La Mancha Man

I’ve been traveling the rituals and festivals of Spain in a big, over-giant book. There’s more than a hundred celebrations—when do those people work?—including a festival for married women and a festival for single ladies, a festival for mayors’ wives, even a festival for night favors. !

Many of the celebrations involve burning something—burning brooms, burning statues, burning trees, burning bulls. In fact a lot of the festivals involve bulls, from the running of the bulls, to various forms of taunting, including enticement of bulls to jump into bodies of water. Apparently since the earliest Minoans, bull sport is kept alive on the Mediterranean in the country of Spain.

The most remarkable aspect of all this pageantry is the absolute cleanliness of the elaborate costumes. Through the muddy countryside to dusty city streets, right down to the detail of white socks on the children, these people are clean. Whether they are men in white lace skirts in Saint Fatbelly’s Festival, or a clown being “stoned” with potatoes, the colors are true and the whites are white. The only exception is the Tomato Battle, of course.

Spain’s motto is PLUS ULTRA, “Further Beyond!” Indeed. The origin of Don Quixote makes a lot more sense after reading this book. He is the ultimate Mancha Mancha Man!