Spain’s float bearers change gender roles for Holy Week
In Seville, you can smell “Semana Santa” before you arrive. Before the holiday, also known as Semana Santa, the smell of burning incense hangs in the air on street corners, a characteristic smell of the spectacular Easter processions that take place in the week before Easter Sunday. Tens of thousands of visitors flock to the provincial capital of Andalusia every year to see it all.
Observant Catholics come to offer their devotions, and non-believers come to marvel at the floats, huge flower-laden structures and religious statues that are carried on the aching shoulders of a chosen few, the “costaleros” or float bearers.
“It’s an honor, a source of pride,” explained José Gonzalez, a long-time Costalero, in a rehearsal at Seville’s Omnium Sanctorum Church. In the roughly seven hours it takes 45 men to slowly walk an 1,800-kilogram (nearly 4,000 pounds) float with a statue of Jesus Christ to the city’s cathedral and back, they serve as “the feet of God”, as Gonzalez said. .
Female floaters to the rescue
In Seville, this physically strenuous task is entrusted only to men. Demand for a place like Gonzalez’s under a float is extremely high, and many applicants are left out.
But elsewhere, such as in the small town of La Campana, just a 50-minute drive away, women have filled the roles of float bearers for nearly 30 years.
In 1993, one of the community’s five brotherhoods – the religious entities that organize Holy Week – was short of men. The local women decided to step up and never looked back, Reyes Zarapico, the oldest sister (highest-ranking member) of the sorority, told DW. From time to time they have a shortage of women, but luckily not this year, she explained.
“The men were hoping there weren’t enough women so they could get back on the float,” Zarapico, 43, told DW in La Campana. “But there’s no problem.”
‘It’s like childbirth’
Maricarmen Silva, 43 years old and the oldest “costalera” in the city, with more than 20 years of experience, finds it difficult to summarize how profound the experience of her four-hour procession is. “It’s like childbirth, when the mother is exhausted, but then she sees the child and everything falls apart,” she said.
This year, many young floaters in La Campana participate for the first time. Andrea Calzada, just 16 years old, replaced her mother, who had to give up after a traffic accident.
“I’ve been happy in this environment since I was a little girl,” Calzada told DW. “I used to come with my mom to rehearsals, and it’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing since I was little… This is my family.”
Buoy bearers are the ‘heroes’ of Seville
It’s hard to overstate how deeply rooted Holy Week traditions are in Andalusian culture. The holiday is observed across Spain, but is mostly associated with the southernmost region, and particularly the capital, Seville. For a week, the city comes to a standstill as the narrow streets throng with parades and onlookers.
Buoy porters occupy a special place in the popular imagination and are linked to a kind of masculine ideal, according to Pilar Fernandez, who is now a social worker, but spent time observing city porters as an anthropologist interested in masculinity.
Until the 1970s, buoy bearers were typically longshoremen paid by the brotherhoods to lift the heavy loads. Nowadays, it’s more or less a voluntary role. The name “costalero” derives from the “costal”, or bag, worn on the head as protection against the float.
“When the ‘costalero’ goes to the bar after training, he keeps the bag under his arm. He has the public’s favor, he’s a kind of hero,” Fernandez told DW by phone.
Many float bearers, particularly in the regional capital, are deeply and sincerely religious, viewing physical service as a kind of penance or an opportunity for spiritual reflection. The training sessions also resulted in the formation of close social ties, Fernandez said. There’s a martial atmosphere, but at the same time the men help dress each other in their hats and can express a certain intimacy or vulnerability, she explained.
The traditional role of women during Holy Week is behind the scenes, Fernández said, although these days many also participate in the procession as nazerenas, the cone-headed masked penitents. Historically, women prepared sandwiches for Nazarenes, made clothes for float bearers, or dressed up religious icons.
Twenty years ago, while doing his research, Fernandez asked a leader of the float bearers, whose role was to shout instructions from outside the float, what would happen if there weren’t enough men. “He more or less told me he was going to put it on wheels before he saw the women carry it,” she said.
Source: DW
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