A Sense of Catalunya: <i>Las Fallas:</i> Burning Man, Woman and Child

Las Fallas is an annual festival held in the city of Valencia, at the southern end of the Catalan (or Valencian) speaking world. The highlight is the creation and destruction of over 700 ninots, colossal cardboard, wood and plaster statues, placed at over 350 key intersections and parks around the city. The ninots are highly crafted artificial bodies depicting bawdy, satirical scenes and current social issues. The George Bush figures will be recognizable to an international audience; others lampoon Catalan and Spanish politicians and celebrities; human folly, including cosmetic surgery and environmental pollution (see the depressed Neptune); or such perennial themes as the mismatched couple. In style they struck me as partaking of both Walt Disney and R. Crumb but predate either of these. (Turn of the century photographs depict similarly styled figures.) They are crafted by neighborhood organizations (now with major corporate sponsorship) and take about six months to construct (often costing upwards of US$75,000). Many ninots are several stories tall and need to be moved into position with a crane.

The ninots remain in place until March 19th, the day known as La Crema, “the burning.” Starting in the early evening, young men with axes chop holes in the statues and stuff them with fireworks. The crowds start to chant, the streetlights are turned off, and the ninots are set on fire, the largest one (pictured here) at the stroke of midnight. It is a daunting challenge for the fire department to prevent all sorts of unintended targets such as trees and buildings from igniting. Each year, one of the ninots is spared from destruction by popular vote and exhibited in the Museum of the Ninot along with those from years past. (Anyone who has read Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan may recognize this as probable inspiration for the ritual and ‘hall of the bright carvings’).

My colleague Saúl and I took the train down to witness the event, along with another (estimated) million spectators, many from abroad. Standing well behind the barricades we still felt the intense heat of the flames. The aspects of social parody and pyrotechnics reminded me of the community festivals here in Vilanova i la Geltrú, but one might say that the scale of the thing precluded our participation in certain types of community intimacy. On the level of pure spectacle, las Fallas offer much to wonder at, and as one wanders around the city gazing at the ninots, a frequently expressed sentiment is “are they really going to burn that?” And in this case, if anyone wants to make a potlatch analogy about status war and the ritual destruction of goods, be my guest.