Where have all the Spaniards gone?



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Chapter 54: El  Rocio
As you approach there is the usual new build of ghastly flats, and then, just as I realised I was going past the town, I swung onto the sand, and drove past a series of buildings bordering what looked like a lake.

It's january; its officially the wet season, tho there isn't a cloud in the sky. Ahead of me is a great complex of buildings. It must be the church. To the right is a lake, altho I guess it isn't really a lake. This is Las Marismas, the marshes. As far as the eye can see is a vast lake of shallow water, stretching presumably almost to the sea 20 miles away to the south. Here and there are small islands of dirty grass poking above the serene level of the water. A group of horses squelch and munch their way across the little island. There is a great sandy concourse in front of the church, with wooden rails all round where you can tether your horse.

Somewhere on the other side of town is the sound of a distant band as the procession of floats winds its slow progress up one street and down the next. It is the festival of the Three Kings. They are slowly coming through the town to deliver their gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh to the child jesus in the church.

El Rocio is a very strange town. You drive along the sandy tracks between rows and rows of houses, each with their courtyard railed off from the street. Almost every house is empty. Where are the people? There are no shops. There is no gas station, no signs of any work being done. There is no backstreet industry, just a ghost town, looking like a Hollywood film set waiting for the characters to arrive.

You swerve and slide over the sand as you drive down the road. A rocket is fired into the sky. It explodes in a puff of smoke like a small parachute opening. The base drums of the band pound suddenly louder, and then fade again. The procession has just crossed another junction on its way down to the borders of the marshes, where they will turn, and proceed up the next street.

Once upon a time a shepherd found a statue of the Virgin Mary in a tree. How she got there goodness knows. There are stories of miraculus findings all over Spain in the years following the reconquest. The theory is that the christian population hid all the statues of the Virgin Mary so they would not fall into the hands of the invading Muslims. After the reconquest every so often a farmer would accidentally dig up another statue that had been buried, maybe centuries before, and it became an object of veneration.
How it was that the Virgin of El Rocio should have ended up in a tree is not clear, nor is it clear why she wasn't noticed before. But then the whole theory is thoroughly shaky in the first place. The cult of Mary is a late addition to the Christian faith, and stems from the teachings of Duns Scotus. He thrived in the middle ages, somewhat after the moors invaded Spain, so it is hardly likely that there were any statues of Mary to hide in the first place. Never mind, the Roman church thrives on a good story, and also thrives on turning it into a good piece of drama. And the drama is being acted out about three streets away, and sometime in the next hour or so should reach where I'm standing ankle deep in sand.

There are a dozen floats, some representing the stable and crib, with Mary and Joseph, some representing Hollywood itself, with a giant Bugs Bunny clutching a carrot in his right hand. There are magical floats, representing the moon and the stars, floats filled with shepherds, and a king sitting up high with large baskets all around him filled with boiled sweets. He sweeps a great armful into the crowd as if sowing the seed. Somewhere in the sack is a box or two: a present for some lucky child to catch, and a few footballs that every few yards go sailing high into the sky to meet a rush of arms. There is a fight for the ball, but the moment it is clear that someone has grasped the prize all altercation ceases, and the proud owner is congratulated by all. The small children and mothers rush forwards with polythene shopping bags to gather the small coloured sweets in the sand. My car is parked on a sandy corner under a line of trees. Suddenly there is the ratatat-tat as a whole meteor-shower of sweets hits the bonnet and the windscreen. There are children climbing all over the car. There are sweets in my hair, down my shirt, and at my feet.

There is a float filled with moors. There are small children on horseback dressed as sultanas, all with authentic head-dress, and long white cape stretching back over the horse's rump. There are the three kings' gift bearers also on horseback, and a corporation truck filled with rockets, which stops every hundred metres or so as a few more are ignited, and sent whizzing high over the town to explode in another little parachute of smoke. The bang is deafening.

There is a band of trumpets and drums marching at the head of the procession. Everyone is dressed in uniform. There is a short trumpet solo, followed by the rest of the horns doing a slow methodical tune, and then the bang, bang, bang of the drums bringing up the rear. The sound of the drums is deafening as the floats, pulled by tractors, carry on down the street followed by a joyous crowd.

Later in the year there will be a similar festival, but much much bigger, when a million and a half people gather in this tiny ghost town to watch the real procession, when the original Virgin of El Rocio is carried round the streets. Every year in early June, or thereabouts, the great festival takes place to commemorate the finding of the statue in that tree.

It was a strange story. The shepherd tried to take the statue home, and in the morning woke up to find she wasn't there. He hunted around, and then decided to go back to where he'd originally found her. And there she was, back in her tree. He tried to take her home again, but, mysteriously, she always seemed to go back to the tree. He went to see the nearby priest who suggested that the Virgin wanted to stay where she was found, and it was decided to build her a church to house her 'properly'. A church was duly built, and subsequently enlarged as a festival grew up around the effigy.

Everyone wanted to be in on the act. First the locals from the nearby towns decided they wanted to share in the general good that would obviously come from venerating this statue, and good obviously did come as the virgin allegedly protected Almonte from the plague, and cured all kinds of ills, as can be seen from the plaques that dot the streets of the town.

A tradition grew up of sending a deputation to the shrine every year on the anniversery of her rediscovery. This consisted of a guadily decorated caravan being pulled by oxen, and supported by a group of citizens.

Soon the tradition grew, and all the local towns sent deputations, even from as far afield as Sevilla and Huelva. And still the deputations grew, till each town sent a larger and larger contingent to join in the fun. Even in the fifties the tradition was still intact, and whole processions of caravans trundled across the marshes, now almost dried out as summer was approaching, all heading for El Rocio.

The celebrations were to last a whole week, with parties, drinking, singing and dancing, and ceremonies to praise the Virgin. Naturally all these people needed to stay somewhere, and so they built lodges to represent their own community. There is a lodge for the folk from Sanlucar de Barrameda. There is another lodge for the folk from Triana, and even a lodge for the representatives from Madrid and even Barcelona. These lodges contain an area for their own worship of the Virgin, and some even have fancy bell towers and full-scale churches with side chapels.

Gradually whole streets of houses were built, each with the essential railed forecourt, where the owners would sit during the day and thru most of the night with their bottles of Fino and tapas, sharing with any guest who came.

It was all very similar to the way the famous horse fair was run at Triana, near Sevilla. This was very much a secular festival, and all very transient, and so here, tents were erected, and arbours constructed from wood and grass from the river bank. It is interesting to note that the Triana lodge at Rocio is fronted by a wooden patio, roofed with grasses, probably as a reminder of their own annual fair.

At last the procession passed down the last street and turned into the big sandy courtyard beside the church.
The great wooden doors of the church are swung open. The carriages pull up outside. The band assembles to one side. The gifts are retrieved from the church, and now the three kings' gift bearers are given a cushion, and a great golden plate of gold pieces is placed on one, a box containing myrhh is placed on the next, and a smoking censor of frankincense is placed on the third. The sweet smell wafts all around the porch, above which is a massive representation of a shell. This is the symbol of St James: Santiago, the patron saint of Spain.

The sun is hovering over the trees in the distance, a long streak of red staining the surface of the still, silent lake. There is a period of confusion as the church fills with chattering people and cameras flash. The shepherds, dressed in green, jostle in the porch. The marshalls bring up a group of small children dressed as moors. The three kings fall in behind, looking truly regal, with flowing beards and fancy crowns, great cloaks, and a whole retinue of standard bearers.

The sun drops thru the distant line of trees, and the lake suddenly goes smokey grey. The band shuffles into order and troops into the church. A vapour trail high in the sky glows red from the setting sun, and just as the sun finally sinks from view the children enter the church. A snapping of cameras erupts all down the aisle.

The first king moves slowly down the aisle, and proceeds up to the altar steps, where the priest, flanked by another swathe of camera-happy parents and friends, is ready.

The gloom is streaked with flash lamps, as the cameras click, while the plate of gold is presented to the priest. It is placed on a low table by the crib. The priest lifts up the plastic doll child representing Jesus, and there is a short round of applause.

The second king progresses up the aisle. The smoke from the frankincense drifts across the whole church. The cameras click. The gift is presented. The priest lifts up the Christ-child. There is another round of applause.

The third king starts his way up the aisle. His bearer carries the box of precious myrrh. At the steps to the altar rail the bearer gives the cushion to the king who presents it to the priest. The Christ-child is held aloft for the third time, and there is another round of applause.

The band suddenly scramble into some kind of formation on one side. The lead trumpet starts a long winding solo. The rest join in with the harmonies, the drums join in a little later. There is a sudden change of tempo as the music turns into a dance, then returns to a stately march. The lone solo returns, and then the rest of the band join in with a quick finale.

The priest turns to his microphone, and with a loud voice charges us to praise the Virgin, and offer her long life.

"Viva!" we all shout.

"And praise the apostles, and may they live forever, praising the Lord."

"Viva!" we all shout.

"And may the Church of God live forever."

"Viva!"

The priest and congregation take it in turns, and the celebration ends with one final "Viva!" The church is like a football stadium. Crowds jostle every which way as the chattering and laughing continues. Cameras click. People wave to friends. By the altar rail are a group of stocky middle-aged ladies in brightly coloured clothes staring up at the golden image of the Virgin above the altar. Down the nave the crowd is heading for the big doors at the end.

Outside two of the floats are now illuminated and glow seductively in the gloaming. The float representing the bird life of the marshes remains unlit, and three large kingfishers are sharply etched against the pale blue of the evening sky. To the west there is one cloud glowing red like a scarf blown on the wind.

The corporation truck lets off some more rockets that speed high above us, and bang into puffs of smoke. The band begins to play a jaunty rhythm. The church bells ring out, trying to mimic the rhythm of the music. The band blares louder, the bells bang away in hectic cacophony, trying to outdo the band. It is a glorious mayhem of sound.

The shepherds, kings, and moors climb back into their floats. Down on the sandy forecourt by the lake three horsemen sit in a group, their white capes standing out from the dark, like some spooks haunting the proceedings.

The corporation truck lets off some more rockets that speed high above us. The church bells ring out once more. The band gets into position. The music starts, and off goes the procession, back up to the main road, and then down to the Plaza Mayor. The rockets still punctuate the deep midnight blue, and the banging of the base drums can still be heard as we wait for the crowds to thin before driving across the square to the hotel right by the water's edge.

Thirty minutes later I am standing on the balcony outside my room. There is a big fat white moon, almost at the full riding high in the sky. There is a highway of light across the lake leading down to the sea below the moon. Under the trees at the edge of the lake an old fashioned lamp casts a small bright pool of light. To the west and north the lake spreads out so utterly still and silent, with the shadows of horses dotted about in the distance. Suddenly there is a thump, thump, thump from the band, drifting across from the other side of town. They must be way up on the highway.

I go to sleep with the french windows slightly open. Through bleary eyes I can see right out across the lake, way into the silent distance where a silver moon rules a silver universe, and there is total silence, and nothing, absolutely nothing moves.
.... to be continued