The Legend And Meanings Of 12 September

Pilgrims from across Mallorca will have been arriving in Lluc from around seven this morning. The "pujada a Lluc a peu de la Part Forana" - the climb by foot to Lluc from the "foreign part" (anywhere but Palma) of Mallorca - coincides with the celebrations for Our Lady of Lluc on 12 September. It is a walk not to be confused with the one from Güell in Palma that takes place in August. The September pilgrimage has been going for an awful lot longer because of the celebrations for Our Lady. The Güell walk does, though, have some time significance in that 10 August is the date when, in 1884, the image of the Virgin and of the baby Jesus received official papal coronation.

The legend of the image - La Moreneta, the Black Madonna - is one of Mallorca's most famed legends. The story of the shepherd boy Lukas - Lluc in Catalan (not the reason why the place Lluc is called Lluc) - and the discovery of the statue has been told many, many times. That the discovery was made in or around 1250 lends itself to there being the legend. A tale from centuries ago (there was in fact no documented evidence of if until the fifteenth century), it is probably no more than a tale, though the existence of the original chapel or hermitage of the Virgin of Lluc - the product of the discovery of the image - is documented from roughly the same time: a procurator, Jaume de Marina, recorded the chapel in October 1268.

The pilgrimage nowadays benefits from decent enough roads. It's a slog - as suggested by the "pujada" - but at least the terrain is negotiable. What must it have been like in the thirteenth century? The current-day pilgrimage does at least retain the essence of what it was then and has remained - done on foot; donkeys also proved useful back in the day.

There is a coincidence where the date is concerned. Jaume II of Mallorca's coronation was on 12 September, 1276. This event was when he issued rights and privileges to the island, and it took place at the church of Santa Eulalia in Palma. Or was it a coincidence? The origin of the liturgical feast of Our Lady of Lluc being on 12 September appears uncertain, but it would appear that Jaume II - described as someone with intense Marian devotion (i.e. to the Virgin) - made clear this devotion during his coronation.

The point about this is that nowadays there is a distinction made when it comes to 12 September: a distinction between the secular and the religious, despite the fact that the two, historically, may well be bound together. The day of Mallorca, falling as it does on 12 September, is an invention of the late 1990s. The rationale was the coronation and the granting of privileges - the secular meaning of 12 September. It owes nothing to the religious, yet Our Lady of Lluc is Mallorca's patron saint.

The debate that is currently ongoing regarding Mallorca Day stems from the fact that not everyone is convinced that 12 September, 1276 is the epitome of "Mallorcaness". Alternative dates have been suggested, but nowhere in this debate do the religious and spiritual intrude. Swapping the justification for 12 September from the secular - the coronation - to the religious (the feast day) appears a non-starter.

For the political world (much of it anyway), it is important to be separate from the church. And there are very good and legitimate reasons why this should be. Some politicians, though, make a display of spurning religion and notable celebrations, even if they are rooted deeply in local traditions. The mayor of Pollensa, for instance, declined to attend the moving ceremony of Good Friday this year. He was within his rights to do so, but for all its religious symbolism it is also a symbol of tradition, anticipated as much by the faithful as it is by the non-believers. When it comes to the pilgrimage to Lluc (and the one in August), how many participants are genuinely religious? It isn't an imperative.

So, should there be a recognition of the dual meaning of 12 September and to therefore reinforce Mallorca Day? The politicians probably wouldn't allow it, but they might want to trace things back and see the origins of their secularism. They might also discover that it was 12 September in 1229 when the first main battle (Porto Pi) took place between Jaume I's forces and those of the occupying Muslims. Thus commenced the process for everything Catalan (secular and religious) that is present-day Mallorca.

The Madness Of King James

The town hall in Sineu has been given the green light by the Council of Mallorca's heritage commission to locate a statue of King Jaume II (James II) in a place in the town in which it wasn't previously located. In May 2011 the statue was put up in the church square. Soon after, it was removed. The new location, according to a town hall technical report, "permits a view ... of the image of the king ... which does not impair views of any specific buildings and their historical and aesthetic values or interfere with special environmental values". Which is a longwinded way of explaining and admitting that the previous siting had impaired such views and interfered with such values.

The day after the statue was inaugurated, the Council let it be known that it considered the decision of the town hall to locate it where it was to be "very serious". The town hall had not been given permission by the Council for the siting of the statue, which violated regulations regarding the town's status as being in the "cultural interest" and in particular the church of Santa Maria. The town hall went ahead anyway, in full cognisance of the fact that it did not have permission.

The story of the statue might appear to have only been an example of how competing bureaucracies in Mallorca (the Council and the town hall in this instance) can go mad, pull in opposite directions and do things which contravene some arcane regulation or other. There was, however, very much more to it.

Jaume II plays a significant part in Sineu's history, as it was during his reign that the conversion of what had been the palace of the Emir Mobaxir into the Palace of the Kings of Mallorca was undertaken. On this count, plus the fact that it was Jaume II who had granted Sineu the status of a "royal village" in 1300, there should be little debate as to the merit of there being a statue to him. There was debate, however. And it was more than just debate. It had nothing to do with where the statue was sited or with whether there was permission or not; it had everything to do with conflicting attitudes towards Jaume II, and on 29 May 2011 these attitudes spilled over into a physical conflict.

At the ceremony, members of the anti-Catalanist Círculo Balear, who hadn't been invited but went anyway, unveiled a flag with three red bars. This was, if you like, a red-bar-too-few rag to the bull of Mallorcan nationalist sentiment; the official Mallorcan flag has four red bars in accordance with the original flag of Aragon and so King Jaume I. Insults flew, there was some jostling, and the police had to intervene. The Partido Popular, which had won five seats at the previous week's municipal election and was on the point of resuming its leadership of the town hall, initially attached blame for the incidents to "radical Catalanists" but then backtracked somewhat by also criticising the members of the Círculo Balear.

So, what had all this been about? Jaume II, for certain Mallorcan nationalists, is not revered in the way that Jaume I is. Despite having been crowned the first true king of Mallorca, Jaume II does not compare with the old man because it wasn't he who conquered the island and who introduced Catalan culture. Moreover, Jaume II was none too fastidious when it came to flags. He had different versions, one with three red bars (as flown by the Círculo Balear) and even one with only two bars. As such, therefore, he was betraying the legacy of the original flag, the "senyera". The left-wing nationalist Sineu Independent party was indignant about there being a statue at all: Jaume II did not represent Sineu, it said.

Nevertheless, there is the peculiarity that it was a nationalist party, the Unió Mallorquina when it was in charge of the Council of Mallorca, which established Mallorca Day on the anniversary of Jaume II's coronation in 1276. The conflict in Sineu in 2011 was styled as one between "nationalistas" and "españolistas", the latter personified by the anti-Catalanist Círculo Balear. Yet, the very fact that a nationalist party might have felt it appropriate for Jaume II to be the pretext for a Mallorca Day confuses an argument about the very origins of this nationalism.

Much as history is important and much as events of the thirteenth century moulded Mallorcan culture and heritage, the conflict in Sineu revealed just how mired current-day society can be in this antiquity. Should it really matter that much? To some it obviously does, but to others it seems crazy to constantly relive a long-ago past. And so what will happen when the statue is placed in its new location? More of the same probably. Madness.

Bread And Anniversaries: Day of the Dead

There is, to say the least, a bit of confusion when it comes to the Day of the Dead. You will find reference to it being All Saints' Day, which was yesterday. It isn't. It is today, All Souls' Day.

The three days of Allhallowtide, from a religious perspective, do not all come from pagan origins. Only Halloween does. 1 November, where the Celts were concerned, marked Samhain, the start of the Celtic winter (Samhain - the lord of death - meant summer's end). So, the eve of Samhain became the time for sacrifice and for allowing the souls of the dead to return to their earthly homes, the connection having been made between the death of summer and human death. With the coming of Christianity, Halloween continued but it was only to become All Saints' Eve once the idea of All Saints' Day first took hold (probably some time in the fourth century) and, very much more importantly, was shifted from May, when it had originally been celebrated, to 1 November, which wasn't finally and definitively decided upon until the eleventh century.

So, All Saints' Day was a Christian invention and not a pagan one. And the same applies to All Souls' Day. There had been a celebration for the souls of the dead who had been condemned to Purgatory from at least the sixth century. It had also occurred in the spring, at Whitsun time. In line with All Saints' Day, 2 November was officially adopted in the eleventh century.

The term, the Day of the Dead, was probably used much earlier, but there is a strong claim for it having been first officially referred to in Barcelona as late as 1671. A document from the city's silversmiths' guild makes explicit mention of "Diada dels Morts", and just as explicitly, it was referring to All Souls' Day. Therefore, Catalan can put a bid in for having come up with the Day of the Dead.

That same document also spoke about the offerings of "pa dels morts" (bread of the dead) being made to the deceased. The business with the bread had been around for some time before the Barcelona guild was issuing its instructions in the seventeenth century, and Mallorca provides the evidence. A will of 1344 stated that heirs should place bread on the tomb on the Day of the Deceased (aka All Souls' Day). As I say, the Day of the Dead was in all likelihood in general use prior to 1671, as it was a simple enough leap to change deceased to dead. (The Día de Difuntos - deceased or departed - is still also widely used.)

The association of bread with All Souls' Day was clearly already a custom by the time that will was drawn up and it continued to be a custom but with the bread morphing into something sweeter. In Mallorca, "panetets de mort" (small dead breads if you like) have become rosaries of sweets for children and typically nowadays they include marzipan, fruit candies and chocolate coins. They are something for any of the three days of Allhallowtide, but strictly speaking, because of the origins of the offerings of bread, they should be for All Souls' Day. As these panetets, certainly by the early years of the last century, were being strung like beads and thus needed to have a hole, I am guessing that this is partly the explanation why "bunyols" (doughnuts or fritters with a hole) are so much a part of the current-day customs of Allhallowtide.

There will, naturally enough, be masses held today for All Souls' Day, and one will be at the cathedral in Palma. Among its many stories, the cathedral has one about the Day of the Dead and King Jaume II. He died on 28 May, 1311. Jaume had the good sense to arrange for two options for where he should be interred, depending on where he happened to be when he passed away. One was in Perpignan, the other was the cathedral. But as things turned out, a tomb fit for a king wasn't ready for him and nor was the chapel - Trinity; it was to take eighteen years for it to be ready. Why that chapel is where it is has always been something of a mystery, but it was probably to do with the monarchy not forming part of the cathedral's liturgy, i.e. the pattern of worship. But the tomb was to acquire a role in this liturgy. In the fifteenth century, the royal procurator agreed to a payment to be made to the cathedral, but one of the conditions was that there had to be a mass in front of the royal tomb. Another was that this payment was for a royal anniversary. Jaume II's. And the anniversary would be on the Day of the Dead. Hence, Jaume, having been born and having died in May, ended up with a "day" that was for the dead.