Not many mornings begin with a man dressed in a yellow devil outfit whipping fleeing teenagers to the sound of a sombre drumbeat. But every year in mid-June, Castrillo de Murcia is far from your average place. The tiny hamlet, nestled at the bottom of the Cantabrian mountains in northern Spain, bursts into life with one of the strangest festivals in the world: El Colacho (“The Devil”).
No one seems to know precisely when the local people began El Colacho, a traditional ceremony that involves not only the aforementioned running and whipping but, most famously, a section in which the “devils” leap over tiny babies laid out on mattresses in the streets. The stone building under the village’s church proudly bears the date 1621, but this was only the year in which Pope Gregory XV gave the controversial ritual his papal blessing; it’s likely the residents had been doing it for some time already. Because of a two-year Covid hiatus, this year’s is the 400th official ceremony.
Members of the Brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament of Minerva escort the devil through the village
I turn up with the photographer Gunnar Knechtel at 6.30am to find clusters of youngsters in their teens and 20s merrily mucking about at the entrance to the town. El Colacho is the climax to a week of Corpus Christi festivities and the young people’s enthusiastic chatter suggests that they are still drunk from the night before.
As the clock strikes seven, a group of serious men dressed in black hats and cloaks step out of the stone building known as the cofradía del santísimo sacramento, or Brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament of Minerva. One man wears a top hat and carries around his neck a blood-stained drum almost as big as he is. Another man, in his 70s, wearing the yellow and red devil outfit, pulls a mask over his face and a hood over his head. The youngsters have flocked to the lineup like children to the Pied Piper and are gleefully waiting for the race through the streets to begin. After a call-and-response between the drummer and the colacho’s castanets, the men in black begin to plod around the village. As they do, the youngsters taunt the colacho and he chases after them, striking the ones he can catch with his horsehair whip. When his mask slips, the kids help him put it back on.
Jugs of wine are produced and pastries handed out to the crowd
At 8am, the whole thing happens again, with different men (it’s always men) carrying out the roles. One woman watching, in a denim jacket and a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, is almost crying. Roberto Dueñas, who is 60 and was the morning’s first drummer, has been taking part since 1992. In a pattern that will soon become familiar, he was jumped over as a baby, as were all his relatives. He prefers drumming to the other roles but says he will soon make way for new blood.
By 9am, jugs of red wine are produced and the youngsters use the long spouts to pour the drink theatrically into each other’s mouths. The walking and whipping is repeated hourly over the course of the day, with people watching through open windows and the number of spectators slowly rising. “This is more than a feeling,” a 30-year-old man called Jorge says, “it’s part of the DNA.”
Mario Gonzales, who takes charge of the event with his brother, says that although about 120 people are officially resident in Castrillo de Murcia, in practice the number is much lower (the town used to have a population of 600). No babies were born here last year, and for a while now infants with some kind of connection to the village have been imported from all over the world for the ceremony.
Onlookers get chased by the devil
Late in the afternoon, thunder peals out. Is the main event going to happen? Can you lie 80 babies out in the streets if they’re going to get soaking wet? Thankfully, the thunder passes and the weather holds. Shortly after 5pm, doorways are decorated with white sheets, flowers and statues of the Virgin Mary, ready for the main event. Parents place their wriggling infants, some of them crying, on mattresses spaced about 200 metres apart. The idea is that by leaping over the babies, the colachos protect them from sin and disease. Some of the celebrants believe this literally; to others, it is only a tradition.
Just before six, it begins. This procession is much bigger but more serious than the earlier one. There is no whipping. No one chases anyone. There must be more than 1,000 people watching behind metal barriers as priests, men in cloaks and children in outfits reminiscent of morris dancers’ make their way through the streets. At one point, quite rightly, one of the organisers pushes me to the side – I’m getting in the way.
Babies are laid on mattresses to be jumped over, and afterwards are blessed by the village priest
When the two colachos leap over the babies, they don’t wear their masks, and there have apparently never been any injuries – though it feels as if it may only be a matter of time. (Santi Dueñas, the 7am colacho, suggests that it is more dangerous to strap your baby to your chest and go for a walk.) After each jump, which is over in a moment, priests bless the babies, young girls scatter rose petals over them and their parents pick them up. In a couple of decades they may tell a journalist that they were jumped over when they were a year old.
In truth, the baby-jumping is just one element in a day that has been about so much more – an excuse to bring people from different continents together, to share food and drink, to laugh and to keep alive a link between generations. Believing in the literal truth of the ritual never feels compulsory. The jumping is probably no more dangerous than baptism, and if parents believe that the ceremony has blessed their children, then it has to have been worthwhile.
English (US)