A Donde Fueres, Haz Lo Que Vieres: Semana Santa

So yesterday began the first day of Semana Santa, or Holy Week as we call it in English. Yesterday was Domingo de Ramos, "Palm Sunday" and I think the festivities began officially around midnight-1am Sunday morning. There are parades throughout Sevilla basically 24/7 until next Sunday. These are not normal parades, though. Are there marching bands? Yes. Are there floats? Yes. However...there are also thousands of nazarenos marching as well. Okay, now that everyone is decently confused, I shall explain.

At the heart of Semana Santa are the brotherhoods. The oldest existing brotherhood is El Silencio, and it dates back to when Semana Santa in Sevilla began...1340. Los Negritos and Jesús el Gran Poder date back to the 1400s. All brotherhoods are headed by the Supreme Council of Brotherhoods, Hermandades and Cofradias de Penetencia. Members of the Council are chosen every 4 years by elders of the different brotherhoods. The brotherhoods are associations of Catholic leypersons organized for performing public acts of religious observance, and to perform public penance. They also undertake other self-regulated religious activities including charitable and community work. Any baptised person can be in a brotherhood, but they all have different internal rules (some still have rules against women joining). Membership in a brotherhood is usually family tradition, neighborhood, or personal preference. There are approximately 60 brotherhoods and each of them have 2 floats. One float carries Christ during a distinct stage of the Passion, Death, or Resurrection and the other carries the Dolorosa, the Virgin Mary usually represented in pain. In addition to the 60 brotherhoods, there are about 50 other independent non-penetencial Catholic brotherhoods in Sevilla.

Okay, now that you have a general idea of what's going on I'll explain what you actually see during the processions. The brotherhoods march from their home church to the Cathedral, usually through a central viewing area, and back. Some processions take 14 hours...thus, the 24/7 processions.

The procession begins with a giant guiding cross, Cruz del Guia

A great number of Nazarenos follow. These people are dressed in colored robes (depending on the brotherhood) and a pointed hood which symbolizes repentence and grief. There are about 60,000 of them total and they carry long wax candles; some are even barefoot. They all walk in silence.

After the Nazarenos comes the altar boys, or acolytes. They are dressed in vestiments and carry chandeliers and incense. Yesterday we figured out that when you see or smell incense, a float is sure to follow...
The Paso, or float. Now folks, these aren't normal American parade floats we're talking about. These are massive structures made of solid gold, silver, or adorned wood with real flowers covering the base, with life-size statues standing on top of them. As I said earlier they either depict a scene from Jesus' Passion, Death, or Resurrection or the Virgin Mary under a giant canopy lamenting the fate of her son. These floats are CARRIED BY MEN, they are not motorized. Depending on the float, there may be 24-54 men underneath it.

A band, or choir usually follows the paso.

And at the end of the procession will be the penitentes, who are making public penance by carrying wooden crosses. They wear the same robe and hood as their brotherhood, but the hood is not pointed. These folks are serious about penance...I don't know if I could ever march around for hours carrying a wooden cross, the most I've done is say a rosary! I admire these people from the bottom of my heart.

I can explain this a hundred times, but until you experience it you will not understand. These people march for hours on end; some carry big wooden crosses, others carry massive precious metal floats. Some march in silence to an a capella choir, others march in silence to the crowd-calming, minor-key tune of a brass band. I wish you all could experience it like I have, it will absolutely make your soul shudder.

The climax of the week's festivities takes place on Thursday night, when the most popular processions set out to arrive at the Cathedral on the dawn of Good Friday. If my friends are up to it, I hope we can make it out for those processions! Yesterday we began around the Cathedral and there were THOUSANDS of people in the streets, we could hardly move! We got a couple views of some pasos but we weren't very close to either of them. We decided to arrive at the Parque Maria Luisa early enough to get a good view for the last pasos of the night.

I thought it was very interesting that we saw one float in particular in the Centro of the city. We then went walking across town to eat dinner, and then went to the Parque at least 3-4 hours later. We saw that exact same float at the Parque...it took THAT LONG for them to walk and for the float to be carried maybe a mile. These people are dedicated. These parades are unlike anything I've ever seen before. Saturday we went into a big church in town and saw their floats up close and they just took my breath away. The amount of detail on each float was amazing. Of course I didn't have my camera, but I got a few up close ones yesterday. Holy Week in Seville is the most important tradition of the city, and people come from all over the world to experience it here.

Today my host mom was cooking something in the kitchen I had never seen before. She was taking white bread and dipping it in a sweet milk and wine mixture, then frying them. When I asked her what they were, she told me it was called torrija and it was a typical Semana Santa food. It reminded me of french toast, but with honey instead of syrup. It was really good!

Torrija

I'm not sure where we'll go today, it's pretty cloudy out and I think it's going to rain a few days this week unfortunately. The floats cannot go out in the rain or they will be ruined. Some of the floats in procession today are from the 16th century! I shall keep posting pictures, and hopefully videos. Enjoy!