Midsummer´s Eve, y la Fiesta de San Juan

June 25, 2008 - Galdakao, Spain

San Juan (the celebration of St. John the Baptist), was apparently another one of those Christianization phenoms where instead of stamping out the pagan holiday, they just attached a Christian name or significance to it (like Christmas, Easter, etc.)  San Juan, celebrated June 23rd, is the celebration of midsummer.  I don´t know if it´s celebrated the same everywhere, but in the Basque country it´s really popular, and in the Catalonia region of Spain, it´s a national holiday.

In Galdakao (close to Bilbao in the province of Bizkaia), a huge bonfire is built at the center of the plaza.  Andra Mari, the dance group of Galdakao that we´re friends with, did a big fancy performance in full costumes.  There were guys dances around the bonfire, and the girls made circles and sang traditional songs around it.

There´s something very tribal and ominous about fires, something sorta pagan, and that combined with the reenactment of ancient rituals makes for a really cool experience for me.  Fires were arguably the first huge discovery of mankind (except maybe the opposite sex, Lay-Z-boys, and mac n´cheese) and anything that reminiscent our anthropological roots, I think, is very powerful.

After the traditional dances are finished, the entire village gets involved.  A huge crowd forms around the fire, and everyone jumps over it.  Kids, adults, parents holding babies, etc.  I asked about it, and apparently when you jump over the fire, you burn all the bad spirits inside you.  Our friend Iker also added that it was linked to witch-burning, but since the pagans were often considered witches, I´m to assume that it was a later Christian addendum, and I´ll just stick with it being for good luck.  People also threw slips of paper into the fire and burned them; be they confessions or wishes for the following year, I don´t know.  Either way, it´s pretty cool.