Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

SPANISH TRADITIONS

Catalonia’s festival celebrating timber raftsmen

Raiers are timber raftsmen – the ancient profession of transporting wood via waterways. Each summer, the profession is remembered and celebrated with a festival in the small Catalan town of Coll de Nargó.

Published: 13 August 2021 16:34 CEST
Updated: 14 August 2021 09:49 CEST
Catalonia’s festival celebrating timber raftsmen
Catalonia's festival of timber raftsmen. Image: Mummelgrummel / Wikimedia Commons

This year the festival of the Baixada dels Raiers de Coll de Nargó will be held on August 14th, and despite the current situation, will be a special year because ‘wood rafting’ is being considered for inclusion on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Timber raftsmen associations in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, and Poland are also being considered for inclusion. 

The associations are hoping that wood raftsmen will be included on the list from 2022.

Before the beginning of the 20th century, it wasn’t uncommon to see rafts made from tree trunks floating down Catalonia’s Segre River, transporting wood from the Pyrenees to the interior of the region.

It was the job of these raftsmen to transport timber for creating houses, as well as for heating and shipbuilding. However, the profession virtually died out at the beginning of the 20th century with the introduction of dams and trucks to carry the wood faster and more efficiently.

For one day each year during the festival, this sight becomes commonplace once again as rafts are sailed down the river, just like they were in the past. These days it’s the grandchildren of the raiers who take control – floating the rafts from Clops de Fígols to the end of the Oliana reservoir.

“La Baixada dels Rais is a festival that reminds the new generations where we come from, who our grandparents were, how they worked with wood, and how hard their profession was. It’s not just a matter of going down the river, you have to prepare days beforehand so that on the day of descent, nothing will go wrong,” a spokesperson from the Raiers Association of the Ribera del Segre explained.

This year, the Baixada dels Raiers of Coll de Nargó will celebrate their 32nd edition of the festival and will include various safety and social distancing measures due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but essentially the rafting displays will not change.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, Coll de Nargó was, together with the Pont de Claverol in La Noguera Pallaresa, the most important centre of raiers in Catalonia.

The area is even home to the Museu dels Raiers, a museum all about the timber raftsmen and their profession.

READ ALSO – CONFIRMED: Valencia will hold its Fallas fire festival in September 2021

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

SPANISH TRADITIONS

Everything you need to know about Mother’s Day in Spain

Here's how and when in May Mother's Day is celebrated in Spain, and why it owes its roots to religion and a Valencian poet.

Published: 3 May 2024 13:37 CEST
Everything you need to know about Mother's Day in Spain

This year, Mother’s Day (El Día de la Madre) is celebrated in Spain on Sunday May 5th. It’s always celebrated on the first Sunday of the month of May.

On this day, young children in Spain give their mothers manualidades (crafts) they’ve made at school as a token of their love.

Husbands and older sons and daughters may buy their wives/mothers a present to say thanks for all that they do as matriarchs, which usually takes the form of a detalle (smaller present than for a birthday or Christmas), and will come accompanied by a message such as te quiero, mamá (I love you, mum).

According to experiences website Aladinia, the average Spaniards spends €65 on gifts on Mother’s Day. 

Other mums may send out text messages to wish each other ¡Feliz Día de la Madre! (Happy Mother’s Day!).

As it’s always celebrated on a Sunday, many shops will be closed but you can expect plenty of restaurants to be open for lunch and perhaps dinner. 

Depending where you’re from, the first Sunday of May may or may not be when you’re used to celebrating Mother’s Day in your home country.

Around the world over 100 countries celebrate Mother’s Day (or Mothering Sunday, more on the difference below) – 77 in May, 13 in March, and 14 at other times during the year.

Some countries, like the UK, celebrate Mothering Sunday on the fourth Sunday during Lent, meaning that the date changes each year. This is because Mothering Sunday was originally a Christian holiday in some European countries.

READ ALSO: How a female teacher campaigned for Spain to have a Father’s Day

Spain, however, celebrates Mother’s Day on the first Sunday in May each year, meaning that it doesn’t have a fixed date either. But it wasn’t always like that.

The history of Mother’s Day in Spain

The first Mother’s Day in Spain was celebrated in Madrid all the way back on October 4th, 1926. Much of the impetus for establishing a day to celebrate mothers came, rather fittingly, from a poet.

Julio Menéndez García, a Valencian poet and public servant, pushed for a special day to celebrate mothers. Spanish newspaper La Libertad published a short section on Garcìa’s efforts in October 1925:

“A Levantine poet, Julio Menéndez García, has had the happy initiative that in Spain and in the Spanish-speaking nations a day should be consecrated to extol the love of mothers. The establishment of Mother’s Day is something tender and sympathetic, which deserves to be welcomed by governments, the press and public opinion, as it involves the highest tribute to women in their most august representation.”

After the Civil War, the church moved the date to December 8th to coincide with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a key holiday among Catholics. 

Civil War-era poster urging Madrid mothers to leave the Spanish capital with their children before the arrival of Franco’s troops. (Photo by AFP)

But it wasn’t until 1965 that Mother’s Day was celebrated in May in Spain. The reason for this change of date was to separate the celebrations (both were considered important enough to have their own day) but also the influence of other countries, namely the United States.

The campaign for a Mother’s Day was originally started by Anna Jarvis, an American wanting to honour her mother, in 1908. By 1914, US President Woodrow Wilson officially signed it into law, establishing a May date. 

However, for many years in Spain department store El Corte Inglés maintained the date of 8th December, meaning that Spain Mother’s Day was celebrated twice a year for a while, commercially speaking at least.

In 1936 a local council in Breña Baja, on the Canary island of La Palma, became the first in Spain to move Mother’s Day to May.

However, in 1965 the church authorities officially decided to move Mother’s Day to May, a month consecrated to the Virgin Mary. May is also the month of female gods in the classical world, and in Catholicism is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Interestingly, Jarvis herself later campaigned against the day, arguing it had become overly commercialised, something Spaniards often bemoan about other imported American customs like Halloween and Valentine’s Day. 

READ ALSO: How a female teacher campaigned for Spain to have a Father’s Day

SHOW COMMENTS