Holy Week in Seville/Santigo

[Rosina Lila]

Hi John and Reba,
Santiago and Seville are quite far from one another; perhaps you should
decide on one or the other.
Finding  a place to stay in Seville during Holy Week might be very difficult.
 It seems that the whole of Europe congregates there at that time. The 55
processions (that cannot, really, be described) commence on Palm Sunday and
end on Easter Sunday. There are processions all over Spain, but none,
absolutely none, can compare with the ones in Seville; the works of art that
float down the narrow winding streets, the music, the flowers, the devotion
of the thousands and thousands of "Nazarenes" and "penitents" in the
processions (anywhere from one to four thousand per procession), and the
hundreds of thousands of onlookers, create a communal emotion that I do not
believe can exist anywhere else.  Spaniards themselves from other cities are
the first to recognize this.
Thousands of books have been written about Holy Week in Seville, and many
more are written all the time. I couldn't begin to talk about it, unless I
were to address a specific question about a specific aspect of it.
I do know that at the place where I stay people make reservations YEARS ahead
of time. I myself sign for my rooms before I leave Seville for the following
year.
Logically, hotel and food prices fairly double in the city for that week.
Transportation in and out of the city must be arranged well ahead of time,
particularly by air.
All the processions come out of their neighborhood churches and go through an
"official" route to the Cathedral and then back. Unless one has reserved, and
paid for, chairs along the official route it is fairly impossible to get
anywhere near it.  The chairs are reserved by the same people year in and
year out and are very difficult to get. Last year a friend of mine from
Seville, who has lived there all her life and is the daughter of a former
mayor, called me to see whether I could get two chairs for her in New  York;
she thought that some chairs might have been reserved for tourists and  could
be obtained at tourist agencies here. She was wrong.
The processions can be seen on the side streets around the neighborhood
churches, but one would have to be pretty familiar with the laberynthic make
up of Seville,  one of the oldest cities in Europe.
On Holy Thursday people visit the churches in the morning, waiting aside in
line for up to three hours for the most popular ones, such as the Macarena,
Our Lord of Gran Poder, the Virgin of Triana, El Cachorro (The Lamb), and a
great many others. In the afternoon the processions begin to arrive at the
official route about 5:00 p.m. and go on until about midnight.  At the dawn
of Friday the most beloved images start their processions at about midnight
and begin arriving at the Cathedral at 3:30 a.m. (yes, three thirty in the
morning!) and go on until about 8:00 a.m..   It is absolutely impossible to
get a chair anywhere for those processions.  Sevillans, and the rest of us,
simply stay up all night; some of us get carried away and follow our favorite
image (in my case La Macarena, whose complete name is Our Lady of Hope
Macarena) back to its church and get to go to  bed about noon, or later,
completely  exhausted and absolutely delighted.
There are more processions Friday afternoon and evening, with high Government
functionaries in attendance and, sometimes, the king, although he is dressed
as a Nazarene and indistinguishable from the rest; there are more processions
on Saturday and the last procession, Resuscitated Christ, on Sunday morning,
goes by the Convent of the Sisters of the Cross who sing those unbelievable
beautiful chants of theirs to the images as they go by.  Naturally, one must
find a place near the Convent, hours before, and risk life and limb when the
multitudes following the procession approach.  But it is very much worth it.
I don't know what else to tell you, but if you ask me about some specific
details, I'll be glad to tell you what I know.
By the way, the very first procession, on Palm Sunday, has a float with
images showing Jesus on a she-donkey, with its baby donkey, women with
children and some others. In the back part of the float there is Saint James
under a palm tree. This procession is called "La Borriquita" (the small
she-donkey) and its Nazarenes are all children dressed in white habits with a
large red Santiago Cross in front and back.    All the images in the floats
are life size and magnificently carved (some are several hundred years old).
The floats are carried by young men who cannot be seen; they carry them with
crossbars on their necks. The number of these carriers, called "costaleros",
varies from 24 to 48. They are under the float, shoulder to shoulder, with
only  about ten inches distance  between the foot in front and the one
following. They need to move in perfect unison.  It is a high honor for young
men to be "costaleros", despite the fact that they must carry fifty pounds or
more on their necks for hours and hours. They practice all year and the
chosen ones are selected by their fraternities the week before Holy Week.
As far as I know,  Seville is the only place in Spain where the carriers are
totally underneath the floats and cannot be seen. They are guided by a
"capataz" who communicates his directions by hitting a silver hammer that
every float has in its front. There are also "capataz" assistants around the
floats who repeat the directions. Other helpers follow the floats carrying
jars of what they say is water, but which looks suspiciously like wine, for
the costaleros.  Because of the tremendous effort required, the costaleros
walk, with the floats on their necks, for about eight or ten minutes, and
then rest setting the floats down.  Years ago I couldn't understand why
anyone would do what they do; it seemed to me to be an unseemly, and
unChristian, human-pain form of worship; over the years I've understood why
the young men do it: because they can, and, as one of them told me, because
of love.
Well, I could go on, and on, but I'll stop. Do ask whatever else you may want
to know and I'll try to answer.
Best regards,
Rosina