Human tapas

We were so sad that our timing was slightly out and we were doomed to miss the famous Easter Parades of the religious brotherhoods in Seville. 

We had seen pictures of the 'Nazarenes' wearing pointed Klan-style hoods, parading the narrow Mediaeval streets, a great ornate silver cross at the front of each procession, a massive Baroque float at the rear, bearing Mary in all her glory surrounded by candles and vases of white flowers, each accompanied by a separate marching band. How disappointed we were that we would miss it. 

Until we discovered that it all kicked off while we were still there on Palm Sunday (Domingo de Ramos). We discovered this by being trapped heel to toe, nose to back-of-head with hundreds of thousands of Spanish people as we tried very hard to get from A to B.  A (our hotel) should only have been eight minutes from B (the restaurant), but under these conditions, it took over an hour and a half. Every so often we managed to break free and scuttle down an unfrequented alley, only to become wedged in another knot of people, with the distant view of pointed hats parading slowly past the end of the street. It felt like being trapped in a particularly fiendish level of a computer game.

At one point, when we were forced to bide still, a lovely young woman who was an English teacher explained to me that there was a brotherhood (hermanidad) associated with each neighborhood church.  The people wearing the pointed hoods were Nazarenes or penitents. For le Paz, which was the group we were watching, there were two thousand Nazarenes and around five thousand other supporters, present in their Sunday best.  The Nazarenes trudged around the city for many hours, day and night, some barefoot, some carrying crosses. The tall hoods hid their identity and pointed to God. They were thus not claiming admiration for their act of penitence.

By the time we returned from our restaurant at night, the streets were even more packed. 

However, what really struck me was that the whole festival still had religion at its heart. There was little visible drunkenness, the young people's smart clothes were colourful and tight but displayed little flesh. And touchingly, whenever a Mary float was heaved past, the boisterous crowd shushed one another, crossed themselves, and watched in respectful silence.