Semana Santa, or Easter week, may be a far cry from the rowdiness of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, the Feria de Abril in Seville or Valencia's Fallas, but it is every bit as important to Spaniards.

Semana Santa's religious processions are impressive for believers and non-believers alike

Semana Santa, or Easter week, may be a far cry from the rowdiness of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, the Feria de Abril in Seville or Valencia's Fallas, but it is every bit as important to Spaniards.

Although devotion and drama vary from city to city, in essence Semana Santa is the same across Spain: a series of sober street processions conceived as tributes to Christ's passion and resurrection, and to the Virgin Mary's pain at seeing her son on the cross.

That is why most processions, which are organised by different religious brotherhoods, include one float bearing a sculpture of Christ at a particular moment of the passion and another with an image of a mourning Mary. These brotherhoods often have impossibly long names referring to the Christ and Mary figures in their keep, such as "Hermandad de Penitencia y Cofradía de Nazarenos de Nuestro Padre Jesús de la Salud y Remedio y María Santísima del Dulce Nombre en sus Dolores y Compasión," which, mercifully, are shortened for practical purposes. Some of these have been around for centuries, and membership is often passed down from parents to children, especially in Andalusía, where Semana Santa is most intensely experienced.

Although in theory they all depict the same person, the Virgin figures in particular have their own distinct groups of devotees, with the Virgen de la Macarena and Virgen de Triana in Seville enjoying special devotion. As the richly clad sculptures are taken out of church and slowly paraded through the streets in the early hours of Good Friday, many enthusiastic cries of "¡Guapa!" ("gorgeous!") will be heard from the crowd.

Besides their ability to rouse the crowds, many of these wooden sculptures have great artistic value. Some date back to the 17th century, and bear robes, mantles and crowns inlaid with gold, silver and precious stones. Additionally, the pasos or structures upon which they are carried are gold and silver-plated, and heavily adorned with fresh flowers and large candles. Each paso can easily weigh over a tonne and usually comes with no wheels, which means it must be painstakingly moved along by a team of between 20 and 60 costaleros hiding underneath it. The difficulties of this task are compounded by the fact that each procession can last several hours, and the route often runs through streets barely wide enough to let the paso through. Negotiating corners in these conditions can be a real challenge, and an entire system has developed whereby a guide, the capataz, conveys instructions by voice or a ceremonial hammer to the costaleros, who move forward with tiny steps that cause the entire structure to sway from side to side. A particularly impressive moment during any procession comes when, after a few minutes' rest, the heavy paso is hoisted up again, drawing a sympathetic groan from onlookers.

For foreigners, one of the most perplexing sights is that of the Nazarenes, groups of people who accompany the floats wearing cloaks and hoods with long conical tips. These figures never fail to produce comments about the Ku Klux Klan, although there is no formal connection between the two, and in any case the Nazarenes came first - the oldest brotherhood, Seville's El Silencio, was founded in 1356. In fact, this type of robe was used during the Middle Ages by Catholics wishing to carry out some penance while preserving their anonymity, and it is likely this latter feature that led to its adoption by the KKK.

Almost equally strange for tourists is the occasional sight of what appear to be Roman legions marching through the streets, blaring trumpets and brandishing SPQR banners. In a bid to enact the death of Christ as faithfully as possible - and to draw some tourism while they're at it - some townspeople have taken to dressing up to create a historical setting. This concept is taken to extremes in Lorca, Murcia, where there are parades of Egyptian troops carrying a likeness of Cleopatra on their shoulders, and also a procession of the Antichrist. There are even horse-drawn chariot races in best Ben Hur fashion.

Most Semana Santa celebrations, however, are less cinematographic. While Seville and Málaga in Andalusía have the most spectacular processions for sheer size and crowd devotion, several Castilian cities offer highly moving, if more sombre events: Zamora with its night-time processions set to Gregorian chants, Salamanca, whose historical buildings provide a particularly impressive backdrop, Cuenca, which simultaneously hosts a festival of old music, and Cartagena, where processions end with the crowd singing a Salve to Mary together.

[March 2008]

[Copyright El Pais / SUSANA URRA 2008]