Date Posted:14:32:36 03/03/08 Mon Author: CS Holden Subject: Fiesta!
As our study group got loopier and loopier last night, our examples of Girardian ideas got more and more tangential. But one of the tangents we got on has stuck with me, and I think it's at least worth thinking about.
Bullfights. As part of the "corrida del toros" in Pamplona, Spain, there's this great mysterious ritual that comes down to the killing of a bull for entertainment. They pick special bulls, they build it up, the crowd stirs itself into a kind of frenzy at each stage of the fight. But again, it's the slaughtering of a bull. But is that all it is? It seems there's a lot more to a bullfight that suggests it came from a myth or ritual of man-over-nature or something.
Think about it. I don't know much about the practice, but I do have an idea of how well they treat the selected bulls, the amount of training and intensity the Matador has to have, and the step-by-step ritual of goading, stabbing, poisoning and killing the bull. Some say it's cathartic, some say it's barbaric, and some say it's just entertainment. Someone's masking something...or are they?
Does anyone know where the tradition of the Spanish bullfight came from? Someone in our group suggested it came from the Roman gladiatorial battles, which in many cases were reenactments of violent acts that became masked in a kind of entertainment ritual. I don't know why the Spanish kill bulls that way, but I'm quite taken with the concept. Has anyone ever been to a bullfight?
(By the way, the title of this post is taken from Hemingway's alternate title to "The Sun Also Rises." He wanted to call it "Fiesta!" but I think the publishers shot that down. Anyway, the book contains a breathtaking description of a Spanish bullfight.)
