by David Beneded Blázquez
In the
culture of our land, sprouting from its own nature and the strength with which
we live, the musical sounds during the celebration of Holy Week have a note, a
mark, a differential mark that is its own. Although all the Christians of the
world commemorate and feel the death of Jesus Christ equally, each one
expresses pain in his own way. And in Aragon, from the Sierra de Albarracín,
Teruel and Javalambre to the Jacetania, from the Moncayo to Matarraña, the
touch of the percussion instruments is the imprint.
The most legendary story that refers to the origin of
percussion is found in the writings of the calandino José Repollés Aguilar,
whose unprovable hypothesis, fixed his attention in the 12th century in a
context of confrontation between Christian and Muslim culture. The author has
two traditions known as "Theory of Pastors and Castilletes" collected
later in the studies published by Lourdes Segura and María Luisa Sánchez [1].
It refers to the tradition that a spring day in 1127, while
the few old Christians who were then in Calanda, celebrated fervent Holy Week,
the wild morisma, mistress and mistress of the area of the Maestrazgo, was
launched in a large crowd in the direction of Calanda, following the left bank
of the Guadalope. More than one shepherd who was then with his cattle in the
high part of the slope of the Tolocha mount, that gives to the Val de Foz, when
seeing the dust, more and more near, that raised the ride of the moriscos,
began to beat the drum he was carrying with all his strength. Another pastor
heard this warning of danger. And as was agreed in advance, he also blew his
drum, a warning that was repeated until it reached the ears of the Calandina
people who quickly abandoned their religious practices for the Holy Week and
ran to take refuge in a safe place.
Thanks to this chained sound of drums, the enraged and
ambitious Muslim riders could not get away with this one, since when they
arrived at the gates of Calanda, the cattle, women, young people and everything
that interested them as booty He was inside the impregnable fortress safely.
After the "razzia" failed, the Calanda shepherds,
every year upon arriving at Holy Week, met outside the town and, happily, with
the greatest enthusiasm, they spent several hours pounding the patch of their
respective drums, like if they announced a new game.
Other known hypotheses attribute to the tradition of the
drums a more anthropological origin since the habit of making noise is related
to the desire to ward off evil in any of its aspects: evil spirits,
misfortunes, plagues; it is, in short, to scare away fear. Man, subject to the
action of enormous forces, feels that he must act to ward off adversities;
exposed to bad harvests, illness or calamities, instead of resigning, he
creates procedures to attract good fortune and avoid future misfortunes. And in
this context, the transit between winter and spring, in which Holy Week is
located, would be the end of the lethargy of many animals and also of the dead,
who would be tempted to return to the world of the living. [2]
Theories that find their most naturalistic side in the
studies carried out by Ortiz-Osés where she points out that "the bass drum
would represent the strong, hard or patriarchal-masculine element, and the
drums the soft or feminine element of the cantabile voice. It seems to be the
first or superficial interpretation of a dialogue between the deaf bass drum
and the singing drum In its second anthropological consideration it does not
seem to respond to the archaic truth: in fact, in the old agricultural traditions,
the elemental or deep is symbolized by the element cethonic, telluric or
terracing, that is, for the matriarchal-feminine as mater-matter of life, while
the superficial or aerial is represented by the masculine patriarchal:
according to this second symbolic schematism, the bass drum could very well
mean archaically voice of the mother-nature while the drum, the man's voiceless
voice as a superficial epiphenomenon, would then be the dialogue between the
elemental forces of nature, symbolized by the bass drum, and the masculine
formalizing logos. " [3]
Relationship with the nature of its elucidation
is more Christianized, and also more widespread, with the explanation provided
at the beginning of the 20th century by the “calander” parish priest Mosén Vicente
Allanegui and Lusarreta [4], where the use of percussion in Holy Week
symbolizes the impressive mourning of nature before the death of Christ, thus
announcing it to the population and imitating, through its sound, the phenomena
of nature that occurred according to the description of the Gospel of St.
Matthew "And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to
bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks split; and the sepulchers were
opened, and many bodies of saints who had slept, rose up; and coming out of the
tombs, after his resurrection, they came to the holy city, and appeared to
many. The centurion, and those who were with him keeping Jesus, saw the
earthquake, and the things that had been done, were greatly afraid, and said:
Truly this was the Son of God "(Mt 27, 51-54).
Motivation that would try to endorse Eduardo Jesus Taboada
Cabañero when he dealt with the Holy Week of Alcañiz in his book "Mesa
revuelta". Thus, and based on the written references of Mosén Juan Oliver
in the book of the Brotherhood of Santo Entierro, indicated that the origin of
the drum beats with the intention of making noise is due to the proposal made
by Fray Mateo Pestel to introduce them in a procession that created in 1678
with the name of "El Pregón" because the end of it was to publish the
death of Jesus arranging for it, after the priests and mayordomos, six
Nazarenes with double aim to "represent to the living the upheavals of the
nature , the commotion, the earthquake of our balloon "that" to be
more comfortable in its handling, soon they were exchanged for untidy drums
increasing their number up to twelve ", adding" that the confreres
should be so pleased to provoke noise that would arise through Many boxes and
dislikes are caused by the boxes, and to this is attributed the fact that the
brotherhood disengaged itself from tunics and drums, agreeing to admit in the
procession as many people as possible in that way ". [5]
A theory that would directly root the drums with the
symbolism of noise in the so-called "Oficio de Tinieblas" that was
celebrated in the afternoon starting on Holy Wednesday, and was lost with the
liturgical reform introduced by Pius XII in 1956. Popularly known as that
because the Church where it was celebrated ended in darkness after having
extinguished the candles of the great fifteen-branched candelabra called
"tenebrario". After the "Miserere" the clergy and all the
parishioners provoked a great rumble in the temple with their rattles,
noisemakers and, in reality, with any instrument or object susceptible to emit
any type of noise in order to emulate the convulsions and natural disorders
described above that occurred when the Savior died [6].
Stroke that stopped drastically when the light of the candle
appeared behind the altar but had its prolongation during Holy Thursday and
Holy Friday when already in the street, especially the children, sounded
strongly the aforementioned instruments "to signify with their sounds the
intentionality of "Killing Jews," and of not approaching them under
pain of extermination, because of their guilt for having killed the Innocent.
" This is attested by ancient traditions from different parts of Aragon's
geography, such as Uncastillo, where the so-called "Jewish bridge"
was going. In Mazaleón, two children were covered with large stones in the
so-called "Forat de les Matraques", and they had to get rid of them,
and when they got it, all the children of the town blew their rattles. And even
in Zaragoza, where the children approached the Church of San Cayetano to blow
their rattles in front of the "Roman Guard". [7]
Precisely, the role played by Jews in the Passion and Death
of Jesus Christ raises a final theory, which points directly to other places
such as Baena, Cabra or Mula where those who play the drum are called
"Jews", constituting themselves in groups or "mobs" whose
role in the processions is to mock and mock the suffering of Jesus Christ with
drums or with trumpets or big trumpets as in Cuenca, Murcia or Cartagena.
Therefore, in this same sense, it could be thought that the drummers of Alcañiz
and Hijar, which in their day were important centers of the
"Sephardic" culture since these localities are immersed in the
so-called "Talmud route", do nothing but interpret the role of Jews within
the great representation of Holy Week.
In any case, as the wise words of Professor Antonio Beltrán
conveyed to us, "it is banal to discuss when they originate, which mimic
the roar of nature broken by death, the blackened skies, tombs that return
their dead or veils of the temple that is break or multiply the few touches
that not before the seventeenth century and documented in the eighteenth
accompanied the loose patches and covered with crepes, as in military parades,
it does not matter that the custom is centennial or millenary because the
people do not understand temporalities and for the whole it is from time
immemorial, with nothing to be gained or lost with being a matter of a couple
of hundred years or eternity. " [8]
Source and reference notes: "La percusión en SemanaSanta" (“The Percussion at the Holy Week”) created by David BenededBlázquez for www.jesusdelahumillacion.org,
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