Baby jumping in Burgos

Baby jumping in Burgos
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By h.b. - Jun 9, 2009 - 8:12 PM
One of Spain's most bizarre fiestas is part of Corpus Christi celebrations

El Corlacho jumps over the recently baptised babies - Photo Jtspotau/Wikipedia

A small village in Burgos province, in the north of Spain, is home to what is probably one of Spain’s most bizarre festivals. It takes place every year as part of the Corpus Christi celebrations in the small village of Castrillo de Murcia, 41 kms from Burgos, in the north of Spain. Here, a character representing the Devil, known as ‘El Colacho’, protects babies from his evil influence by leaping over rows of infants born during the previous twelve months, who lie on rows of mattresses in the street.

It’s an event which dates back to the 1620s, and is organised by ‘the Cofradía del Santísimo Sacramento’ – ‘the brotherhood of the Holy Sacrament’. Every year, one of their fittest members is chosen for the honour of playing the part of El Colacho in the village’s Corpus Christi festival.

Another takes on the role of El Atabalero who, dressed in a black suit and hat, beats on a massive drum as the processions wend their way through the streets of Castrillo de Murcia. El Colacho, his face covered with a grotesque mask, is dressed in a bright yellow and red outfit, and accompanies the beat of the drum by banging on an enormous castanet with a stick tipped with a tail of horse hair.

The most important day of the festivities is the Sunday, when locals decorate their homes with flowers and some set up small altars outside their houses, where those taking part in the procession will stop to partake of water and wine. It’s in the afternoon procession that the symbolic defeat of evil takes place, when El Colacho rips off his mask and flees by leaping over the babies who are laid out on mattresses awaiting the blessing of the Holy Sacrament from the local priest. After the ‘salto’, the babies, now cleansed of evil, are showered with rose petals by children from the village who have received their First Communion.

The origins of this strange festival are somewhat obscure, but it’s believed to date back to pagan times before, as Radio Arlanzón Burgos local radio reports, it was Christianised with the twinning in 1621 of the Cofradía del Santísimo Sacramento and the Cofradía de Minerva. It’s been held every year since then and now has the status of National Tourist Interest.

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