religious ceremony... |
La gente
There were SO MANY people in Sevilla for Semana Santa. The streets were unrecognizable with the thousands of people in them!
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Because of the heat of the day and the Spanish late life-style, the streets were even more packed at night!
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People generally dress very nice in dresses and suits. They watch the pasos by either buying a seat by the cathedral, watching from an apartment balcony, or pushing through the crowds on the sides of the streets. The most important day of Semana Santa is the Thursday night before Good Friday, into the early morning of Good Friday. During this time some of the most popular processions occur. They are the churches from the Triana neighborhood (that is where I lived!!!). During these processions the women wear mantillas (black shawls) accompanied by a black dress to mourn the death of Christ. Unfortunately, Sarah and I were still in Germany this night, so we missed it!
My Experience
Sarah and I raced back on Good Friday to catch all of the processions on that day. We pushed our way through the crowds on a very hot day to get an up close look at the beautiful pasos. We looked at the schedule and map and caught a glimpse of almost every single one of them that day somewhere in their path! The crowds sometimes made me feel a little claustrophobic, but for the most part we tried to squeeze our way to the front or stay in the back.
My host family buys seats by the Cathedral every year, so they went most days to go sit and watch the pasos. There are certain desserts and food that are typical of Semana Santa. My host family made me torrijas, which are pretty much baby french toast. For actual Easter Day (Pascua), my host family didn't do anything special. They didn't even recognize it as a holiday! For dinner we had frozen pizza....where's the huge ham dinner!?!? I guess their lack of celebration of actual Easter is made up by their week long celebration of Holy Week. I was still a little sad to miss my mom's yummy ham dinner though!
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| Man re-lighting the candles! |
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| The busy Cathedral as a paso exits the back |
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| The lit up candles at night were gorgeous! |
I am so thankful that I returned that week to have this rich, cultural experience. I have never experienced anything like Semana Santa in my life, and I don't think I ever will again. The strong tradition was beautiful. Yeah they could make life easier and use vehicles to pull around the pasos, but the fact that they still use man power to keep the symbolism and tradition alive is amazing. I was left very envious of the Spanish and wish that my culture had any strong traditions like theirs.
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