December 11, 2007

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

CHRISTMAS IN THE ARTS

Navarre at Christmas. Customs, characters, rites and staging.

D. Francisco Javier Zubiaur Carreño.
Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art

In the lecture the traditional festivities of the Christmas cycle were evoked around such important dates of the Christian calendar, taking up the customs, the characters, the rites and the stagings that are proper to it. Among the first, the children's cuestaciones of the "bishop" St. Nicholas and his acolytes by the houses of the people, to give a snack with the collected. Or the custom of the children to call the attention of the Three Wise Men with cowbells so that they would not pass by the village. There were cuestaciones, in Guesálaz or Yerri for example, which were used by the boys to celebrate Christmas Eve while they "entered as young men", that is to say, they marked the transition to the "mocería", the youth. In addition to the cuestaciones, always accompanied by songs, certain rites were practiced with the healthy water of the New Year or with the trunk of the home(sukil), to which magical virtues were recognized. Certain characters have remained with their peculiar folklore, such as Olentzero or the boy-king of the Faba. And if the former announces the good news of the birth of Jesus, the latter continues to reaffirm the role of children in the Christmas celebrations, in which they are an important part. There have been stagings of the Nativity, with all the trappings and pomp, such as the one that was celebrated in the church of the Franciscans of Olite. Some of them are still in force at plenary session of the Executive Council , such as the Auto Sacramental de los Reyes Magos in Sangüesa. And, of course, Christmas was full of dinners and suppers, and of "estrenas", as they called in San Martín de Unx the gifts received for the Three Kings.

Nicolás Ardanaz, "Cuestación por San Nicolás", 1959. Photo: Museum of Navarra