December, 24 and The Grandma continues practising one of her most favourite cultural events, The Song of the Sybil. Due to the COVID19, this year is not possible to listen to this liturgical drama in Barcelona, but The Grandma wants to talk again about it, and about its great meaning and cultural importance.
The Song of the Sibyl, in Catalan El Cant de la Sibil·la, is a liturgical drama and a Gregorian chant, the lyrics of which comprise a prophecy describing the Apocalypse, which has been performed in churches on Mallorca in Balearic Islands, Alghero in Sardinia, and some Catalan churches, in the Catalan language on Christmas Eve nearly uninterruptedly since medieval times.
It was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO on 16 November 2010.
Today is Christmas Eve and The Grandma is going to go to listen to El Cant de la Sibil·la, The Song of the Sibyl, in Barcelona sung by Maria del Mar Bonet one of her favourite singers.
The Grandma goes to this event every year. She has the opportunity of listening a beautiful song with medieval origins that is recognized by the UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2010.
The Song of Sibyl is a liturgical drama and a Gregorian chant, the lyrics of which compose a prophecy describing the Apocalypse, which has been performed at some churches of Majorca, Valencian Country, Alghero (Sardinia), and Catalonia, in Catalan language and in Naples in Neapolitan language, on Christmas Eve nearly uninterruptedly since medieval times.
Before going to the church tonight, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 52).
The Grandma doesn't like Christmas a lot but she loves culture and traditions and there are two Catalan traditions that she adores, the Tió and the Caganer. Last December, 17, Jessica Jones wrote an interesting article on BBC titled Catalonia's beloved scatological Christmas custom. The Grandma wants to reproduce this full article to talk about these wonderful traditions.
Here it is...
In Catalonia, hidden among the traditional nativity characters is a little figure, trousers down, doing his business right in the middle of the holy scene.
A pessebre, a Catalan nativity scene, contains all the usual suspects. There’s Mary and Joseph gazing down lovingly at baby Jesus, sleeping in his manger. There are the oxen, gently lowing, and perhaps some shepherds. But look closer, and hidden among the traditional characters is a little figure, trousers down, doing his business right in the middle of the holy scene.
The caganer -literally ‘defecator’- is a staple of Christmas in Catalonia. The traditional figure depicts a peasant wearing black trousers, a white shirt and the classic red Catalan cap -the barretina. He may also be smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper.
“It’s like the funny part of something that is supposed to be very serious -the
nativity,” laughed caganer collector Marc-Ignasi Corral, 53, from
Barcelona. Yes, the figure is so popular it even has its very own
society, the Friends of the Caganer Association (L’Associació d'Amics del Caganer),
of which Corral is a proud member. Founded in 1990, the society has
around 70 members -some from as far afield as the US -who meet twice a
year.
The Caganer
Traditional caganers are made from clay, fired in a kiln of more than 1,000C, then hand-painted. As the industry has grown, the caganer has evolved; now there are many different kinds, both in design and material.
“I’ve got ones made of soap, I’ve got chocolate ones, but those are meant to be eaten of course,” said Corral, whose bookshelves are dotted with his collection of more than 200 caganers. “I’ve got glass ones… I’ve seen them made from Nespresso capsules.”
Firmly planted in folk tradition, the roots of the caganer are vague, but generally agreed to date from around the late 17th or early 18th Century when the prevailing Baroque tradition, both in Catalonia and beyond, focused on realism in art, sculpture and literature. In their book El Caganer, authors Jordi Arruga and Josep Mañà write: “This was a time characterised by extreme realism… all of which relied heavily on descriptions of local life and customs. Here, working conditions and homelife were used as artistic themes.”
One real-life depiction was the caganer.
The reason it has been passed down the generations, however, is clear: the idea of defecating has long been linked to everything from good luck to prosperity to good health.
“Excrement equals fertilisation equals money equals luck and prosperity. Or so say the anthropologists,” said historian Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, emeritus professor at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University.
“It is said that to not put a caganer in the crib will bring bad luck,” added caganer maker Marc Alos Pla, whose family runs caganer.com, the world’s biggest caganer producer. This year he predicts sales will surpass 30,000.
And far from seeing the caganer as uncouth or even graphic, Catalans have a relaxed view of them as merely depicting a natural act.
“We don’t see it as rude. I mean as rude as when you go to the toilet,” Corral laughed. “We hide things – we’re in a society where we’re hiding everything. We hide death for instance.”
Furthermore, Catalans do not stop at one Christmas tradition.
Caga Tió, literally the ‘Defecating Log’ (also called the Tió de Nadal, the ‘Christmas Log’) is also a staple in many Catalan homes in the run-up to Christmas.
On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, on 8 December, families start ‘feeding’ Tió scraps of food. He is covered with a blanket to keep him warm until, on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, when he has had enough to ‘eat’, the children hit him with sticks while singing a song that encourages him to defecate:
Caga tió / Poo log!
Caga torró, avellanes i mató / Poo nougat, hazelnuts and mató (cheese)
Si no cagues bé / If you don’t poo well,
et daré un cop de bastó / I’ll hit you with a stick
Caga tió / Poo log!
For the log doesn’t produce any old excrement… he defecates Christmaspresents.
Before hitting the Tió, children go to another part of the house to pray for him to bring them gifts, while their parents take the opportunity to stash small treats like Christmas sweets under the blanket.
The Tió
“The Tió seems to be a pretty old Christmas idea… in medieval times it was found all over Europe, from Scandinavia down to the Western Mediterranean:the idea of a ‘Yule Log’, which lasted until about World War Two,” Ucelay-Da Cal said.
What is it about these traditions, which in other parts of the world might be seen as explicit or rude, that attracts so many Catalans?
“I love the transgression of norms, the tradition they represent and the artwork in itself,” Corral explained, while Ucelay-Da Cal said the caganer “has a pleasantly subversive quality, naughty but nice, as it were.”
In fact, the themes of defecation are reserved not only for Christmas, but run like a common thread through Catalan culture, from idioms to art.
“This fits in with a Catalan taste for egalitarianism: everybody [poos], however important they may be,” said Ucelay-Da Cal.
When it comes to language, Catalan is filled with stool-related sayings and idioms. Where in English we might say two extremely close people are ‘as thick as thieves’ and in Spanish that phrase would be ‘como uña y carne’ (like [finger] nail and flesh), Catalans say two are people are like ‘cul i merda’ – backside and excrement.
“There is a cliché that Germanic languages are [full of] faecal metaphors, while Romance languages stress virility. Certainly the Catalan scatological custom -would deny this affirmation,” Ucelay-Da Cal said.
Defecation has also appeared in Catalan art and literature going back hundreds of years.
In his book, Barcelona, which looks at Catalan history, art and culture, art critic Robert Hughes writes that the figure of the caganer “makes an unmistakable entrance into 20th-Century art” in the work of Joan Miró.
Look closely at Miró’s 1921-22 painting The Farm, and you will see what looks like a small child squatting close to his mother while she does the washing.
This boy, Hughes writes, “is none other than the caganer of Miró’s childhood Christmases. It may also be Miró himself, the future painter of Man and Woman in Front of a Pile of Excrement (1935).”
Catalan writers, too, have long depicted the scatological, with Hughes arguing that it is firmly entrenched in Catalan folk tradition. “…There has always been a vigorous strain of scatological humour in [Catalan] folk songs, folk poetry and educated verse,” he writes.
He cites one verse in particular, in the 13th-Century Versos Bruts (Coarse Poems), which recounts a discussion between two nobles in which they describe “One hundred noble ladies who went to sea in a boat and, becalmed, got back to shore by farting in chorus into its sails.”
One area of Catalan culture you might assume stays firmly away from the scatological is food -but, inevitably, you would be wrong. Feeling peckish, you might wander into a Catalan bakery and be confronted with a popular baked good known -rather unappetisingly- as a ‘pet de monja’, or ‘nun’s fart’.
William Windsor & Kate Middleton
And even Catalan politics has taken a toilet-humour turn, with the region’s strong independence movement reflected in recent caganer bestsellers.
Exiled former regional Catalan president CarlesPuigdemont is a favourite, and in 2017, a Tweety Pie caganer sold out (when the Spanish government sent in extra police to control the 2017 independence referendum, they slept on a ship whose exterior featured a gigantic Tweety Pie).
In 2018, a caganer of a yellow ribbon sporting a pair of big eyes and a mouth depicting the symbol used in solidarity with Catalonia’s jailed independence leaders -is expected to be a bestseller.
“It’s a reflection of what is happening," said Corral. “The caganer is now turning into a way of keeping a memory of living history. It’s a reality. We have political prisoners.”
While caganers have not reached the worldwide ubiquity of the Christmas tree, they are becoming increasingly well known outside Catalonia. The figures have long been a tradition in areas of Portugal and Naples, Italy, and are also gaining fans further afield.
“In the caganer society we have members from Italy, Germany, Japan, the United States, so it’s an international society,” Corral said.
In fact, around 50% of caganer.com’s foreign sales are shipped to the US, according to Alos Pla, with popular figures including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Alos Pla predicts that Donald Trump and David Bowie will sell in large numbers this year.
Whether you give someone a caganer of someone they love or loathe is up to you -but many people take it as a compliment:
“For many famous people it has become an honour to have their own caganer,” said Alos Pla.
Corral is more blunt. “I mean if you don’t have a caganer, you are nobody nowadays.”
The Grandma has finished her travel on The Orient Express. This morning she has arrived to Strasbourg where she has taken a plane to Barcelona, via Palma.
The Orient Express continues to Paris, Calais and London but The Grandma has returned to Barcelona because today is Christmas Eve and she has a meeting in the Church of Sant Gervasi i Protasi in Bonanova in Barcelona. She's going to listen The Song of the Sibyl sung by Maria del Mar Bonet.
The Song of the Sibyl, in Catalan El Cant de la Sibil·la, is a liturgical drama and a Gregorian chant, the lyrics of which compose a prophecy describing the Apocalypse, which has been performed at some churches of Majorca in Balearic Islands, Alghero in Sardinia and some Catalan churches, in Catalan language on Christmas Eve nearly uninterruptedly since medieval times. The Song of the Sibyl is also sung in Naples in Campania and Marseille in Provence. It was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO on November 16, 2010.
Several versions, differing in text and music, exist:
-Latin Sibyl, from 10th-11th century, which incorporates fragments of The City of God (XVIII, 23) by St. Augustine.
-Provençal Sibyl, from the 13th century, reflecting influence of troubadour poetry.
-Catalan Sibyl. The latest and most ornamented version. Incorporates popular traditions of Balearic Islands. Refrain of this version is sometimes written for three or four voices.
Delphic Sibyl by Michelangelo
The author of The Song of the Sibyl is unknown. The prophecy was first recorded as an acrostic poem in Greek by bishop Eusebius of Caesarea and later translated into Latin by Saint Augustine in The City of God. It appeared again in the 10th century in different locations across Catalonia, Italy, Castile, and France in the Sermon contra Judeos, later inserted into the reading of the sixth lesson of the second nocturn of matins and was performed as an integral part of the liturgy.
This chant was originally sung in Latin and under the name of Judicii Signum, but from the 13th on, versions in Catalan are found.
These early Catalan versions of the Judici Signum were not directly translated from Latin. Instead, they all come from a previous adaptation in Provençal, which proves the huge popularity this song must have had in the past.
Amongst the Catalan texts which come from this common root, there is a 14th-century Codex kept in the Archives of the Majorcan Diocese, which was rediscovered in 1908. Oral transmission and the lack of written scripts has caused the various old texts in the vernacular to suffer many modifications over time, which has led to a diversity of versions.
The Song of the Sibyl was almost totally abandoned throughout Europe after the Council of Trent, held in 25 sessions from 1545 to 1563, declared its performance was forbidden. Nevertheless, it was restored on Mallorca as soon as in 1575.
The Grandma in Sant Gervasi i Protasi, Bonanova
Originally, The Song of the Sibyl was sung in a Gregorian melody and, as it can be seen in the codex previously mentioned, the musical accompaniment that was played in Majorca, with the exception of some variations, was the same documented in other places across the Iberian Peninsula. Today, it cannot be ascertained when The Song of the Sibyl was sung to this Gregorian melody, but most likely until the 16th or 17th century.
Oral transmission of the song caused, as it did with the text, the birth of different variations and models. The interest this chant produced amongst early Musicologists and Folklorists of the 19th century led to the transcription of the different known versions of the song. The versions still played nowadays take these transcriptions as model.
In the Renaissance, the Gregorian melody of the Song was set to polyphonic music by various composers, a common practice during that period. Two of these works, both for four voices, can be found in the Cancionero de la Colombina, a Spanish manuscript from the second half of the 15th century. The text in them is an abridged version of the Song, in the Castilian language.
The song was originally sung by a Presbyter, although this figure was later replaced by a boy. Even though the Song is supposed to be sung by a Sibyl woman, prophetess, for many centuries women were not allowed to sing in church.
Maria del Mar Bonet & Lautaro Rosas
Today, in most temples in which the song is interpreted, it is still sung by a boy, although in some cases it is sung by either a little girl or a woman. In the performance, the singer walks up to the Altar escorted by two or more altar boys carrying wax candles. Once there, the singer greets the crucifix, turns around, and begins the song. The song is sung a cappella and in a solo voice. In some churches, organ music or either modern choral interludes are introduced between one verse and the next.
The costume used to perform the song is rather similar in all churches, at least around Majorca, where it is performed. It consists of a white or coloured tunic, sometimes embroidered around the neck and the hem, and usually, a cape, which is sometimes replaced with a second tunic. The head is covered with a cap of the same colour. The singer holds a sword in his hands, which is held erect during the whole song. Once the song is over, the singer draws a cross in the air with the sword, turns around to the crucifix once again, usually bows, and afterwards is escorted away from the altar by the same boys.
The song starts with an introduction, the melody of which differs from the rest of the song. In some performances, the song ends with the introductory melody as well.
The text is not standard, but late Medieval Catalan. Some verses are attributed to the 14th-century Mallorcan writer, Anselm Turmeda, who translated into Catalan the Judicii Signum, Book of the Final Judgement, on which the composition is based.
A Catalan version was recorded by Maria del Mar Bonet in 1979 on her album Saba de terrer, and by the vocal ensemble Obsidienne in 1995.
Great fire from the heaven will come down; seas, fountains and rivers, all will burn. Fish will scream loudly and in horror losing their natural delights.
