Today's post is dedicated to my good friend Jennifer who tried very hard to change the subject when I spoke about this at her Christmas party.
This seems to be the year to talk about the wild and weird parts of the Christmas celebration. The tradition of the Nativity display is credited to St. Francis, who staged a living gathering of figures representing the Holy Family, their guests, and the animals. Through the years this scene has become a standard decoration in many homes, usually one of the few reminders of the Christian overlay to the feast of Saturnalia.
Nativity sets have become so commonplace that there is an entire subgenre of unusual nativity scenes. Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and kings are represented with dogs, cats, ducks, Coke cans, Legos, StarWars figures, and monsters. Google weird nativity scenes and then come back.
And then there is the caganer.
In Barcelona and other parts of Spain and Portugal, there is a tradition going back to the 1700s of hiding a pooping figure in a nativity scene. Although the origin of this tradition is not clear, there are two trains of thought as to the reason. The first explanation is that the figure is a good luck symbol, as he or she is literally fertilizing the earth (and I have used both he and she and literally correctly in that sentence). The other explanation is that the figure provides a counterpoint to the sacredness of the scene. Contemporary caganer include figures of the Pope, of President Obama, and of Queen Elizabeth, so the tradition also has a mocking element.
And while it seems on its face blasphemous to have such a figure among the sacred tableau, in truth it is the most human moment of the scene. Both the act of the deficator and the act of the one who places it there are completely human acts, the bodily function and the need to undercut the sacred and serious with a good old fashioned whooped cushion.
Christmas is a time of surprises…look behind the stable, you never know what you will find.
And I have another one tomorrow!
As always, I welcome your comments.
Image: http://www.orangepolkadot.com/my_weblog/2009/12/catalan-traditions-el-caganer.html
Posted with Blogsy
Me too!