Counting On Tradition: The correbou

How old must a tradition be in order for it to qualify as a tradition?

The question is itself a type of tautology. To brand a "thing" (an event, a belief, a meal or whatever) as a tradition and then query its longevity doesn't quite stack up. It is a tradition because someone has decided that it is.

To assign a numerical value, i.e. a number of years, as the basis of arbitration as to the existence or not of a tradition is an absurdity. Tradition cannot be quantified as though it had to go through a residency qualification period so that it could play a sport for its adopted country. Tradition is tradition through transmission over an undefined period and through its persistence and endurance into the current day.

Tradition doesn't have to be ancient. Quite the contrary. It can be a relative newcomer, but the modern tradition is normally an invention, one dreamt up and then given the marketing tag of tradition because it serves a purpose to do so.

The "correbou" is an ancient tradition, in that its origins, which are disputed, can probably be said to date back well before Anno Domini. If so, then its origins weren't Spanish or Catalonian.

Because the correbou differs, it is difficult to create an accurate timeline as to when and where fire came into the equation, which is the case in parts of Catalonia where fire or fireworks are attached to the bull's horns, but as a general matter of record, the correbou started in Catalonia in the fifteenth century. It was to be four more centuries, however, before fiestas involving bulls really became popular.

The tradition of the correbou is, therefore, and in more modern terms, at least a hundred years old. Which is probably long enough to qualify it as a tradition. But it isn't quite this simple, as the length of time that individual villages and towns have practised the fiery correbou varies, and this raises questions as to whether, in some towns, it is just a modern tradition of convenience.

It is the establishment as to how long a fiery correbou has been performed that is now causing a bit of a stink in Catalonia.

The Catalonians were accused of hypocrisy in banning the bullfight but permitting the continuance of the correbou. However the argument over bullfighting was styled, it was hard to disagree with the distinction drawn between bullfighting and the correbou and thus used as a justification for the correbou and for refuting allegations of hypocrisy; the former was symbolic of Francoist Spain, the latter was and is a Catalan tradition.

Nevertheless, perhaps stung by the hypocrisy charge, the Catalonian government and specifically the ruling CiU party which backed the bullfighting ban, is to insist, under a draft bill, that the correbou can only be practised if a town or village can prove that it has been conducted for 50 years.

This, therefore, is where the absurdity comes in. 51 years old and it is a tradition. 49 years old and it isn't. Presumably, a town might have to miss a year, wait for the 50th anniversary and then reintroduce its correbou.

The qualification period is a blatant piece of political PR, one designed to suggest that the Catalonian government isn't being hypocritical but is being sympathetic to tradition. In so doing, it has imposed a tariff of 50 years on the definition of tradition. It is utterly ridiculous.

The Catalonians aren't, though, the only ones to have sought to have quantified tradition.

Animal-protection law, as it has been applied in Mallorca, has placed its own tariff on tradition, and that is one hundred years. It's this stipulation that has led Santa Margalida town hall to propose a change that would bring it down to fifty years, the same as the Catalonian correbou tariff. The reason for the town hall making this proposal is to allow the "traditional" duck throwing during Can Picafort's summer fiesta to be legalised. This isn't a hundred years old, and to come into line with the hundred years rule would mean a wait of some twenty years during which they would have to put up with rubber ducks and not real ones.

The resort to making up a number is a far from untypical Spanish (Catalonian/Mallorcan) system of applying a bureaucratic measure. In this instance, tradition is bureaucratised, and its permission has to await the stamp of approval and production of the relevant documentation in triplicate.

Something is either banned or it isn't banned. Something is either tradition or it isn't tradition, and it doesn't become tradition just by counting up the years.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.