It’s the time of the year when some of the pueblos in my small corner of Spain celebrate their various Moors and Christians festivals. How close to marking a factual date, or just because it was otherwise going to be a quiet weekend, is unclear. But apparently in 1488, Mojácar fell to the Christian forces. Next-door Vera on the one side of us and Carboneras just over the mountain on the other side also fell this (or maybe next) weekend some 537 years ago. As I write this, all three towns have been enjoying their processions, fabulous costumes, bands playing waily-waily music and lots of thunder-flashes going off – loud enough to wake the dead. Indeed, to add to the fun, Vera town hall has thrown in a bullfight as well.
And don’t forget, Carboneras (I find that it starts this coming weekend) has a castle for that extra bit of verisimilitude.
The whole idea began down our way in around 1988 (appropriately, the fifth centenary of the final push towards Granada, a ‘reconquista’ which swept through our area in that year). The costumes and celebrations come (usually rented in our case) from the Alicante town of Alcoy, which has apparently been honing its medieval armour since King Jaume of Valencia passed through there with his forces in 1276.
Mojácar’s festival is different, according to our recently-invented tradition, in that the Christian captain and the Moorish mayor are said to have sunk their differences over a glass of dandelion tonic down at the Fuente, and agreed that we – or rather they – were all Spaniards together and, by the way and in case you wondered, the road to Granada is over there, just past that algarrobo. As the Town Hall’s blurb puts it ‘…when we tell them of the story of that peaceful surrender of the city, they are surprised. It's a festival without victors or vanquished’.
This year, the fiesta had been extended an extra day and now runs Thursday through Sunday. When pueblos find that they are on to a good thing, visitor-wise, they often add an extra day or two. The Almería City’s saint’s day in August, for example, runs for nine days straight.
Peculiar that, considering that very few visitors make their way to the Big Al. Their surrender to the Christians, meanwhile, falls rather unfortunately on December 26th – where other, jollier celebrations are already going on.
We went up to the village on Thursday evening, to find that things hadn’t really got going. The different hard-board castles or kabilas, or whathaveyous were there, pressed back to back in the redu
ced area of the pueblo (Mojácar: a small and ancient town perched on a hill), all equipped with the 21st century equivalent of record players. Eight different venues for the seven groups loosely divided into Moors or Christians (generally speaking, the Moors are the PSOE and the Christians are the PP because, even in a small village, one must divide into still smaller peñas to belong).
The foreigners? Well some of them have joined in, above all, those who can afford to rent a costume.
I’ve been to a few Moors and Christians festivals over the years. The tinier villages in the mountains may be a bit quieter – with a costumed fellow on horseback declaiming a major chunk of poetry to his be-turbaned antagonist before the hired band lets go with a selection of modern pop songs and we all, locals and those who moved years ago to Almería City but still have a house here, move en masse to the tin chiringuito for a beer and something chewy on the hot-plate. One village popular with the foreigners, Bédar, used to feature a chap on a donkey wrapped in a table-cloth, another wearing the uniform of a military service private soldier seated on a Mobylette, plus someone from the Town Hall to help with the ancient poetry. ‘Avast, thou Moor, for this is a Godly Kingdom…’
Gouts of this stuff. Think ‘The Merchant of Venice’. And then cue the fireworks, and down to the bar.
Mojácar on Thursday evening was fairy crowded but the various kabilas hadn’t got going, so we sat in the main square at a table with someone we knew, together with a man from Tipperary, whose accent, alas, was too impenetrable for my poor German companion, plus a very nice lady dressed in a disturbing Goth outfit. To make up the party, there was a large and unchained parrot, who was nodding appreciably in time to the distant drums.
After a couple of schooners of gin and a Donner Kebab – Mojácar suddenly has a number of these establishments – we went home (there’s a secret route that the traffic police for some reason haven’t found).
For these affairs, I used to wear my old djellaba (a sort of gentleman’s nighty with a hood), a souvenir of a long-ago trip to Morocco. But I can’t find it now, I think it must have gotten thrown out.
On the second evening, Friday, we decided to take the bus up to the village – a performance which proved to be painless. We could see cars parked all the way up and all the way down again. Our bus-driver let us off just below the square.
By now, the party was well and truly underway. Many townsfolk were in their costumes and several carried with them a type of arquebus (or maybe a hand-cannon) called un trabuco, which, as far as I can see, they will fire off whenever they see a defenceless earhole. The different barracks were doing trade, one with a magnificent group of brass musicians from Alicante wearing fezzes. The wine was flowing and luckily the busses were still running when we finally made our adieus.
Saturday was a quiet day for us, with the windows firmly closed – and the air-conditioner on full – to help keep the explosions, bangs, drum-rolls, trumpets and shrieks away.
The last day of the festival was Sunday.
We took the bus once again, this time so overcrowded, the driver could barely close the door. We then lounged about for a couple of hours, with a few drinks to refresh ourselves, in keen anticipation of the oncoming parade.
Which was fantastic.
I think they must rent the costumes from some crafty fellow in Alicante who is making himself a small fortune. They were both beautiful and dramatic. More and more warriors (and princesses and some heavily armed children) passed slowly and regally by, with musicians accompanying each of the seven kábilas. The whole parade took over ninety minutes and probably had anything up to a thousand participants.
Following this stupendous experience, everyone else went home, while we settled on another glass of wine and a bowl of patatas bravas.
The Mojácar mayor had this to say:
‘In many other cities, the confrontation is recreated. In Mojácar, we celebrate mutual respect. And that, in these times, is more valuable than ever’.