In the parades they have "giants" and "big heads" made of paper mache that march around the streets. The giants dance and parade while the big-heads carry bladder-ballons which they use to scare the children...hitting anyone who comes near them. Here is an old picture, like those in the book, of the giants (standing behind) and the big-heads (standing in front) You can see the balloon-type bladders that some of them are holding.
They make the giants look so real that unless you see a normal person standing next to the giant you can't tell its not a real person, except for the floppy arms.
Here's some newer ones:
One of the most interesting giants that I am looking forward to seeing in Bilbao next week is "Gargantua" The French author François Rabelais wrote a series of books called "The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel" They tell the adventures of two giants, a father and a son. Here is the Basque Gargantua that parades in the streets during fiestas. Little children go in through the mouth and slide out the back.
These traditions are so interesting and strange (in a good way). I am having a great time experiencing these things first hand. While surfing around wikipedia I found an English translation of the introduction to the series "The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel" I include it now for your reading pleasure:
Readers, friends, if you turn these pages
Put your prejudice aside,
For, really, there's nothing here that's outrageous,
Nothing sick, or bad — or contagious.
Not that I sit here glowing with pride
For my book: all you'll find is laughter:
That's all the glory my heart is after,
Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.
I'd rather write about laughing than crying,
For laughter makes men human, and courageous.
BE HAPPY!
4 comments:
awesome! I didn't understand the old picture at first. I thought the big heads were shown just from the chest up and I was like 'Those heads aren't that big. If they're going to go to all the trouble they might as well go really big and do it right." Then I looked again and realized "oh that's not their chest that's the rest of their body... looks like they went big after all." Sometimes I wonder what kind of blog entries would be made about our traditions that just seems so ordinary to us. Also I LOVE that intro.
Love it Rachel, love it!!
A- I have been thinking and wondering about what others would think of our traditions too. The US is so different though. It is such a huge melting pot that really it is bits and pieces of all these other countries. However I am sure they would think the Macy Street Parade or the Rose Parade or tail-gate parties or Santa Claus are strange...
YESS!! Laugh!!!
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