Fiestas
Los Sanfermines
By m.p. - Jul 9, 2007 - 10:45 PM
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The Sanfermin Festival – Los Sanfermines in Spanish - which takes place every year from 6th-14th July in Pamplona, the capital of Navarra, has made the city famous throughout the world for what is its most well-known event – the encierro, the running of the bulls.
The festival’s history, which arose from the conjunction of three separate celebrations, dates back to the Middle Ages. The first of these was a religious festival which was held in October in honour of the city’s patron saint, San Fermín.
Then, in the fourteenth century, came Summer trade fairs, and bull fights and bull runs .
The three celebrations were amalgamated in the sixteenth century, when in 1591, the people of Pamplona decided to move the autumn religious celebrations to coincide with the summer festivities. The festival then developed over the coming centuries, with chronicles from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries speaking of bull runs and bullfights, acrobats, music and dance, parades of giants, and tournaments taking place along with the religious festivities.
Documents from the nineteenth century also speak of the giants’ parade – Comparsa de Gigantes – and oddities such as exotic animals, wax figures, and a woman being fired from a cannon.
The Sanfermines became internationally famous in the twentieth century, when the Ernest Hemingway novel ‘The Sun Also Rises,’ published in 1926, encouraged people from all over the world to visit the city which was central to Hemingway’s plot – the bull runs of Pamplona.
Hemingway first visited Pamplona in 1923 and returned on many occasions over the years: his last visit was in 1959, two years before he committed suicide just a few days before the year’s celebrations for San Fermín began.
The festival begins at noon on 6th July, when the ‘chupinazo’ rocket – a ceremony which dates from 1941 – is set off from the City Hall balcony heralding the official start. A crowd of thousands waits in the square below, with their San Fermín red neckerchiefs at the ready to tie around their necks as soon as the rocket goes off. Pamplona City Hall advises arriving at least two hours beforehand as the square can only hold up to 12,500 people.
The bull runs start at 8am on 7th July, and take place every morning until the last run on 14th July. Each of the runners – dressed in white with the San Fermín red neckerchief and a red sash around the waist - is usually armed with a rolled up newspaper as they set off in front of the six bulls who will be fighting in the bullring that afternoon. They first ask San Fermín for his blessing in a ceremony held at the start of the route.
Eight oxen run with the bulls, with another three setting off behind them two minutes later.
The bulls cover the 848.6 metre route at an average speed of 24 km/hour, usually completing the journey in just under four minutes. Some 2,000 runners take part on weekdays, and up to 3,500 at weekends.
Injuries each year average between 200 and 300, with 3% of that number receiving serious injuries. Fourteen lives have been lost over the years: the latest in recent years were on 8th July 2003, when 63 year old Fermín Etxeberri, from Pamplona, was killed, and on 13th July 1995, when 22 year old Matthew Peter Tasio, from Illinois, was gored to death.
Pileups can also occur when runners trip, with one person killed and 16 seriously injured in a pileup which took place in 1975. 700 people have been injured in the 24 pileups which have taken place over the years.
While the bull runs are probably the most famous part of the festivities at San Fermín, the week-long celebrations involve a number of other traditional events, including the Day of San Fermín on 7th July, when thousands accompany the image of the saint as he is carried around the streets of Pamplona city centre.
Each morning also sees a parade of huge papier maché characters in the form of giants, horses, kings and queens, which are carried in procession through the streets, to the music of Basque pipers.
The festivities end on 14th July, with an official farewell ceremony to Los Sanfermines in the Plaza Consistorial.
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