festivals of moors and christians
TRANSCRIPT
Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Vol.18, Number 1, 2008 (ISSN: 1016-3476)
Festivals of Moors and Christians. Performance, commodity and identity in folk
celebrations in Southern Spain.
©Maria J.C. Krom PhD-researcher
CRIA-Centre for the Research in Anthropology Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Summary
Festivals of Moors and Christians are celebrated in great profusion in Southern Spain.
These festivals, combining religious ceremony and secular entertainment, are widely
divulged in books, newspapers, on the Internet, and on local and regional television.
The number of festivals is growing each year; celebrations fallen in disuse are
revived and new ones are created. While continuing to rally the local population as a
focus for the expression of identity, in the last few decades, many of these festivals
have also become the object of processes of commoditization and heritagization, and
a focus for identity politics. Based on fieldwork and literature research, the essay
analyses the festival in its contemporary form, from the perspective of performance,
arguing that the performative character of the celebration constitutes the foundation
for both its marketability and its efficacy as an emblem of local identity.
The context. The festival of Moors and Christians in Beneixama.
The festivals of Moors and Christians in Spain, depicting the Christian re-
conquest of the Iberian Peninsula occupied by the Moors, are a combination of
religious ceremony involving the veneration of the local patron saint and the
evocation of real or fictitious historical events, by means of recited dialogue and
staged battle scenes. The festivals are of great audiovisual and emotional impact,
comprising parades, processions, dancing, battles, rifle shooting and fire works,
invading the streets of towns and villages during three to five days, and involving a
large part of the local population.
The Festes de Moros i Cristians de Beneixama take place every year in the
beginning of September. Beneixama is a small village of some 1500 inhabitants,
situated in the fertile valley of the Vinalopó, in the province of Alicante, part of the
Comarca of Valencia, in the southern part of Spain. The Mariola Mountains and the
valley of the Vinalopó are well known for their festivals of Moors and Christians. The
region boasts some of the eldest celebrations of this kind (Alcoi, Villena, Biar,
Banyeres, Bocairent), most of which are said to have appeared in their current form
in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the wake of the industrialization of the
region. Although they have evolved out of an older type of celebration, the simulacra
or soldadesca, these are decidedly modern celebrations, emerging in a context of
social upheaval and change, when the bourgeoisie started its ascent as the leading
class in a liberal society based on the principle of civic participation (Alcaraz i
Santonja 2006:37).
The festival of Beneixama, considered amongst these older and authentic
celebrations, has been celebrated in its current form, according to historical
documentation, from at least 1840 onwards (Alcaraz i Santonja 2006:145; Festes de
Moros i Cristians de Beneixama 2008:146).
The program of the festival is divided over five days. The official opening
begins at noon, with the raising of flags on the balcony of the town hall, and
accompanied by the notes of the various festival hymns. This is followed by a special
kind of fireworks, a mascletada, on the square in front of the town hall, and a
musical presentation of the bands that will accompany the comparsas and esquadras
during the festivities.
At five o’ clock in the afternoon the captain (capità) of the Christian company, or
comparsa, receives an official salute from the other comparsas: de Moros,
Estudiantes and Llauradors 1. This is the starting signal for the entradas, the grand
opening ceremony, to begin. The filaes of Moors and Christians, consisting of the
respective comparsas, lead by the capità, his family and the flag bearer, the
abandarado 2, with their various subdivisions, the esquadras, present themselves to
the public, parading in their best finery along a predefined itinerary. The parade,
comprised of some seven hundred elaborately dressed participants - ranging from
babies to elderly people - moving slowly to the beat of a Paso Doble or the rhythm of
a Moorish march played by one of the twenty bands, takes several hours, ending on
the square in front of the Ajuntament (village hall). The final part of the entradas
consists of a succession of open-ended trucks from which costumed festers throw
the most surprising kind of surprises (regalos): sweets, toys, household appliances,
etc.
After the entradas are finished, late at night, a solemn procession transports the
statue of the patron saint, the Divine Aurora, from her chapel near the town hall to
the parochial church in the centre of the village. A ball with live music concludes the
day.
The following days of the festival begin at dawn with the ringing of church
bells and volleys of gunshots. The festers gather in their respective masets – the
headquarter of the comparsa - for the Diana, a parade in which one or more of the
esquadras marches in the direction of the church, directed by their cabo, on the
notes of a paso doble or Moorish march played by their band of musicians. On their
way to the church, the esquadras pass by the house of the captain of the day to
bring him an honorary salute3.
The esquadras and their captain assist at mass in the parochial church after which
the esquadras and their cabo perform El Rogle, a kind of military choreography
carried out in front of the church entrance, applauded by the gathering of
spectators. After El Rogle, once more accompanied by the musicians, the esquadras,
led by their cabo and capità, return to their maset where they eat breakfast and can
relax for a little while.
At noon it is time for the Missa Major, followed on the second day of the festival by a
procession of the sumptuously dressed comparsas through the streets of the village
that ends in an offering of flowers to the patron saint, the Divine Aurora, also called
Mare de Déu (Mother of God), displayed in the church.
On the third and fourth days of the festival the Holy Mass is followed by a Cercavila,
a parade leading esquadras and capitàns of all four comparsas through the village,
under lively accompaniment of their respective bands.
The evenings of the second, third and fourth days are dedicated to the
embaixadas, negotiations between the Moorish and the Christian ambassador,
recited in verses written by the 19th century local poet Pastor Aycart. The
embaixadas begin with the serreta, street battles in which members of both parties
fire deafening blasts of harquebusiers while advancing on the wooden castle erected
on the square near the town hall. On the evening of the second day the skirmishes
and negotiations are followed by the attack of the Moors and their conquest of the
Christian castle. The conquest ends with the placing of the effigy of La Mahoma on
the ramparts of the castle4.
The evening of the day dedicated to the Mare de Déu, the Christian troops take the
castle back from the Moors, expulsing La Mahoma. In the Cordà that follows - a
rather violent and noisy kind of fireworks - the effigy of La Mahoma is dismantled
and his clothing burned. Later that night, the statue of the Divine Aurora is once
again carried in solemn procession through the streets of the village before returning
to the church, preceded by all four comparsas led by their capitàns and
abanderados, and accompanied by bands playing their special hymns.
In the embaixada on the third day, the Moorish ambassador recites a speech of
surrender and conversion to the Christian faith.
On this day, the Divine Aurora is led once more in a solemn procession ending on
the square near the chapel where she will remain until the celebration in the
following year. The Moorish and Christian ambassadors, the capitàns and
abanderados line up forming an honorary corridor in front of the chapel. Before
entering the chapel, however, Aurora’s bearers make her sway to and fro to make it
seem like she is hesitating, not really wanting to take her leave. A single male voice
starts to sing the hymn to Aurora: “Goodbye, Aurora, goodbye”; a very dramatic and
moving moment that brings tears to the eyes of many elderly habitants. As one of
my informants later explained: “The old people cry because they do not know
whether they will be here next year to see their beloved Aurora”.
When the virgin is finally placed in the chapel the village harmony once more plays
her hymn and another round of fireworks bursts into the sky, ignited by the Christian
comparsa. The crowd disperses; the members of the comparsas return to their
maset for a late meal.
Then something unexpected happens: the Moors assemble at the entrance of the
town hall, waiting for the arrival of the mayor and the other notables. When they
arrive and start entering the building, the Moorish band plays a short salute. Only
then, the Moors return to their maset.
Festival as performance
‘In the twenty-first century, people as never before live by means of performance’,
states Schechner (2006:29) in his already classic work on performance5.
Borreguero (2006:418), in her analysis of the festival of Moors and Christians of
Villajoyosa describes it as ‘(…) a theatrical performance with the streets and historic
squares as the stage. The main actors in this drama are the people of the village,
either playing a part, or cheering and encouraging the main characters.’
The festivals of Moors and Christians - with their parades, make belief,
musical intervention, reciting of poetry, dancing, doing battle, firing rifles, and
religious ceremony - seem indeed a perfect example of performing, of what
Schechner calls ‘showing doing’ and which function it is to ‘display doing’.
‘Doing’ , defined by Schechner as the activity of living everyday life, and ‘showing
doing’, or performing (excerpts of) everyday life, are conceived as activities in
constant flux that interact with one another in a reciprocal relation (Schechner,
2006:28).
Of the various kinds of performance Schechner distinguishes, performance in
everyday life is of particular interest for the analysis of the festivals of Moors and
Christians. As Schechner (ibid:ibidem) indicates, this kind of performance has the
purpose of marking identity, playing with the notion of time, embellishing the body,
changing it’s shape, and telling stories. From childhood onwards, people are trained
in the appropriate kind of behaviour for different circumstances and according to
different social roles. Just like in art and ritual, performance in everyday life consists
of a repetition of this kind of learned behaviour, displaying what Schechner calls
‘restored or twice-behaved behaviour’. To make sense, this symbolic and reflexive
behaviour needs to be decoded, which is generally reserved for insiders.
Participation in collective performances, such as the festivals of Moors and Christians
in which participation starts from a very young age onwards, is one of the means by
which appropriate social and cultural behaviour is learned and transmitted.
Such everyday life performances can have the objective of changing the status quo,
maintaining it, or of establishing a common ground.
Although all performances are built up from a similar set of elements of ‘restored
behaviour’ as mentioned by Schechner, as embodied practice each performance is
also unique in the sense that it presents a temporal and spatially circumscribed
combination of elements of this behaviour. Its uniqueness is expressed not only
through its materiality (costumes, setting, lighting, number of participants, sequence,
etc.) but also through the circumstances in which it takes place and its relation and
interactivity with other objects, beings or performances.
Performances consist necessarily in a combination of action, interaction and
relationship (Schechner, 2006:30-31). This helps to explain why festivals of Moors
and Christians seem all the same and yet also different, maintaining a general basic
structure of similar elements but changing from one year to the next and from one
context to the other.
An interesting example of this idea is the relationship and interaction between
the festivals of Moors and Christians celebrated in the towns of Biar and Villena near
Beneixama, described by Albert-Llorca (1995). Villena’s festival can’t be celebrated
without the collaboration of Biar, a neighbouring town and former vassal of the now
more prosperous and economically important Villena. This collaboration consists in
the loan of the symbolic figurehead of the festival, La Mahoma, belonging to Biar and
kept in this town during the greater part of the Year. Each year, the effigy of La
Mahoma is transported to Villena, where it stays for a period of four months during
which it performs its function in the local Moors and Christians festival. Disputes over
the value of this loan and the proper recompense, and differences over the correct
treatment of the effigy, influence both performances in practice and in perception.
In fact, the festivals tend to function in a kind of continuous chain-reaction to each
other, with each village or town vying to put on a more beautiful, more authentic,
more sumptuous performance than its neighbour.
What elements make up a performance?
As Schechner (2003:22) has pointed out, all performances share a set of basic
qualities: they order time in a special way; they attach a special value to objects;
they are non-productive in terms of goods; they adhere to a set of rules; and they
often take place in non-ordinary locations. Let us take a look at each of these
qualities in turn.
The first quality of performance is that it organizes time in a manner that
differs from ordinary time and which is adapted to the event (Schechner 2003:8). In
the festivals of Moors and Christians, time varies in kind and in duration, depending
on the act that is being performed and the location in which the performance takes
place. In terms of real clock time, the duration of the performance can go from one
up to three, four or even ten days, as is the case in the festival of Beneixama.
Although, in principle, the acts that make up the performance correspond to a
previously determined actual timetable laid out in the festival program, in fact, they
take place in event time, a time mode in which a particular activity takes place
according to a set sequence which must be completed no matter the actual clock
time this requires (Schechner: 2003: 8). This time mode applies for instance in the
entradas, the opening parade on the first day of the festival, when all of the
comparsas in the Moorish and Christian filaes march through the streets of the town
showing off their best finery. It also applies to the parades held on the remaining
days of the festival, to the processions which transport the patron saint from her
chapel to the church and vice versa, to the skirmishes between the Moors and
Christian troops, and to the pull and push of the conquest and re-conquest of the
castle by the Moors and Christians respectively. These acts have to be completed no
matter the amount of real clock time it takes.
The second time mode at work in the festival is symbolic time; a mode in which the
activity performed refers another time span, which may be longer or shorter - as in
the case of actual history - or may be of a different dimension. The embaixadas - the
recited poetic verses that make up the negotiations between the Moorish and the
Christian embaixadores - take recourse to this time mode, as do the holy masses
held during the festival. In the latter case, however, it is not actual historic time that
is referred but rather a different dimension of time (eternity, life after death).
The second quality of the performance is the special value given to the
objects, or props, used in the staging of the same. These props generally have little
monetary value outside the context of their usage. Sometimes they are very
common objects, of little material value, which can easily be replaced (Schechner
2003:11).
In the Moors and Christians festivals, some of the objects used are very expensive,
as for instance the jewels that adorn the statue of the Divine Aurora during the
processions, or the finer costumes worn by the capitáns during the official
ceremonies. Nevertheless, even here the monetary value is relative, since the
costumes only make sense in the context of the festival and are produced and
bought specifically for this purpose.
All of these objects are, however, of great symbolic value within the context of the
performance; they may even constitute the focal point of the whole activity. The
festivals of Moors and Christians would be completely different without the elaborate
and colourful costumes and without the dramatic musical accompaniment. The props
thus are essential for the creation of symbolic reality.
Likewise, the giant effigy of La Mahoma, that plays such a crucial role in the festivals
of Biar and Villena, is of little value in terms of its material components, existing as it
does of a dressed up wooden structure. Its symbolic value, on the other hand, is
enormous.
In Biar La Mahoma is venerated as a Saint and attributed the same weight in the
celebration as the statue of the Virgin. In Villena, where the effigy is not perceived
as a saint - although its presence is considered crucial - it has at times been
maltreated or ridiculed, and even on occasion been partially destroyed in the course
of the festivities (Albert-Llorca, 1995).
In comparison, the effigy of La Mahoma in Beneixama is neither revered nor
ridiculed, but is nonetheless taken apart when the Moors are expelled from the
castle, although nowadays its head is no longer filled with fireworks and made to
explode. Despite recent criticism of this custom, which supposedly has led to its
abandonment in several nearby localities, Beneixama maintains La Mahoma up until
now, limiting itself to leaving out the name and simply designating it as ‘the effigy’.
The people on the street, nonetheless, continue to call the figure by its name.
The adherence to a set of rules and the marking-off of often non-ordinary
locations are two other qualities of a performance (Schechner, 2003:22).
In the case of the festivals of Moors and Christians in the Mariola Mountains, the
village or town as a whole is involved in the celebration through an endless series of
processions, parades, and ceremonial acts. The continuous ringing of church bells,
salutes of harquebusiers and playing of festival tunes, make it virtually impossible to
escape the festival whilst it is taking place. Special locations do exist, however, and
these are the focal point for the staging of particular acts: the church, the square in
front of the church, the chapel of the patron saint and its adjoining square next to
the town hall, the wooden castle erected on this square, the real castle towering
over the town, and of course the masets or headquarters, where the comparsas
gather.
For this reason Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998:58) sees festivals as a scripted form of
‘environmental performance’ with acts staged at different locations that correspond
to more private or more public parts in the celebration.
We can illustrate this taking Beneixama as an example. Here, the ‘public’ opening of
the festival is preceded by five days in which more ‘private’ parades are held by all
four of the comparsas on the four consecutive nights preceding the official entradas.
On the eve of the official opening of the festival, the comparsas hold the Nit del
Sopar, uniting all festers in their own maset, the headquarters of their respective
comparsa, for a joint evening meal. These acts are quite private even when the door
stands wide open, as are the gatherings in the maset during the festival, or the final
ceremony at the chapel of the Divine Aurora.
Another example of this mingling of private and public acts can be seen in the
festival in Banyeres de Mariola, where the last day begins with the priest saying
mass on the local cemetery, allowing the population to commemorate and bring
homage to the deceased. Although not formally closed to the public, the atmosphere
here is one of absolute privacy, making it difficult for possibly present visitors to
disrespect an unspoken code of conduct of non-interference.
The performance, as we see, is staged in accordance with a set of rules – a
tradition if you will – that not only scripts the actors’ behaviour, but also defends the
performance against ‘encroachment from the outside’ (Schechner, 2003:13). This
might explain why some festivals continue to have a truthful, genuine ring to them,
in spite of increasing pressure to turn them into an instrument in the politics of
culture.
This brings us to the last point in the characterization of the basic qualities of
a performance: its non-productivity.
Schechner (2003:11) pointed out that performances stand apart from ordinary day-
to-day life because, like play, they are not considered a productive or serious activity
in the sense that they results in the creation of wealth or the accumulation of goods.
However, if we look at the way in which festivals of Moors and Christians in general
have of late been evolving, especially in areas where towns compete with each other
on the economic and cultural level, we see an increasing trend towards their
commoditization; the celebration as a commodity does become productive in the
economic sense of the term.
The colourful festivals of Moors and Christians, with their aura of ‘cultural
authenticity’, are in fact attractive targets for marketing strategies directed at the
attraction of tourists, which sometimes lead to the creation of new celebrations of
this kind where these previously did not exist. The festival of Moors and Christians in
Calpe, on the coast near Alicante, is a case in point (Perles Ribes, 2006).
The market value of the festival as an ‘authentic’ expression of local culture,
as a heritage-commodity, hinges, as Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998) shows, on its
capacity for display.
Festivals as modes of display, extending over a varying period of time, place
spectators and participants in an ‘environment of sensory riot, engaging all the
senses – olfactory, gustatory, auditory, tactile, kinaesthetic, and visual’ (Kirshenblatt-
Gimblett 1998:58).
In my view, this sensorial rapture constitutes an important motive for the continuing
– and growing - participation of local inhabitants in the festivals of Moors and
Christians, and it is this same quality that turns the celebration into an attractive
object for strategies directed at the creation of heritage, and identity politics at a
local and regional level.
In relation to the link between the sensorial impact of folk festivals and their value
for identity politics, Bendix (2005:10) remarked that,
“the distance between ‘enacting the real thing and actually feeling like the real thing
persuasively connects to arguments about identity. The aesthetically elaborated cultural
practices are singled out for political and economical purposes precisely because they affect
our senses and cloud over rational value judgements about the simplified version they often
present of complex reality. The role this sensory appeal plays in the nostalgia that often
surrounds folk expressions is an important factor in the success of the political use of culture”.
The festivals of Moors and Christians seem to be the perfect gambit in the politics of
culture. As Kirshenblatt-Gimblett pointed out (1998:65), ‘Having a past, a history, a
‘folklore’ of your own, and institutions to bolster these claims, is fundamental to the
politics of culture’.
Recently created celebrations such as the one in Calpe which dates from 1977
(Perles Ribes, 2006) – that claim to offer the visitor a glimpse and a taste of
‘authentic’ culture, pretending that what is shown is not a re-creation but the real
thing, hitch a ride on the wave of interest surrounding long established celebrations
like the ones in Villena, Alcoi and Villajoyosa (dating from the mid 19th century, 1741
and 1876 respectively).
The problem, as Kirshenblatt-Gimblett points out, lies in the fact that they ‘sell’ the
visitor the illusion of having an ‘unmediated encounter’, an authentic experience,
while in fact he witnesses a staged performance in which the people performing
‘become signs of themselves’:
“We have here the major tropes of ethnographic display, from the perspective of the tourist
industry – the promise of visual penetration; access to the back region of other people’s lives,
the life world of others as our playground; and the view that people are most themselves when
at play and that festivals are the quintessence of a region and its people”.
(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998:62)
Identity politics or the festival as commodity
In his essay on commodities and the politics of value, Appadurai (1986) proposes a
new way of looking at the circulation of objects in social life, stating that
commodities are objects of social value and that these objects, just like people, have
a social life. Their economic value is not a quality inherent in the objects themselves
but is something that is defined by people through the value judgements they make
about such objects and that politics create the link between the exchange and value
of the same. Appadurai’s analysis of commodity, value and politics is interesting in
the context of the festivals of Moors and Christians.
Folk festivals in general – promoted as emblems of cultural tradition – have
for quite some time played an important part in the attraction of tourists, forming
the basis for economic competition between Spanish tourist destinations (Perles
Ribes, 2006:147). The festivals of Moors and Christians, in particular, are responsible
for a considerable part of the income generated by the tourist market on the
southern coast of Spain.
Perles Ribes’ analysis of the festival in Calpe – a seaside town situated between
Valencia and Alicante, and a tourist destination since the 1950’s - shows that the
local celebration of Moors and Christians, on the two principal days of the festival,
generates between 11 and 18% of the net annual revenue resulting from tourism, in
the municipality.
The celebration in Calpe, which originated in 1977, was integrated in a process of
tourist development that was already well under way at the time. Apart from the
positive effect it had on the municipal budget, the festival has also led to a change in
the affluence of tourists. The tourist season, which formerly went from the 1st of
June to the 30th of September, now continues until the celebration of the festival of
Moors and Christians, taking place in the 3rd weekend of October.
The fact that the festival in Calpe initiated in the 70’s, some twenty years after Calpe
started to develop as a tourist destination, suggests, according to Perles Ribes
(2006:148) that the celebration was an intentional creation, integrated in a strategy
of tourist competitiveness, instead of an inherited tradition.
The economic impact of the festival of Moors and Christians on the municipal budget
of Calpe, directly related to its capacity for the attraction of tourists and other
visitors, results in a figure of nearly five million euros on a yearly basis. Some 56% of
this figure results from the expenses made by visitors and tourists in the acquisition
of daily necessities and other goods, while the remaining percentage corresponds to
expenses in terms of lodgings for these same visitors and tourists.
The number of people that visit Calpe on the two most important days of the
festival, is estimated at around eighty six thousand, not counting the individuals that
habitually visit Calpe on any given day of the week, nor the inhabitants of Calpe
(Perles Ribes 2006:157).
The same author also refers that, when questioned, most of the owners of
commercial establishments in Calpe consider the celebration to have a positive effect
on the budget of the municipality in general, while only some - mainly hotels, real
estate agents and local commerce situated in the town centre - claim to feel the
effects personally in their own businesses (Idem, ibidem:161).
Obviously, the celebration of the festival does not only bring economic benefit, but
also implies expenses for the municipality, related for instance to illumination, the
construction of the castle - normally a wooden structure, cleaning, fireworks, security
and publicity. In Calpe, this investment represents a figure of more than forty seven
thousand euros per year (Idem, ibidem:153).
Apart from representing a substantial value in terms of income, the festivals of
Moors and Christians also have an important non-material and symbolic value.
Promoted as an icon of local culture – an authentic expression embodying the
identity of the local community – the value of the celebration translates in terms of
social status and political prestige at a local and even regional level, made visible in
abundant media coverage both locally and regionally.
The process of authentification and heritagization is also eloquently
expressed in the panoply of materials produced at the local level with the objective
of promoting the celebration.
Every year, many of the municipalities celebrating a festival of Moors and Christians
produce a thick commemorative book on the local festival. The 2008 edition of the
municipality of Banyeres de Mariola counted nearly three hundred pages, the first six
and the last hundred and fifty pages of which filled with advertisements and publicity
of local and regional firms. These ads serve, obviously, to cover a part of the
expenses implicated in the organisation of the festival, reserving the biggest and
most prominent space for the most important contributors.
Fundraising, however, is not the only purpose of the book. Aimed also at the
affirmation of the celebration’s authenticity – upon which depends its value as local
heritage – the book stresses the prestige of the festival, opening with public
salutations from all of the politically relevant entities at local, regional and national
level. In descending order appear consecutively: the Royal Family, the Presidencia
de la Generalitat, the Diputación Provincial, the Alcalde (Mayor) del Ajuntament de
Banyeres, the Chairman of the Comissió de Festes, the Alcalde de Festes, Municipal
Representatives, and, finally, the Commissió de Festes.
The book also figures as a portrait in miniature of the local community. In
subsequent chapters it presents the most diverse types of information: greetings and
information from the comparsas; the program of the current edition of the festival;
the prizes attributed in the various categories of the festival (floats, flags, music,
children’s drawings on the festival, etc); a little bit of local history; news from the
social and cultural associations and other civil entities; memories of and homages to
the already deceased; commemorative texts; and even a contribution of the official
chronicler of the festival6.
All of these chapters clearly aim at the reinforcement of social cohesion within the
community, and at the stimulation of feelings of belonging. These aims are neatly
expressed in the salutation of the Mayor of Banyeres: “The infra-structure of the
festival has spun a web of personal relations that has converted itself in the
backbone of the social life in our town (….) the festival integrates, unites, connects,
and maintains bonds and strengthens friendships, while at the same time stimulating
the respect for others” (Festes de Moros i Cristians de Sant Jordi 2008:25)7.
Sociability and the politics of identity
Since the 1950’s, the number of festivals of Moors and Christians in the Comarca de
Valencia, comprising the provinces of Valencia and Alicante, has increased from
about thirty to almost two hundred celebrations a year (Alcaraz i Santonja 2006:37).
This increase of celebrations has been accompanied by the exponential growth of an
industry in materials and services related to the festivals, which has the purpose of
supplying the nearly 800 comparsas that currently participate in the celebrations,
with recourses. A giant workforce of seamstresses, designers, wig makers, makeup
artists, choreographers, musicians and composers, craftsmen working with metal and
iron, suppliers of harquebusiers, etcetera, work throughout the year to satisfy the
orders of their demanding clients (Alcaraz i Santonja 2006:10).
How does the existence of a whole industry dedicated solely to the production of
materials and props used exclusively in the context of the festival, relate to the
expression of identity and the maintenance of social cohesion, referred by the mayor
of Banyeres?
Let us first look at the social dimension, or context in which the practices of
consumption in the festival take place, using as example the celebration in Banyeres
de Mariola, a town near Beneixama, and then see how these practices translate in
terms of sentiments of belonging and affirmation of identity.
The companies of Moors and Christians, called filaes, usually consist of multiple
units, the comparsas, which in turn are divided in esquadras, both of which play an
important role in the social life of the village and which find their most eloquent
expression in the setting of the festival.
People participate in the festival through their membership in one of the comparsas.
The comparsa has the legal stature of a cultural association, directed by a board, the
junta, composed of twenty to thirty people, dependent on the number of members in
the comparsa. The junta represents the comparsa in the festival committee, which is
headed by a representative of the municipality. The junta also is responsible for the
budget and for the general organization of the comparsa. Every two years the
comparsa elects a new board from the members that propose themselves as
candidate. Having an equalitarian philosophy, the new board members can be men
or women, young people or old. Curiously enough, the actual board of the comparsa
dos Maseros in Banyeres consists solely of women7.
In Banyeres de Mariola, there are, in total, ten comparsas – five on the side
of the Moors and five in the Christian filà. (In comparison, in Beneixama there are
only four: Moros, Christians, Estudiants and Llauradors). The number of festers
(members) in each comparsa varies between eighty and five hundred individuals.
The comparsas spend their annual budget mainly on expenses related to the annual
festival that takes place in April. The rest of the budget is for costs related to the
maintenance of the headquarters, the maset, and for other activities, such as a
smaller festival held in September. The budget consists of the quota (membership
fee) paid by the members of the comparsa. An example: the Comparsa de Maseros
in Banyeres – representing the class of landowners and labourers, which has been
performing uninterruptedly since 1928 – has three hundred and forty members.
Each member pays an annual fee of three hundred and seventy five euros, which
gives him or her the right to participate in the main festival in April, plus an
additional fee of a hundred and fifty euros for participation in the two-day festival in
September8. This makes a total budget of a hundred and sixty one thousand and five
hundred euros. To this amount accrues the income generated by incidental activities
directed at fundraising.
From this budget, the comparsa pays the fees for the musicians – which for the
festival in April alone rounds a sum of about thirty thousand euros for ten bands of
eight musicians each. It pays for the standard costumes for the members of the
comparsa, the floats that participate in the parades, the flowers for the procession,
the composition of special music for the sole use by the comparsa, food and
beverages for members and musicians, and general expenses related to
maintenance of the maset and organization of the association.
The comparsas are distinguished from one another by their typical costumes
and props. In return for their membership fees, the members of the comparsa have
the right to ‘come out’ during the parades in the esquadra of their choice, and
wearing the standard outfit. If they want a more elaborate outfit, they have to pay
for it themselves. This can be very costly, considering that the price of a typical
Valencia dress can cost as much as six thousand euros. Obviously, most members
wear only the standard outfit.
The capità and his family (or capitana in case it’s a woman), and the abanderado,
the bearer of the flag, wear a much more elaborate dress, which they themselves
pay for. In Banyeres, the role of capità is optional and rotates every year. Every
member has the right to propose him- or herself as a candidate. However,
considering the costs involved, in practice the more well to do families hold the
capitania, a function which obliges them to serve as host for the members of the
comparsa on some days of the festival, and to appear in full dress in all of the official
acts. If in a given year there are no candidates for the capitania, the comparsa itself
takes on this role.
In nearby Beneixama, on the other hand, the capitania is determined by rote, falling
to each of the members in alphabetical order, or by random election.
The esquadras, the most important subdivision of the comparsa, are usually
formed by people within the same age group, often a group of friends or classmates,
of the same gender or mixed, that parade together during the official acts of the
festival. Their leader, the cabo – who can be male or female, just as the esquadra
itself - is chosen by his fellow member in the esquadra, based on his or her abilities
as a performer. The cabo leads the esquadra during the parades and in the
choreographies, the military formations, and he has to incite the members of his
esquadra to a perfect performance and elicit applause from the spectators by the
way he directs the choreographed movements of his group. In Banyeres, prizes are
awarded for best cabo and best esquadra.
Usually, young people start out as participants in the comparsa to which their
parents belong, which they start to do at a very young age, often as babies or
toddlers. As they get older, they choose either to stay in the same comparsa as their
parents or to join another comparsa of their choice, based on the presence of friends
or classmates. Several of my informants indicated that this system of belonging
works as a form of social control and can cause problems if husband and wife belong
to different comparsas or if sweethearts belonging to the same esquadra separate,
since membership of the esquadra often overlaps with bonds of friendship.
The comparsas also provide a space where young people that do not live in
the village can experiment with identity, and serve as a means for the re-integration
of returning or new members of the community.
This is evident in Beneixama where a number of houses are occupied only during the
holidays and at the beginning of September, when the festival of Moors and
Christians takes place. The residents of these houses are primarily descendents of
inhabitants that have moved away, grandparents and parents - curiously enough
many of them to Pamplona, in the North of Spain. These temporary residents return
on purpose to take part in the celebration, or plan their holiday in this period. This is
the case with two informants I interviewed. One, a female pharmacist of fifty years
old, bought the old family granary in the village centre and remodelled it into a
holiday home. She lives in Pamplona but always participates in the festival. Both she
and her daughter are active festers, expressing the importance of their participation.
Her two sons, on the other hand, enjoy the festivities but do not care to dress for it
or take part in the official acts, preferring just to hang out with their friends in the
village.
Another informant, a female theatre producer of around the same age, who lives
near Valencia, grew up in the village. She comes from a family of festers: father,
mother, one of her brothers and she herself used to ‘come out’ as Moors. Her
mother had the important task of safeguarding in their house the jewels used to
decorate the statue of the Divine Aurora during the processions. Her husband, who
is originally from Pamplona, for some years also came out with the Moorish
comparsa. Nowadays, neither one of them partakes in the parades, preferring to
cheer on their two daughters who are both fervent participants. The eldest, 22 years
old, joined the Christian comparsa instead of coming out with the Moors, because all
of her friends are members there. The youngest (16) is not yet a member but wants
to join as well. Her mother, however, wants to wait until she is a bit older, because
of the costs involved.
The system formed by comparsa and esquadras thus reveals itself of great
importance in the construction and maintenance of the social structure and cohesion
of the community, uniting as it does generations and gender by means of a
multiplicity of social activities – joint meals, fundraising activities, excursions -
throughout the year, inspiring strong feelings of loyalty and belonging in its
members. The comparsa could be compared to an extended family, in the context of
which a major part of the social life of its members takes place. Within the comparsa
the esquadras are of particular importance, embodying as it were the spirit of the
festival and the sociability principle of the community, and which is maybe best
expressed in the proud affirmation, ‘Não disfraçamos, vestimos. Não desfilamos,
marchamos!’ (“We don’t disguise ourselves, we dress. We don’t parade, we
march!”).
Conclusion
In a relatively short time, the festivals of Moors and Christians have turned into
valuable assets in ongoing processes of heritagization and commoditization.
Concomitant with these processes, the festivals have become an important object of
consumption on the part of the population celebrating the festival, sustained by an
industry of recourses and services10.
In some cases, the local festivals of Moors and Christians have long passed from the
stage of consumption candidacy referred by Appadurai (1986:16) to a stage in which
they are in fact objects of consumption. Perles Ribes’ (2006) analysis is a case in
point, demonstrating how important the festival is for the municipality of Calpe, in
terms of money and prestige.
The aura of authenticity of the festival and its capacity for display are of the
greatest importance for the success of the commoditization strategies on the part of
local power entities that produce publicity materials to underscore the prestige of
their festival.
The consumption practices of the comparsas, who intervene in the festival as active
social agents, on the other hand can be seen as expressions of a reflexive process of
construction and affirmation of identity in which objects produced for the market are
transformed ‘from an alienable condition to an inalienable one’ (Miller 1987:190). A
process which Bendix (2005:197) defined as reflexive modernization, wherein people
look at their own practices and evaluate their economical and political worth.
These two complementary facets of the festivals can perhaps be clarified by
the distinction that Hill and Wilson (2003:2; 2004:2) make between identity politics
and politics of identity.
Identity politics is seen by these authors as a top-down process used by political,
economic and other social entities to shape collective identities on the basis of
ethnicity, race, language and to place these into ‘relatively fixed and naturalised
(essentialized) frames’ in order to achieve political ends. Identity politics are
expressed through the discourse and action of formal institutions – governments,
parties, and corporate institutions - aimed at articulating, constructing, inventing,
folklorizing and commodifying culture and identity within the public sphere of politics
and civil society. The strategies on the part of local powers directed at the
commoditization of the festival for economic and political benefit are an example of
this kind of politics.
Politics of identity, on the other hand, is defined as a bottom up process that takes
place in the everyday life of individuals and communities, in which local people,
acting within a framework of social and political institutions and collectivities, ‘choose
or are forced to interact with each other on the basis of shared or divergent notions
of identity’. For example: the strategies deployed by local populations to distinguish
themselves from the neighbouring towns through the idiosyncrasies of their own
local festival. This process, expressed through the negotiation of culture, power and
identity aimed at the creation of meaning, affirmation of identity, or economic
survival, can but does not necessarily coincide with the process of identity politics.
However, these two processes, do not, in my view, fully account for the force
of participants’ sentiments of belonging and the measure of social cohesion these
festivals generate. Analysing the festivals of Moors and Christians from the
perspective of performance, on the other hand, would seem to allow us to explain
and conciliate the existence, within the same event, of such apparently contradictory
tendencies as commoditization, expression of identity, maintenance of social
cohesion and sentiments of belonging.
As stated by Schechner (2003:157), these kinds of oppositions are an integral part of
every performance, it being always a dialectic process of action and interaction,
‘Performance originates in impulses to make things happen and to entertain; to get results and
to fool around; to collect meanings and to pass the time; to be transformed into another and
to celebrate being oneself; (…) to focus on a select group sharing a secret language and to
broadcast to the largest possible audience of strangers; to play in order to satisfy a felt
obligation and to play under an Equity contract for cash’.
The performances of Moors and Christians thus can be seen as continuously
oscillating between two poles on a binary continuum, similar to the one Schechner
(2003:130 fig. 4.4) indicated for theatre and ritual, which we can design
schematically as follows:
Community/celebration/identity --------- performance ----------- identity/commodity/entertainment
Moreover, Schechner claimed that,
‘the money, services and products (…) generated by these activities (performances) are not
part of them. (…) No matter how much is spent, paid, or bet, or in other ways implicated in
these performative activities, their respective forms remain constant. When money does
“corrupt” a form (…) people are able to recognize the misalignment’ (2003:13).
I do agree with Schechner that the money, services and products surrounding the
contemporary performances of Moors and Christians do not necessarily corrupt the
form in those festivals that build on a local ‘tradition’, as is the case in Beneixama,
Banyeres, Biar and Villena, because there they are an integral part of the social
structure of the communities in question. However, where such a local festival
‘tradition’ does not exist, nor is nor becomes embedded in the social structure, as
seems to be the case in Calpe, it seems doubtful that the celebration can remain
‘uncorrupted’ in form and content since from the outset the festival in these cases
arises in response to other exigencies, of a different nature.
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1 Beneixama has only four comparsas, three of which belong to the Christian filà : the Christians, the Students (Estudiants), and the Labourers (Llauradors). The filà of the Moors (Moros) has only one comparsa. Other festival may have many more, on both sides. In Banyeres de Mariola, for instance, five comparsas parade in the Moorish filà (Moros Vells, Moros Nous, Pirates, Marrocs, Califes), and five in the Christian filà (Christians, Estudiants, Maseros, Contrabandistas, Jordians). 2 The role of capità and abanderado can both be played by a man or a woman (capitana, abanderada). This is not always the case. In Alcoi, seen as the bastion of the tradition, women continue to be limited to mere decorative roles, while in Petrer, another one of the older and traditional festivals, women only relatively recently (1962) started interpreting other roles, due to the entrance of women in the workforce (Heuzé 1999). 3 In Beneixama the role of captain changes every day to aleviate the costs implied. 4 La Mahoma is an allegorical figure, originally referring the profet of the Muslims, which in the festival of Moors and Christians is represented by an effigy made of a wooden frame and papiermaché head, dressed to represent the profet. In earlier days, in Beneixama the effigy’s head was filled with fireworks and exploded from the castle, but due to protests about the political correctness of the habit, this practice has been abandoned. The effigy is still burned, but is officially no longer called La Mahoma. See for a more extensive treatment of this subject, Albert-Llorca, M. and Albert, J. 1995) 5 Schechner defines performance as “an activity done by an individual or group in the presence of and for another individual or group, (..in which…) the function of the audience persists (even when there is no formal audience): part of the performing group watches – is meant to watch – other parts of the performing group” (2003:22). 6 See also Blanc 2003 on this subject 7 My translation from Catalán. 8 According to my informants, in the Villena tradition, named after the neighbouring town of this name, in which both Beneixama and Banyeres participate, since the end of the Franco dictatorship women have always participated in the comparsas as equal to the men. The same can not be said about Alcoi, another nearby town, self proclaimed as the bastion of festival tradition, where the purists defend the segregation of roles based on gender, allowing the women to participate only in decorative roles (see: Heuzé 1999; Albert-Llorca, Gonzalez-Alcantud 2003). 9 Information provided by my informant G.B, who works and lives in Banyeres, member of the Comparsa de Maseros. 10 I use the term consumption as currently defined in the context of the social sciences, as “a dimension of the social order that comprises a set of practices which permit individuals to express their identity, mark their belonging to certain social groups, develop strategies of social distinction and assure their participation in social activities” (Rosales 2002:295).