“All festivals, of course, are acts of collective myth-making, chances for a nation to advertise its idealized image of itself,” writes Pico Iyer. It is interesting how a piece of writing can open up your mind to something that has been spinning around in there for a while.
When I arrived in St-Rémy de Provence in the middle of August, I was just in time to see the Féria, a week long local festival that brings together the late summer harvest, a Catholic celebration of the BVM, and the thrill of taureaumachia. The festival started on a Sunday as all the bells tolled the end of mass and the church spilled its congregation out onto the main square of town. A bomb was fired into the air and I stood behind the metal barrier with my heart beating hard from the explosion, waiting for the bulls to come thundering through the town. What first came by though, was a long progression of people in costume. Women with long dresses and shawls and hair twisted and piled on their heads like geishas, men in black suits in antique style towing their families, all dressed alike, in carriages the likes of which I’ve only seen in BBC movies. At the end of the Provençal parade came a bigger carriage towed by a dozen white horses and decorated with all the bounty of the summer harvest, including toddlers, dressed up in fancy dress just like their parents. The polite applause from the crowd congratulated the finish of this antique parade and I knew the people were waiting patiently for the real parade, the bulls.
As David tried to convince me to taste some locally raised snails that were ground up crackers, “They really have no taste though,” another bomb exploded above our heads and the crowd pressed toward the barrier again to see the abrivado. Soon, a phalanx of horseback riders, cavaliers armed with tridents came galloping by with half a dozen bulls herded behind them. The bulls, tractionless on the paved road slipped and scraped through the town as gangs of young men and boys chased after them and tried to grab them by the tail, or even jumping in front of the charging line of horses to disturb their tight flank. Once they trapped the bull, it took six or seven full sized adults to separate him from the herd and steer it around by the horns as the crowd cheered them on and cried, “Ils ont attrapé un! Ils ont attrapé un!” They got one! They got one! Shaking his horns, grunting, and bucking, the bull finally escaped the clutches of the gang and charged around after the people inside the barriers, titillating the crowd until a herder arrived with his horse and long trident to herd him back to the rest. All the excitement came not from the horses and bulls galloping through town, but from the possibility of chaos that presented when the chasers tested the tight control of the herders over their charges. What surprised me most was the calm, dutiful acceptance of the cavaliers in the face of such wild interference. This was not just a tradition, born from the need to transfer the bulls from one field to another, it was a game between control and chaos.
Later that night we went back to the main square, normally a parking lot presided over by a lacy looking crucifix, to watch the Encierro. The town square was barricaded and heaped with islands of hay bales to give some refuge to those inside the barriers. The whole place had a sense of lawlessness; police sat on the church steps eating ice cream, flawlessly made up girls tottered into harm’s way to impress their boyfriends, and brave boys dangled from trees and lamp posts, and perched on the barricades to tempt the bulls that would run loose through town. As I climbed up on the announcer’s booth to get a better view, the bomb exploded above the town and the crowd cheered to welcome the first bull into the crowd. Waves of excitement followed wherever the bull charged. Perturbed and angry, the bull became more reckless, charging in every direction as the people slipped away through the barriers like phantoms passing through walls. As the bull became tired and annoyed, his handlers would take him out of the square and give the crowd another dangerous animal to play with. Finally, a particularly fiery bull stepped into the arena, grunting as a warning to all the audience. Unlike the other bulls, he avoided the people who wanted to be chased and charged straight at a stack of hay bales where a dozen people sat, supposedly safe. They were suddenly launched from their perches by the shockwave of his charge into the hay bales and they quickly tried to regain their safety. Running to the other side, the bull grunted in frustration as they all climbed out of reach.
The amazing thing about a one ton, beefcake of a bull running around a town square at nighttime is how it can disappear for minutes at a time, leaving only traces of excitement at the other side of the square. The bull had deserted our side of the square by the church, tormenting the crowds on the other side of the carousel in the center. With the bull so far away, the less daring but still anxious to test themselves crossed the square away from the bull’s horns, then there came one girl. She walked sanssouci, looking only where she was going, perhaps she was even on her phone. Like the signs say when entering the center of St-Rémy de Provence, “Danger: Manifestation Taurine”, the taureau suddenly appeared, charging down on the girl who was walking like she was in the mall. The crowd exploded in shouts as the bull lowered his head to the ground. She turned and saw, tried to run from the bull but before she took another step, she was between his horns like a doll, then tumbling through the air. She hit the ground, bringing a hush to the crowd and the bull, satisfied, walked back to the trailer that would take him back to the pasture.
As the crowd engulfed the girl, surrounding her with metal barriers for protection, I thought what would happen if my hometown, Capitola, let bulls run through the streets after its citizens. Oh the city council meetings that would ensue, how many people would try to mount the bull, rodeo style? How many people would file lawsuits?
To circle back on my opening thought, what is the myth that is born from the bull games? There is of course some bravado in messing around with a dangerous animal, but there is more behind it. A bull can be a juggernaut, unstoppable in its charge through the town and beautiful to watch from behind the barriers, but when you tug on the tail of danger and invite chaos right into town, it is a good reminder that things can change quickly and dangerously. Are we responsible enough to handle the storm when it is charging for us? The people here tend to honor human ability and talent, I am nor sure if more or less than any other place, but the great works of art and historical relics on nearly every corner are testament to that. Yet, at the same time there is a consciousness of the world and its movements. Here people are not simply dreamers, Disney children who can wish upon a star and watch their dreams come true. To really impress the crowd, to impress yourself on the world, you have to challenge what might be unpredictable and dangerous.
And on one final note, thank god
2 commentaires:
Interesting perspective on the customs of Southern France and their celebrations in honor of the BVM. But why the harsh feelings towards Americans? Are you not there to teach the next generation of Frenchmen and women how to speak the language of our homestate of California? Where your accent is so highly valued that your job is to speak and sing as much as possible so that French children can soak up as much of the "Disney dream" language as possible? And the quick judgement about how you assume Americans would act in such an encounter with a bull. Was that your reaction as an American living in France. I know that while I was a tourist in St. Remy that I was well aware that while I stood out as Amercan, I certainly wasn't one to judge the way another culture chose to spend their time. It surprises me that with your family being quintacentially American that you have such a poor perspective of how we would act in a foreign country. Don't forget that you're a self proclaimed cheese eatin' American living in France.
And Americans also choose to have their own heritage of bull cruelty here at home where those who dare to rough and wrangle are regarded as heros. Don't take this post to seriously, maybe your writing is so good that it fired me up. I love you.
I'm glad to have fired somebody up. As for having harsh feelings against Americans, this was something I didn't entirely intend. Of course, it has been for its whole history the country of possibility but, and here is where I might sound cynical, that is easily perverted into a "Disney Dream" where we tend to expect the world to take shape around us in the image of our desires; for this the bull symbolizes the impossibility of entirely shaping our world into predictable parameters. I don't want to walk all over many genius and hardworking American citizens who have improved not only theirs but the lives of many, but I am worried of the disconnect between the desire to be and the effects of being exceptional when there is a lack of personal and community responsibility practiced by individuals.
I do not intend to teach the ability to soak up the language of a Disney Dream. Rather, language is a frame for thought (as is music, mathematics, art, and many other avenues) and I feel it is important to have more than one framework on which to hang our impressions of the world in order to be well rounded citizens. What's more, I have the impression that the teachers would rather I had a British accent.
Never did I judge how any American would act in any foreign country, so what do you mean by "poor perspective"? However, I did transpose a particular cultural event to a setting more familiar to me in order to weigh some of the difference between the two cultures in between which I find myself. Nor did I mean to judge how either culture spent their time, "bull cruelty?" so I have edited out some words that inflected more then they did illustrate.
You are right to bring up our own American bull games. These are regarded from so far away though that I feel like the public exercise of the bulls running through town is something that talks more immediately about a culture's reaction to dangerous situations. On this point, we are isolated from physical danger, we middle-class Americans, only swept up in it when the weather is just right or when it comes in from outside our borders. What can our reaction be when we have little or no understanding of its nature?
In fact I am glad you find me in poor judgment... Though I disagree entirely. A bad review is better than lukewarm agreement but to soften things up, I am in no way shunning my heritage. As an American, I only receive good feelings from the people I meet here and I am happy to see that people are interested in where I come from, how exotic! Finally, the things I say and remark are of course my reactions to being an American in France, flawed an human as they may be. As I said before, I am here in between two places. I hope that I can gain a better understanding of where I come from by regarding it from afar, in a different language, with a different environment playing on my thoughts... regard, the results!
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