Coming from a country where festivities abound the calendar, we are seasoned to a vibrant chain of fiestas. Let's face it. As soon as the new calendar unleashes, the first thing we hunt for is the festival dates. Festivals, the colourful ones, the illuminating ones, or the ones with jingling bells and winter chill are always endearing and indeed strengthen our human bonds.
Yet, in every corner of the world prevail festivals, far from endearing, somewhat quirky, and sometimes, bordering on dangerous! Here's a take on some of the weirdest festivals found across the world:
1. Baby Jumping:
Called "El Colacho," this festival occurs annually in the Province of Burgos in Spain. It has a long history dating back to 1620 A.D. and is a thriving tradition until today. As many questions as the name are raised to oblivious readers, I must narrate that the babies are placed on mattresses with confetti showered on them. After that, young men usually dressed up in bright yellow and donning the devil's mask, jump over the babies.
Also, they are little ones born categorically in the twelfth month of the year. While the whole idea might seem bizarre, in fact, downright ridiculous and dangerous, the leaping "devil" is said to cleanse the babies of their original sin.
2. Boryeong Mud Festival:
If Tomatino nauseates you or if Holi creeps you out, then beware; there's something that defeats these two in the weirdness scale. In the Boryeong town of Korea, held is a festival where everyone, whether native or foreign, besmear mud on each other, in a nasty exchange of mire. The soil, extremely rich in minerals, is believed to cleanse the body. Over the years, there has been a remarkable rise in foreign tourism attending this exciting fest.
In 1996, a range of cosmetics was produced using mud from the Boryeong mudflats. The cosmetics were said to be full of minerals, bentonites, and germaniums, all of which occur naturally in the area's mud. In order to promote these cosmetics, the Boryeong Mud Festival was conceived. Through this festival, it was hoped people would learn more about mud and cosmetics.
3. The Pig Festival:
What could a festival with a name like that entail? Eating pigs, lots and lots of them served in an array of different delicacies! Yes, I can hear that coming from you, and let me tell you, you are right! But, what if I said it also includes imitating these creatures with contests like "pig-squealing" where participants have to reproduce their sounds and gestures at different life stages right from their formative to mature and reproductive?
It was a great feast dedicated to pigs before feasting on them. Celebrated in August in France, its origins are unknown but probably derived from tribal rituals where the pig could have been a totem, the clan deity.
4. Toe Wrestling Championship:
Think wrestling, and you might be flooded with ideas of big burly men and women tussling and squashing each other against the floor, with all their might. Yet here is a wrestling championship where instead of its usual Clash of the Titans kind of intensity, are little toes wrestling against each other to win the title!
Celebrated in England in May, it was founded in the 1970s to have at least one sport in which the English could claim the titular spot. Yet much to the annoyance of the English, it was a Canadian who won the inaugural event.
5. Las Fallas:
The Spaniard's love for wild-wild fiestas entailing varied activities reaches monumental heights with this flaming fiesta, literally. After a weeklong gala celebration of parades and parties and music, the finale is celebrated by setting to flames, sculptures rising to about 350 multi-story height.
That means burning down not only works of several thousand dollars, but also risking setting the whole city to blazes! Now that's risky!
6. Frog Weddings:
Now, words like bizarre, uncanny, strange fit no other place better than India, like pieces of its own jigsaw puzzle. A live Hunger Games with people bashing each other with lathis, feeding cobras, painting bodies and donning the tigers' mask, you name it, we have it. Yet this particular one really tickled my comic sensations; the wedding of frogs!
This is particularly celebrated in Assam and Maharashtra to appease the rain gods mainly. It reflects a pagan culture situated within the dimensions of a former agrarian society where rainfall, although unpredictable, played a huge role in the economic topsy-turvy.
Marriage and a conjugal union between the frogs were believed to please Lord Indra, the Hindu rain God, and had the powers to bring rain. As to why frogs, propels a range of answers but probably because they are symbolic of the monsoon.
Weird as these festivals may sound, they appeal nothing, but quirkiness.
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