The story goes that in 1403 Martin I, at that time the count of Barcelona and king of Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca, Sardinia and Corsica but not of Sicily, sent a request to the head of the household of the Sicilian king. The request was for a number of meat products as well as cheeses. These meat products were charcuterie - sausages, if you like - and on the list were "sobressades".
This royal order forms part of a longstanding debate as to the origin of the Mallorcan "sobrassada" and the derivation of the word. The linguistic story is inevitably a long one; there is nothing that scholars of Mallorca's culture enjoy more than debating etymology. To cut this story short, scholars maintain that the word originally came from Occitan, the close relative of Catalan, and thus found its way to Sicily.
As to the actual product, this seems to have been firmly rooted in southern Italy. It is conceivable that there was such a product from Roman times; indeed, it's highly likely and was therefore part of the diet of Mallorca's Roman era. But at the time that Martin I was on the lookout for foods for the banqueting table, he placed the order not with his Mallorcan domain but with the one place he wasn't actually king of.
Martin's request appears to be one of the first times, if not the first time, that sobrassada is to be found in documents of the Aragonese crown. There were to be other mentions. In the following century, and so reinforcing the Italian connections, there was talk of the sobrasadas of Naples. In 1550, a year otherwise famed for the attack by Dragut and the Moorish pirates, "sobressada" was documented in Pollensa; the spelling has always tended to vary to a degree.
It is around this time, i.e. the mid-sixteenth century, that Mallorca was starting to come into its own where the making of the sausage was concerned. But it wasn't to be until the eighteenth century that it was spiced up and adopted a reddish hue. Paprika had really arrived.
In Campos over the past three days, they've been holding their "Matancer" market. The name refers to the slaughter of (usually) pigs. The season for this doesn't officially get under way until 11 November, the feast of Saint Martin (not to be confused with Martin I). But ahead of it, the good citizens of Campos and elsewhere have been able to acquire what they might require in the processing of products from the slaughter. And sobrassada is at the top of the list of products.
Meanwhile, in Felanitx they have their annual "pebre bord" fair, the pebre bord being the distinctive variety of paprika grown in Mallorca. It is a fair which complements the Campos market by promoting one of the key ingredients of sobrassada in a Mallorcan style.
Felanitx is one of the towns and villages of Mallorca to be particularly associated with the pepper, but gone are the days when mostly all houses would hang out their strings of peppers in order to let them dry in the sun and so not lose their preservative power. Also known as "tap de cortí", it isn't by any means only used in making sobrassada, but its preservative qualities are a reason (apart from being nice and spicy) for it being an ingredient; sobrassada can be good for months.
There was a time when the pepper was cultivated widely on the island. By the end of the nineteenth century, the cultivation reached a peak but it was to eventually dwindle mainly because of increasing imports. It was, therefore, in danger of dying out completely.
Its revival is relatively recent; in fact, very recent. A group of producers launched a campaign for its recovery in 2009. The regional government then petitioned the national agriculture and food ministry in 2011 for it to be included in the national registry of commercial varieties. This was finally agreed to two years ago, and so tap de cortí is now a protected name, but producers want to go a step further and get a European designation of origin mark for Pebre Bord Mallorquí.
Cultivation is unlikely to be on the scale it was by the end of the nineteenth century. There are nowadays only some thirteen hectares (around 32 acres) devoted to it on the island. Low this may be, but with increasing promotion of traditional food products from Mallorca, such as sobrassada, the production is assured and may well increase. A pepper that was once threatened with extinction is now flourishing.
Showing posts with label Felanitx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Felanitx. Show all posts
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Sunday, June 21, 2015
The Weirdness Of Hairy John
It quite clearly isn't still the same hairy youth, but the hairy character is the same. He was and remains Sant Joan Pelós: Saint John the Hairy. So important is he that the Council of Mallorca is proposing that he be declared to be in the island's cultural interest. Hairy John has been around for centuries (since the seventeenth approximately) and this coming Wednesday, the feast day of Saint John (the Baptist), he will be prancing around in Felanitx once more, wearing his strange mask and then handing out carnations to the spectators. His whole demeanour, his whole idiot-dancing style, plus the flowers make him a dead ringer for a flower power hippy of the late 1960s, but hippy Hairy John, with his centuries of tradition, had long pre-empted the Summer of Love.
He isn't the only Hairy John. Pollensa has its own Sant Joan Pelós, but rather than come out at midsummer, this one makes an appearance for Corpus Christi. In keeping with the 24 June feast day, the Johns of Sant Llorenç and, unsurprisingly, the village of Sant Joan, do their bit at roughly the same time as the Felanitx John. The character is supposedly a representation of John the Baptist but its exact origins aren't clear. General consensus of opinion has it that it is all to do with a one-time pagan ritual and with an ancient sundance fiesta.
The fiesta of Sant Joan, for John the Baptist, for midsummer, for fire, for the solstice is a deep-rooted one in Mallorcan tradition, but as with other fiesta traditions it owes much to modern-day revivals. Though Sant Joan Pelós in Felanitx has more or less had a continuous presence in the town, he has only shot to real prominence in the last twenty years or so. And with this prominence has come the interest in the various trappings of the Hairy character, such as the Latin inscription - "Ecce Agnus Dei" (behold the Lamb of God) - and the carrying of a lamb.
The tradition is one that does appear to have been subject to new interpretation or perhaps a revival of something that goes back well beyond the start of the last century. Gabriel Llompart Moragues, a Mallorcan folklore historian, uses oral history to report that of the Sant Joan Pelós dance in Felanitx of the 1920s there was no recollection of a lamb having been held. It is speculated that while one hand carried the cross with the Latin inscription, the fact that the other was also placed on a hip was representative of the fact that at one time in the dim, distant past, the hand had been used to carry a lamb. Agonising over analyses of Mallorcan traditions is, at times, as much of a tradition in Mallorca as the traditions themselves.
What is clear is that, although at the very end of the nineteenth century Sant Joan was celebrated across the island, certain manifestations of the fiesta, notably the Hairy John dance, were confined to relatively few places. Another notable Mallorcan folkloricist, Antoni Maria Alcover, reported on the fiesta in 1899. He was attending the Sant Joan celebrations in Son Carrio, i.e. in Sant Llorenç, and said that Sant Joan Pelós performed his dance, accompanied by two demons. They headed for the monks' residence and apparently the monks had never seen the dance before. At the time, at the end of that century, very few people would in fact have seen it. Even back then there were attempts at revivalism. But when people did see it, they found it all, well, a bit odd. Perhaps the reaction of María Isabel etc. in 1913 was to have been expected, therefore.
Alcover makes a critical point, though. These attempts at revival were based on a tradition which he described as "primitive". For this reason, the dance was considered to be weird. The primitive weirdness is what was retained through the last century, albeit the dance fell in and out of fashion in those few places where it was performed. Nowadays, such weirdness is what makes the dance, what gives it the cultural interest that the Council of Mallorca is determined to preserve by making the declaration. There will be a lot of odd stuff going on for Sant Joan this coming week, but nothing will be quite as odd as the Hairy Johns.
* Photo from an old entry on Klaus's Photo Blog: http://mallorcaphotoblog.com/2009/06/25/the-dance-of-sant-joan-pelos/
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
A Day In Mallorca Three Hundred Years Ago
This coming Saturday at 9am an excursion has been arranged. It will take the trippers from the Cami Jesus in Palma to the south-east of the island. It has been arranged by the association of friends of the Museum of Mallorca and those going on the trip will hear about Cala d'Or - the name which "Don Pep" Costa Ferrer gave the one-time Cala d'Hort - and will visit Cala Llonga, the "curious" church of S'Horta, Felanitx and then, having had some wine, some ensaimada, some meats and sausages (courtesy of the local co-operative), they will be back in Santanyi to take in S'Alqueria Blanca and finally Calonge.
This is not an excursion that one suspects will attract many, if any tourists, but it is a day out which, nonetheless, would prove highly illuminating for anyone (including tourists) with an interest in Mallorca's history: would do, except that it will all be in Mallorquín no doubt.
Though the excursion is on 20 June, its purpose is to mark an event which happened 300 years ago on 16 June 1715. The title of the excursion is "Calonge 1715, a battle to save dignity". On that day 300 years ago the battle of Calonge took place. It was one that had far-reaching consequences for Mallorca.
The War of the Spanish Succession finally put paid to the kingdom of Mallorca, which had only been a notional kingdom for centuries but had retained a title of administrative kingdom tied in with the Crown of Aragon and ultimately with the Crown of Spain. The war brought an end to this. The Crown of Aragon was abolished and the kingdom of Mallorca definitively and for all time disappeared along with it.
The dismantling of the Crown of Aragon, the removal of privileges that Catalonia had and the creation of a centralised Spanish state were the consequence of the Nueva Planta decrees of the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V. They were also his revenge. The Crown of Aragon, and so Catalonia, Valencia and Mallorca, had sided with Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, during the war. Once Spain was left to its own devices at the end of the war, Philip, with French help, set about the submission of Aragon and the creation of a single Spanish state. The war was, and I quote one source, "a world war of a colonial character with the subjugation on the part of Bourbon Castile, with the decisive military support of the French army, of the Catalan Nation". The far-reaching consequences have never been forgotten: they inform the current-day arguments regarding Catalan and nationalism of the Catalan Lands.
Nine months before the battle of Calonge the city of Barcelona had finally fallen, having been under siege by Bourbon troops for more than a year. The advance on Mallorca was, in effect, a mopping-up operation to eliminate any remaining resistance to Philip. The south-east of Mallorca had played a significant part in the siege, as Felanitx was a major supplier to the people of the city who were trapped by the Bourbon forces. Felanitx and other parts of Mallorca were Barcelona's food suppliers, a fact that was reflected in a saying of the time - "the Mallorcan pantry is coming".
When Barcelona fell in September 1714 it was clear that Mallorca was going to be a target. The Marquès Josep Antoni de Rubí i de Boixadors had been made the new viceroy of Mallorca in 1713. He decided that the island would not surrender. Instead, it would defend itself. In early 1715 there were demonstrations of support for this stance and against the Bourbons. Ceremonies of blessings of flags occurred in Palma and various villages, Felanitx included. The Marquès de Palmer was placed in charge of the south-eastern region of Felanitx, Santanyi and Campos. Felanitx could count on 400 men to counter any attack. Palmer got hold of 300 new shotguns.
On 11 June a force of 30,000 troops set sail from Barcelona. An initial assault on Santa Ponsa was, remarkably enough, rebuffed. The force split into two. One was to land in the bay of Alcúdia, the other in the south-east. On 15 June the Spanish-French army landed at Cala Llonga, Cala Figuera and Cala Ferrera. The next day the full artillery landed. The invasion had begun and at Calonge a small army of six hundred confronted the Bourbon forces. The battle didn't last long.
There were of course deaths and there was also plunder, but it would seem that there wasn't great bloodshed. The Marquès de Rubí surrendered on 2 July in order to spare Palma. The repression started immediately, though references to genocide are greatly exaggerated. The battle of Calonge had been one for dignity and in some respects - 300 years on - there is still a battle for that dignity.
This is not an excursion that one suspects will attract many, if any tourists, but it is a day out which, nonetheless, would prove highly illuminating for anyone (including tourists) with an interest in Mallorca's history: would do, except that it will all be in Mallorquín no doubt.
Though the excursion is on 20 June, its purpose is to mark an event which happened 300 years ago on 16 June 1715. The title of the excursion is "Calonge 1715, a battle to save dignity". On that day 300 years ago the battle of Calonge took place. It was one that had far-reaching consequences for Mallorca.
The War of the Spanish Succession finally put paid to the kingdom of Mallorca, which had only been a notional kingdom for centuries but had retained a title of administrative kingdom tied in with the Crown of Aragon and ultimately with the Crown of Spain. The war brought an end to this. The Crown of Aragon was abolished and the kingdom of Mallorca definitively and for all time disappeared along with it.
The dismantling of the Crown of Aragon, the removal of privileges that Catalonia had and the creation of a centralised Spanish state were the consequence of the Nueva Planta decrees of the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V. They were also his revenge. The Crown of Aragon, and so Catalonia, Valencia and Mallorca, had sided with Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, during the war. Once Spain was left to its own devices at the end of the war, Philip, with French help, set about the submission of Aragon and the creation of a single Spanish state. The war was, and I quote one source, "a world war of a colonial character with the subjugation on the part of Bourbon Castile, with the decisive military support of the French army, of the Catalan Nation". The far-reaching consequences have never been forgotten: they inform the current-day arguments regarding Catalan and nationalism of the Catalan Lands.
Nine months before the battle of Calonge the city of Barcelona had finally fallen, having been under siege by Bourbon troops for more than a year. The advance on Mallorca was, in effect, a mopping-up operation to eliminate any remaining resistance to Philip. The south-east of Mallorca had played a significant part in the siege, as Felanitx was a major supplier to the people of the city who were trapped by the Bourbon forces. Felanitx and other parts of Mallorca were Barcelona's food suppliers, a fact that was reflected in a saying of the time - "the Mallorcan pantry is coming".
When Barcelona fell in September 1714 it was clear that Mallorca was going to be a target. The Marquès Josep Antoni de Rubí i de Boixadors had been made the new viceroy of Mallorca in 1713. He decided that the island would not surrender. Instead, it would defend itself. In early 1715 there were demonstrations of support for this stance and against the Bourbons. Ceremonies of blessings of flags occurred in Palma and various villages, Felanitx included. The Marquès de Palmer was placed in charge of the south-eastern region of Felanitx, Santanyi and Campos. Felanitx could count on 400 men to counter any attack. Palmer got hold of 300 new shotguns.
On 11 June a force of 30,000 troops set sail from Barcelona. An initial assault on Santa Ponsa was, remarkably enough, rebuffed. The force split into two. One was to land in the bay of Alcúdia, the other in the south-east. On 15 June the Spanish-French army landed at Cala Llonga, Cala Figuera and Cala Ferrera. The next day the full artillery landed. The invasion had begun and at Calonge a small army of six hundred confronted the Bourbon forces. The battle didn't last long.
There were of course deaths and there was also plunder, but it would seem that there wasn't great bloodshed. The Marquès de Rubí surrendered on 2 July in order to spare Palma. The repression started immediately, though references to genocide are greatly exaggerated. The battle of Calonge had been one for dignity and in some respects - 300 years on - there is still a battle for that dignity.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
The Felanitx Theory: Columbus
At the end of 2011, I offered an annual award for the "historian of the year". To this day, I would imagine that Gabriel Verd remains blissfully unaware of this accolade but four years later he may be placing himself on the shortlist to pick up a far more celebrated prize. The citation in 2011 went along the lines of perseverance in the face of almost overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Verd is the Mallorcan historian who insists that Christopher Columbus was from Felanitx. His life's work has pretty much been devoted to proving this. In 2011 he was convinced. Now, he is on the point of producing evidence which will demonstrate definitively that Columbus was from Felanitx and not from Genoa or any other place which has laid a claim on him.
At the weekend at a restaurant (Son Colom) in Felanitx which doubles as an exhibition centre for Columbus, Verd was able to explain his theories to visitors who included the president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Salom. He asserted that the "Felanitx theory is the most coherent that there is". The competing theories include Ibiza, Galicia and, of course, Genoa, which is the city that history scholars over the centuries have accepted that Columbus came from.
Having Maria Salom along for the day was understandable, as the Council is one of the keepers of Mallorcan culture and heritage and as it was the Council, in 2004, which forwarded a grant of over 50,000 euros for research into Columbus's origins and genetics; one of the biggest supporters of this research was Gabriel Verd. There have, subsequently, been DNA tests carried out which have sought to establish links between local populations and Columbus (certainly with his younger brother, Bartholomew). These don't, however, seem to have proved anything - definitively.
The research has been and is valid. Though it is the accepted version of history that Columbus came from Genoa, there have always been certain questions, e.g. why he himself made little reference to Genoa and, more importantly, why he spoke in the strange way he did. Linguistic research has held much of the key to resolving the arguments regarding Columbus's origins. It is this linguistic element, along with Mallorca's culture and heritage, which was what interested a former president of the Council, Maria Antonia Munar, who held this office when the 2004 grant was made. She admitted at the time that she had "a patent interest in Columbus being from Mallorca", and one suspects that this interest would have been partly kindled by nationalism. Munar's party, the Unió Mallorquina, was Mallorcan nationalist. Columbus a Mallorcan? The discoverer of America was Mallorcan all along and not an Italian and definitely not a Spaniard? It's the stuff of nationalist dreams and one, moreover, that features some version of Catalan as the mother tongue.
A further linguistic element is the name Porto Colom in Felanitx. Colom means pigeon in Catalan. In Italian the word is "colombo". In the Genoa region of the fifteenth century it was "corombo". There were people called Pigeon all over the western Med. Porto Colom, as in "colunbi", was noted on an Italian map of Mallorca from the thirteenth century, so it is perfectly logical that people might have adopted Colom as a surname because of the place name. Or alternatively, they were just named after a pigeon. Either way, as far as Columbus was concerned, Verd has maintained that his name came from his mother, Margarita Colom, who gave birth to the illegitimate son of Carlos, an Aragonese nobleman who was the brother of Ferdinand, later the husband of Isabel and so one half of the Catholic Kings. And the precise location of the birth was the Felanitx finca of s'Alqueria Roja.
Gabriel Verd believes that this year he will add to the celebrations of notable Mallorcans (Ramon Llull, 700th anniversary of his death, and Fray Junipero, his canonisation) by proclaiming that Columbus was definitively a Mallorcan. There is a part of me which really wants him to be right, for him to turn historical orthodoxy on its head and for history to therefore have to be rewritten. But despite his confidence that he will prove Columbus's Mallorcan birth definitively, unless it is in such a powerful way with new, previously unseen, original source documents that can substantiate the Felanitx theory and be scrutinised by peers who might be convinced of the arguments, the overwhelming evidence in favour of Genoa will remain.
Even if he were to provide definitive proof, would all Mallorcans be happy? History is less kind to Columbus than it once was. He is now accused of genocide and so of the extinguishing of Taino Indian culture in Hispaniola. The fact that smallpox and other diseases were largely responsible for the Tainos being all but wiped out doesn't stop contemporary views which portray a barbarous Columbus. Would Mallorca really want that legacy?
At the weekend at a restaurant (Son Colom) in Felanitx which doubles as an exhibition centre for Columbus, Verd was able to explain his theories to visitors who included the president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Salom. He asserted that the "Felanitx theory is the most coherent that there is". The competing theories include Ibiza, Galicia and, of course, Genoa, which is the city that history scholars over the centuries have accepted that Columbus came from.
Having Maria Salom along for the day was understandable, as the Council is one of the keepers of Mallorcan culture and heritage and as it was the Council, in 2004, which forwarded a grant of over 50,000 euros for research into Columbus's origins and genetics; one of the biggest supporters of this research was Gabriel Verd. There have, subsequently, been DNA tests carried out which have sought to establish links between local populations and Columbus (certainly with his younger brother, Bartholomew). These don't, however, seem to have proved anything - definitively.
The research has been and is valid. Though it is the accepted version of history that Columbus came from Genoa, there have always been certain questions, e.g. why he himself made little reference to Genoa and, more importantly, why he spoke in the strange way he did. Linguistic research has held much of the key to resolving the arguments regarding Columbus's origins. It is this linguistic element, along with Mallorca's culture and heritage, which was what interested a former president of the Council, Maria Antonia Munar, who held this office when the 2004 grant was made. She admitted at the time that she had "a patent interest in Columbus being from Mallorca", and one suspects that this interest would have been partly kindled by nationalism. Munar's party, the Unió Mallorquina, was Mallorcan nationalist. Columbus a Mallorcan? The discoverer of America was Mallorcan all along and not an Italian and definitely not a Spaniard? It's the stuff of nationalist dreams and one, moreover, that features some version of Catalan as the mother tongue.
A further linguistic element is the name Porto Colom in Felanitx. Colom means pigeon in Catalan. In Italian the word is "colombo". In the Genoa region of the fifteenth century it was "corombo". There were people called Pigeon all over the western Med. Porto Colom, as in "colunbi", was noted on an Italian map of Mallorca from the thirteenth century, so it is perfectly logical that people might have adopted Colom as a surname because of the place name. Or alternatively, they were just named after a pigeon. Either way, as far as Columbus was concerned, Verd has maintained that his name came from his mother, Margarita Colom, who gave birth to the illegitimate son of Carlos, an Aragonese nobleman who was the brother of Ferdinand, later the husband of Isabel and so one half of the Catholic Kings. And the precise location of the birth was the Felanitx finca of s'Alqueria Roja.
Gabriel Verd believes that this year he will add to the celebrations of notable Mallorcans (Ramon Llull, 700th anniversary of his death, and Fray Junipero, his canonisation) by proclaiming that Columbus was definitively a Mallorcan. There is a part of me which really wants him to be right, for him to turn historical orthodoxy on its head and for history to therefore have to be rewritten. But despite his confidence that he will prove Columbus's Mallorcan birth definitively, unless it is in such a powerful way with new, previously unseen, original source documents that can substantiate the Felanitx theory and be scrutinised by peers who might be convinced of the arguments, the overwhelming evidence in favour of Genoa will remain.
Even if he were to provide definitive proof, would all Mallorcans be happy? History is less kind to Columbus than it once was. He is now accused of genocide and so of the extinguishing of Taino Indian culture in Hispaniola. The fact that smallpox and other diseases were largely responsible for the Tainos being all but wiped out doesn't stop contemporary views which portray a barbarous Columbus. Would Mallorca really want that legacy?
Thursday, August 21, 2014
The Bullrings Of Mallorca
There was another bullring in Pollensa. In the old town itself. It now forms part of the grounds of a property that would doubtless cost a pretty penny or several. It wasn't so far from the Plaça Major, but it, like the bullring in the port, disappeared years ago. From what can be made out, maybe the port's bullring was the more important of the two. It's hard to say.
One understands that there are quite a number of bullrings in Spain which have disappeared over the years, but research into those which may have existed in Mallorca has proved fruitless. Maybe there were others. Maybe there weren't. If anyone knows, my curiosity would be grateful for any information. What is known and is well chronicled is the history of the five bullrings that still exist - those in Palma, Inca, Alcúdia, Muro and Felanitx.
Of these five, the Felanitx one, La Macarena, has fallen into a pretty poor state. It has been closed for safety reasons since 2009. Its owner wishes to sell it but no one seems interested in buying it. It is exactly one hundred years old this year, there having been a previous bullring that had opened in 1891.
Palma has had a bullring since 1865. Its replacement, the Coliseum, staged its inaugural bullfight on 21 July, 1929. The desire for a replacement had existed for a good number of years before the Coliseum opened but the First World War put any new project on the back-burner, as did opposition from Palma town hall for several years in the 1920s. When the go-ahead was given, in 1928, the new bullring took only nine months to be built, an astonishingly short period of time. All was ready for the inauguration, and the anticipation was apparently enormous. Twenty trams that operated what was a new route to the bullring were packed. Practically every car that was registered in Mallorca was seemingly parked nearby.
The following Sunday, the action switched to Inca and to an occurrence which shocked the whole of Mallorca. Reports suggest that the shocked population all turned out to see the coffin of Angel Celdrán Carratalá being placed on a ship in Palma to take his body back to his native Alicante. He had received fatal wounds to his stomach from the bull.
Inca's bullring is older than Palma's. It was inaugurated in September 1910. The local rail service put on special trains to bring people in from Palma. Inca, so it would seem, had never experienced anything quite like this. The streets were crowded from early in the morning. The bars were packed. Sobrassada, botifarrones, tortillas were gorged. Wine was drunk in great volume.
Another bullring, Alcúdia's, is older than Inca's. It dates from 1892. Muro's, "La Monumental", was built on the site of a quarry and completed in 1918. It is the largest in terms of numbers of spectators apart from Palma's Coliseum.
Looking back at reports of the inaugurations of the Inca and Palma bullrings, one is struck by how popular the bullfights were. From a contemporary perspective, it might seem shocking. But it wasn't as though there was total support. Much of the opposition came from the so-called Generación del 98, which drew its name from the calamitous events of 1898 when Spain lost the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba. The bullfight was viewed as evidence of Spain's backwardness. The writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo said that he was disgusted by the bullfight.
Society's attitudes have clearly changed markedly since the days when Inca could be bursting at the seams with excited bullfight-goers. While the legitimacy of the bullfight as part of Spain's patrimony is rightly brought into question, there is the separate patrimony of the architectural legacy that goes with it. The Coliseum, for example, built so rapidly from Mallorcan stone and in a neo-classical style, should not be devalued because of what occurs behind that stone. Likewise, La Macarena deserves to be preserved, while the memories of the lost bullrings need to be reactivated, if only to emphasise just how much attitudes have changed.
Note: Many thanks indeed to Lyn at the www.puertopollensa.com forum for letting me know that the Puerto Pollensa bullring had been discussed some years ago on the forum and that its location was placed as having been near to what is now the Eroski roundabout (the one with the Canadair sculpture).
Saturday, August 31, 2013
The Abandonment Of La Macarena
There are other Macarenas. One is an area of Medellín in Colombia. In the same city there is a bullfighting fiesta called La Macarena and the bullring has this name. There is a Macarena in Mallorca as well. In Felanitx. In 1961, the fraternity Confraria de Macarena was founded, a year after the bullfighting club of Felanitx was formed. La Macarena is, as in Medellín, the name of the town's bullfighting ring.
Felanitx has had a bullring since 1891. It has always been called La Macarena, but the town's bullring is not the original; the current Macarena opened in 1914.
The bullfight, held during the fiestas in August, has not taken place for five years. The chances are that it will never be held again. La Macarena was considered unsafe, the bullfight was stopped and the future of the bullring is a matter of uncertainty.
The bullring's official capacity was 2,150 people but it was regularly flouted; 3,000 people would be admitted. In 2009, the interior ministry (which governs such matters) stated that the bullring could, for safety reasons, hold no more than 1,000 people and that were the bullfight to go ahead and more than 1,000 people to be admitted, the Guardia Civil would intervene and call it off.
The poor condition of La Macarena required investment to bring it up to standard, and it is claimed that it needed only some 90,000 euros spending on it. This was an investment, though, that the owner, Pedro Balañà, a Barcelona-based bullfighting impresario, appeared unwilling to commit to. Indeed, he decided to sell La Macarena, but not at any price. He wanted 900,000 euros for it, twice the amount that Muro town hall paid for that town's bullring when it was acquired from Balañà in 2010.
Felanitx town hall has made it perfectly clear that it has no intention of paying such an amount. Were it or any other purchaser to buy the bullring, there would still also be the cost of rectifying the arena's deficiencies. Muro town hall was faced with just the same scenario. It paid for the bullring to be brought up to scratch, though (a figure less than that quoted for La Macarena).
Muro's expenditure wasn't, however, greeted with universal support. Muro may have declared itself to be, somewhat defiantly, the town of bullfighting in Mallorca, but what ended up as nearly half a million euros of investment was a highly questionable way to spend council money.
Muro town hall defended the purchase on different grounds. One was that the bullring would be used for other events and not just for the one bullfight which takes place each year. It has been true to its word in this regard but only up to a point. A second justification was to preserve a building that was part of the town's heritage.
Whatever one thinks of the bullfight, the preservation of an historic building (the bullring) is a different issue. But it comes at a cost, and it is not a cost that Felanitx is willing to countenance. Were the arena to be put to good use for purposes other than the bullfight, there might be some justification, but to pay for something that hosts one bullfight a year makes little or no economic sense. To pay nigh on a million euros to have a monument that would still need maintaining also doesn't make a lot of sense.
It has been said that there is a covenant under which, if the bullfight does not take place, the property reverts to the town. Felanitx town hall says it can find no legal proof to back this up. It may also be that the town hall, aware of the declining popularity of and growing public hostility towards bullfighting, doesn't want the political problems that would come with taking on the bullring.
Such concerns didn't deter Muro, but then Muro has set itself up as a defender of bullfighting. In Felanitx, they don't appear to have such strong feelings, so La Macarena is left in limbo, all but abandoned and getting into a gradually worse condition. From a heritage point of view this is a shame, but in other ways it isn't. The shame attached to bullfighting, in Felanitx at least, is not worth spending good money on.
* Photo acknowledgement: La Perplejidad del Buzo (Pedro Alonso) - http://laperplejidaddelbuzo.blogspot.com.es
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for August 2013
Alcúdia tourist day - 30 August 2013
Ana María Aguiló and language - 28 August 2013
Biomass - 26 August 2013
Bruce Springsteen - 17 August 2013
English and the Balearic Government - 25 August 2013
Felanitx bullring - 31 August 2013
Gibraltar - 6 August 2013
Heat - 9 August 2013
Holiday rentals: illegal offer - 3 August 2013, 7 August 2013, 19 August 2013, 24 August 2013, 27 August 2013, 29 August 2013
Jaume Matas - 22 August 2013
Joan March - 21 August 2013
Kevin Ayers - 18 August 2013
Looky-looky men - 13 August 2013
Magalluf troubles - 20 August 2013
Miss Tourism - 15 August 2013
Pep Aguiló and Twitter - 16 August 2013
Politicians in prison - 4 August 2013
Rajoy addresses parliament - 2 August 2013
Rajoy's gaffe about island of Palma - 12 August 2013
Real Academia Española and dictionary - 8 August 2013
Riots - 14 August 2013
Stern magazine on Mallorca - 10 August 2013
The World cruise ship - 11 August 2013
Tourism promotion transfer of responsibility - 23 August 2013
Trilingualism in Mallorcan education - 5 August 2013
When tourism was cheap - 1 August 2013
Sunday, February 03, 2013
A Guide To Columbus - Officially
If you fancied offering your services as a tour guide, could you just put an ad in a paper and wait for tourists to come flocking? Well, you could, but you would need to be aware that you might be breaking the law.
Some definition is probably required. A tour guide, as in a rep with a tour operator for example, is not the same as what the Balearics tourism ministry and the Official College of Tour Guides in the Balearic Islands consider to be a tour guide. Article 65 of the tourism law identifies what is meant by a tour guide - "guía turístico or turística", depending on gender and not to be confused with a different "guía turística", which is a published guide. Such a human guide engages in regular and professional work in providing information and interpretative services regarding the islands' historical and natural heritage, assets of cultural interest and any other tourism resource. He or she must be accredited, and authorisation to work as a guide has to be granted by the tourism ministry.
There has been a recent flurry of activity regarding official tour guides in Mallorca. Groups have visited two towns to learn more about matters of specific cultural interest, the towns in question being Petra and Felanitx. Forty guides turned up in Petra to be able to offer "routes", both cultural and gastronomic, related to Fray Juniper, whose 300th birthday is being celebrated this year. (I'm not sure what the gastronomic bit has to do with the old Father, but be that as it may.)
This is all perfectly reasonable. Juniper Serra was born in Petra, of this there is no doubt. He is one of Mallorca's most famous sons, albeit that his fame outside of Mallorca is largely restricted to California, where he was a missionary. The twenty guides who have been to Felanitx, on the other hand, pitched up to hear about someone whose Mallorcan connection is, at best, highly questionable: Christopher Columbus.
The guides heard from the Mallorcan historian who has been arguing the case for Coumbus having come from Felanitx for years, Gabriel Verd Martorell. Much though I admire Verd's persistence, the biggest problem he has lies in convincing a sceptical world that his version of history is the correct one. The world still believes, and probably correctly, that Columbus came from Genoa.
One report of the gathering of the guides in Felanitx used a telling word. It said (and I translate) that the guides "are charged with indoctrinating ...". It may not have intended the implication, but indoctrination is usually taken to mean instruction in often contentious ideas to the point that they are accepted uncritically. The guides of Felanitx are, in effect, a means of furthering propaganda about Columbus that remains unproven.
There are of course examples of tourism attractions which are based on falsehoods: Loch Ness is one such. No guide worth his salt or his profession would insist that the monster exists, and so information which is conveyed concentrates on how the legend came about. And this is how it should be. If guides make it perfectly clear that Columbus's origins in Felanitx are but one theory about Columbus, then no real harm is done. If they end up leaving visitors believing that he did come from Felanitx, then they are causing harm, because they will have turned a theory into a fact. Much would depend upon how persuasive the "indoctrination" is and so therefore the belief.
One comes back to the credentials that a tour guide needs under the tourism law. They are designed, one would presume, to ensure that a guide is capable of disseminating fact, of distinguishing between fact and supposition or alternative theory and of not passing on garbage. There are many involved in the tourism industry who deal with the latter because they are misinformed or not informed at all. Hence, why there is an official college for guides and official authorisation required for guides to practise.
The Felanitx theory is an intriguing one and it certainly isn't without persuasion. Verd is sincere in his beliefs about Columbus. But it is, I stress, only a theory, and tour guides, one would hope, would appreciate this. There is, from the same report I mentioned above, another telling line. It is a quote from Verd. "We have made the product (Columbus from Felanitx), but until now have failed to commercialise it." And therein lies the rub, the commercialisation, the marketing, the money. But the word for "made" in the original Spanish report is potentially the most telling: "fabricado".
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Some definition is probably required. A tour guide, as in a rep with a tour operator for example, is not the same as what the Balearics tourism ministry and the Official College of Tour Guides in the Balearic Islands consider to be a tour guide. Article 65 of the tourism law identifies what is meant by a tour guide - "guía turístico or turística", depending on gender and not to be confused with a different "guía turística", which is a published guide. Such a human guide engages in regular and professional work in providing information and interpretative services regarding the islands' historical and natural heritage, assets of cultural interest and any other tourism resource. He or she must be accredited, and authorisation to work as a guide has to be granted by the tourism ministry.
There has been a recent flurry of activity regarding official tour guides in Mallorca. Groups have visited two towns to learn more about matters of specific cultural interest, the towns in question being Petra and Felanitx. Forty guides turned up in Petra to be able to offer "routes", both cultural and gastronomic, related to Fray Juniper, whose 300th birthday is being celebrated this year. (I'm not sure what the gastronomic bit has to do with the old Father, but be that as it may.)
This is all perfectly reasonable. Juniper Serra was born in Petra, of this there is no doubt. He is one of Mallorca's most famous sons, albeit that his fame outside of Mallorca is largely restricted to California, where he was a missionary. The twenty guides who have been to Felanitx, on the other hand, pitched up to hear about someone whose Mallorcan connection is, at best, highly questionable: Christopher Columbus.
The guides heard from the Mallorcan historian who has been arguing the case for Coumbus having come from Felanitx for years, Gabriel Verd Martorell. Much though I admire Verd's persistence, the biggest problem he has lies in convincing a sceptical world that his version of history is the correct one. The world still believes, and probably correctly, that Columbus came from Genoa.
One report of the gathering of the guides in Felanitx used a telling word. It said (and I translate) that the guides "are charged with indoctrinating ...". It may not have intended the implication, but indoctrination is usually taken to mean instruction in often contentious ideas to the point that they are accepted uncritically. The guides of Felanitx are, in effect, a means of furthering propaganda about Columbus that remains unproven.
There are of course examples of tourism attractions which are based on falsehoods: Loch Ness is one such. No guide worth his salt or his profession would insist that the monster exists, and so information which is conveyed concentrates on how the legend came about. And this is how it should be. If guides make it perfectly clear that Columbus's origins in Felanitx are but one theory about Columbus, then no real harm is done. If they end up leaving visitors believing that he did come from Felanitx, then they are causing harm, because they will have turned a theory into a fact. Much would depend upon how persuasive the "indoctrination" is and so therefore the belief.
One comes back to the credentials that a tour guide needs under the tourism law. They are designed, one would presume, to ensure that a guide is capable of disseminating fact, of distinguishing between fact and supposition or alternative theory and of not passing on garbage. There are many involved in the tourism industry who deal with the latter because they are misinformed or not informed at all. Hence, why there is an official college for guides and official authorisation required for guides to practise.
The Felanitx theory is an intriguing one and it certainly isn't without persuasion. Verd is sincere in his beliefs about Columbus. But it is, I stress, only a theory, and tour guides, one would hope, would appreciate this. There is, from the same report I mentioned above, another telling line. It is a quote from Verd. "We have made the product (Columbus from Felanitx), but until now have failed to commercialise it." And therein lies the rub, the commercialisation, the marketing, the money. But the word for "made" in the original Spanish report is potentially the most telling: "fabricado".
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Felanitx fire under control
It hasn't so far been as bad a summer for fires as last year but the island has experienced quite a serious one (and the worst of the summer) on the Puig de Sant Salvador in Felanitx in the south-east. Twenty-four hectares of woodland have been affected. The fire is now under control, having started yesterday some time after midday.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Corombo Or Colom: The Columbus conundrum
Christopher Columbus wasn't born Christopher Columbus. He was born Christoffa Corombo. Or he was born Cristòfor Colom. Let's go with the latter.
Some time in 1460, Cristòfor Colom was born in the Mallorcan town of Felanitx. The exact location was the finca of s'Alqueria Roja. His father was an Aragonese nobleman, the brother of Fernando who was to become king of Aragon and of Castile and Léon, and his mother was called Margarita Colom. Cristòfor was the bastard nephew of the Spanish king. This bloodline, unknown to others at the royal court, was to prove vital in giving Cristòfor the patronage to sail to what he thought was Japan or China, but which turned out to be the Caribbean, and in his being named a viceroy and becoming governor of Hispaniola.
There are certain things wrong with this. Wrong, that is, unless you subscribe to the theory that Columbus was indeed born in Felanitx.
Some time in 1451, Christoffa Corombo was born in Genoa, an independent republic which eventually became part of Italy. His father was called Domenico, and he was a lowly weaver who later became an innkeeper. Christoffa's mother, Susanna, was also a weaver. Somehow, Corombo managed to rise from these humble origins to find a place in the Spanish court and acquire the patronage that he did in order to sail to find China in a direction opposite to the one that was already known about.
There is nothing wrong with this, unless you subscribe to the theory that Columbus was born, not in Genoa, but in Felanitx.
Which is right and which is wrong? The Genoa version is the accepted version. The Felanitx version is one that has been proposed by the Mallorcan historian Gabriel Verd Martorell. He has devoted more or less his life's work in seeking to prove that Corombo was Colom and that he was born in Felanitx.
I have huge admiration for Verd's scholarship and for his persistence. His Felanitx theory is not without persuasiveness. It is one that has arisen from what remain legitimate questions as to Columbus' background and specifically how he acquired a strange speaking voice (and it is argued that this was because of Catalan origins) and how he came to be given a title (that of viceroy) that would have been reserved for the Spanish nobility.
Verd has challenged the orthodox view of Columbus, but part of the problem he has had in making a truly convincing case for there to be a complete revision of history is that his theory is just one of many which place Columbus' birthplace as anywhere but Genoa.
Undeterred by the fact that Verd has yet to convince a sceptical world that Christoffa from Genoa was indeed Cristòfor from Felanitx, the town of Felanitx has co-opted Columbus as an "illustrious son" and is to open an exhibition in Portocolom (note the Colom). This exhibition, conveniently near to the tourist office, is to be dedicated to Columbus and to his Mallorcan connection.
While the exhibition may well assist in promoting Verd's theory, there is another benefit; one to the town of Felanitx. Even without definitive proof of Columbus' association with the town, there is presumably a gain to be made by promoting the association. A tourism gain. Or so the town hall would hope.
Its mayor, Gabriel Tauler, has been pushing the Columbus association for some time. He has wanted Columbus "routes" this and no doubt Columbus souvenir mini-carabela ships that. The routes, one imagines, wouldn't involve taking a carabela and heading off to Genoa. He has managed, however, to fall foul of linguistic dogma in issuing invites to the opening of the Columbus-expo. They've gone out in Castellano and not in Catalan. They are more widely understandable, says the mayor. Which is true, but much of the Columbus-from-Felanitx argumentation has to do with that strange speaking voice. If he was indeed originally a Catalan speaker, then Catalan as at least part of the invite was probably warranted.
Who knows? Maybe Columbus did come from Felanitx. His Catalan connection is at least intriguing, but that he also often wrote in Catalan isn't necessarily so much of a surprise. He could well have acquired the language and, if one accepts his origins in Genoa, then he wouldn't have written in Ligurian, the language of Genoa, as it wasn't a written language. It would also, as a tongue, have given him a strange speaking voice.
Christoffa Corombo or Cristòfor Colom, who can tell? Verd would insist that it were the latter. I wish him well in continuing to try and prove his theory.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Some time in 1460, Cristòfor Colom was born in the Mallorcan town of Felanitx. The exact location was the finca of s'Alqueria Roja. His father was an Aragonese nobleman, the brother of Fernando who was to become king of Aragon and of Castile and Léon, and his mother was called Margarita Colom. Cristòfor was the bastard nephew of the Spanish king. This bloodline, unknown to others at the royal court, was to prove vital in giving Cristòfor the patronage to sail to what he thought was Japan or China, but which turned out to be the Caribbean, and in his being named a viceroy and becoming governor of Hispaniola.
There are certain things wrong with this. Wrong, that is, unless you subscribe to the theory that Columbus was indeed born in Felanitx.
Some time in 1451, Christoffa Corombo was born in Genoa, an independent republic which eventually became part of Italy. His father was called Domenico, and he was a lowly weaver who later became an innkeeper. Christoffa's mother, Susanna, was also a weaver. Somehow, Corombo managed to rise from these humble origins to find a place in the Spanish court and acquire the patronage that he did in order to sail to find China in a direction opposite to the one that was already known about.
There is nothing wrong with this, unless you subscribe to the theory that Columbus was born, not in Genoa, but in Felanitx.
Which is right and which is wrong? The Genoa version is the accepted version. The Felanitx version is one that has been proposed by the Mallorcan historian Gabriel Verd Martorell. He has devoted more or less his life's work in seeking to prove that Corombo was Colom and that he was born in Felanitx.
I have huge admiration for Verd's scholarship and for his persistence. His Felanitx theory is not without persuasiveness. It is one that has arisen from what remain legitimate questions as to Columbus' background and specifically how he acquired a strange speaking voice (and it is argued that this was because of Catalan origins) and how he came to be given a title (that of viceroy) that would have been reserved for the Spanish nobility.
Verd has challenged the orthodox view of Columbus, but part of the problem he has had in making a truly convincing case for there to be a complete revision of history is that his theory is just one of many which place Columbus' birthplace as anywhere but Genoa.
Undeterred by the fact that Verd has yet to convince a sceptical world that Christoffa from Genoa was indeed Cristòfor from Felanitx, the town of Felanitx has co-opted Columbus as an "illustrious son" and is to open an exhibition in Portocolom (note the Colom). This exhibition, conveniently near to the tourist office, is to be dedicated to Columbus and to his Mallorcan connection.
While the exhibition may well assist in promoting Verd's theory, there is another benefit; one to the town of Felanitx. Even without definitive proof of Columbus' association with the town, there is presumably a gain to be made by promoting the association. A tourism gain. Or so the town hall would hope.
Its mayor, Gabriel Tauler, has been pushing the Columbus association for some time. He has wanted Columbus "routes" this and no doubt Columbus souvenir mini-carabela ships that. The routes, one imagines, wouldn't involve taking a carabela and heading off to Genoa. He has managed, however, to fall foul of linguistic dogma in issuing invites to the opening of the Columbus-expo. They've gone out in Castellano and not in Catalan. They are more widely understandable, says the mayor. Which is true, but much of the Columbus-from-Felanitx argumentation has to do with that strange speaking voice. If he was indeed originally a Catalan speaker, then Catalan as at least part of the invite was probably warranted.
Who knows? Maybe Columbus did come from Felanitx. His Catalan connection is at least intriguing, but that he also often wrote in Catalan isn't necessarily so much of a surprise. He could well have acquired the language and, if one accepts his origins in Genoa, then he wouldn't have written in Ligurian, the language of Genoa, as it wasn't a written language. It would also, as a tongue, have given him a strange speaking voice.
Christoffa Corombo or Cristòfor Colom, who can tell? Verd would insist that it were the latter. I wish him well in continuing to try and prove his theory.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Columbus Improbability: Felanitx
Want to give your town's tourism a bit of a boost? Easy. All you do is ally yourself to some old weird beard who helped to eradicate a distant tribe of loin-cloth-wearing and peace-loving foreigners: Christopher Columbus, the Kenny Rogers of the fifteenth century, all white chin furniture and islands of the gulf stream.
The mayor of Felanitx wants to make Columbus an "illustrious son" of the town and to attract all-year American tourists in search of their roots at a new theme park with Taino indians (not that they'd be real ones), labouring in building a governor's residence and dying of smallpox. But let's overlook Columbus's genocidist credentials. He wasn't in truth much good at wiping out a race - there are more efficient ways than the ones he and his successors deployed - much as he wasn't much good at discovering America.
It may come as a surprise to learn that Columbus didn't discover Manhattan or Disney World. What he did stumble across, while thinking he was on the way to China, were some islands, one of which is today carved down the centre on maps, the right bit of which is the Allinclusivan Republic, sometimes known as "Dominican" to a bar-owning fraternity of Mallorca intent on wreaking winter-home-from-home, all-inclusive revenge on this part of the Caribbean in retaliation to that of the non-Saint Miguel-buying all-inclusive hoi polloi of the resorts.
Of course, any schoolboy could tell you that it was Columbus who discovered America, although this is increasingly unlikely given the nature of history teaching, which is probably as well given that it isn't strictly true. But the same schoolboy might just also be able to tell you that Columbus came from Genoa in Italy. Which is true, at least it is generally thought to be. Not, however, that some would agree, such as the mayor of Felanitx.
There is a Mallorcan historian called Gabriel Verd Martorell. For years now he has been banging on about Columbus being a felanitxer. The town does have form when it comes to the great Columbus claim; its resort, Porto Colom, claims Columbus for itself. Porto Colom equals Port Columbus. What Martorell reckons is that an Aragonese noble, Charles, exiled to Mallorca by his father, shacked up with a Margarita Colón (Colón, Colom, it's all the same) and out popped Chris - in 1460, nine years after what is normally taken as the year of his birth in Genoa.
Charles was the brother of Fernando, also of Aragon, who married Isabel of Castile and thus - through their union as Catholic Kings - created the modern Spain. It was Fernando and Isabel who, after some years of being pestered, finally gave in to Columbus's desire to go and find China in the opposite direction from that to which it was normally approached.
The mystery of Martorell's theory is that no one at the time, back in the royal court of the late fifteenth century, seemed to cotton on to the fact that Columbus was indeed Fernando's nephew. At least this is what most, in fact all history books would have us believe. Until, that is, Sr. Martorell came along to imply that Fernando knew all along but obviously wasn't telling, and that it was Columbus's nobility that allowed the king and queen to grant him the most unusual title of viceroy - which they did -when he set off for wherever it was he was going to.
Of course, Martorell might be right, though a professor at the university in Palma considers his version of the Columbus story to be highly improbable. But Mayor Tauler of Felanitx believes him and can see a decent tourist opportunity when it presents itself. The only problem might be convincing all those tourists, especially the American ones, who might otherwise be Genoa-bound.
Columbus is the most famous Spaniard who wasn't actually Spanish. It's for this reason that there is such an industry which wants to find proof that he was as well as an offshoot industry which would like to confer Catalan status on the discoverer as a way of cocking a snook at Spanish pretensions. Politically and touristically there is much riding on the Columbus engima. Over to you, Felanitx.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The mayor of Felanitx wants to make Columbus an "illustrious son" of the town and to attract all-year American tourists in search of their roots at a new theme park with Taino indians (not that they'd be real ones), labouring in building a governor's residence and dying of smallpox. But let's overlook Columbus's genocidist credentials. He wasn't in truth much good at wiping out a race - there are more efficient ways than the ones he and his successors deployed - much as he wasn't much good at discovering America.
It may come as a surprise to learn that Columbus didn't discover Manhattan or Disney World. What he did stumble across, while thinking he was on the way to China, were some islands, one of which is today carved down the centre on maps, the right bit of which is the Allinclusivan Republic, sometimes known as "Dominican" to a bar-owning fraternity of Mallorca intent on wreaking winter-home-from-home, all-inclusive revenge on this part of the Caribbean in retaliation to that of the non-Saint Miguel-buying all-inclusive hoi polloi of the resorts.
Of course, any schoolboy could tell you that it was Columbus who discovered America, although this is increasingly unlikely given the nature of history teaching, which is probably as well given that it isn't strictly true. But the same schoolboy might just also be able to tell you that Columbus came from Genoa in Italy. Which is true, at least it is generally thought to be. Not, however, that some would agree, such as the mayor of Felanitx.
There is a Mallorcan historian called Gabriel Verd Martorell. For years now he has been banging on about Columbus being a felanitxer. The town does have form when it comes to the great Columbus claim; its resort, Porto Colom, claims Columbus for itself. Porto Colom equals Port Columbus. What Martorell reckons is that an Aragonese noble, Charles, exiled to Mallorca by his father, shacked up with a Margarita Colón (Colón, Colom, it's all the same) and out popped Chris - in 1460, nine years after what is normally taken as the year of his birth in Genoa.
Charles was the brother of Fernando, also of Aragon, who married Isabel of Castile and thus - through their union as Catholic Kings - created the modern Spain. It was Fernando and Isabel who, after some years of being pestered, finally gave in to Columbus's desire to go and find China in the opposite direction from that to which it was normally approached.
The mystery of Martorell's theory is that no one at the time, back in the royal court of the late fifteenth century, seemed to cotton on to the fact that Columbus was indeed Fernando's nephew. At least this is what most, in fact all history books would have us believe. Until, that is, Sr. Martorell came along to imply that Fernando knew all along but obviously wasn't telling, and that it was Columbus's nobility that allowed the king and queen to grant him the most unusual title of viceroy - which they did -when he set off for wherever it was he was going to.
Of course, Martorell might be right, though a professor at the university in Palma considers his version of the Columbus story to be highly improbable. But Mayor Tauler of Felanitx believes him and can see a decent tourist opportunity when it presents itself. The only problem might be convincing all those tourists, especially the American ones, who might otherwise be Genoa-bound.
Columbus is the most famous Spaniard who wasn't actually Spanish. It's for this reason that there is such an industry which wants to find proof that he was as well as an offshoot industry which would like to confer Catalan status on the discoverer as a way of cocking a snook at Spanish pretensions. Politically and touristically there is much riding on the Columbus engima. Over to you, Felanitx.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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