ALCOY
(Alicante)
Spain
Moors and Christians:
Spain's most explosive Fiesta
22nd, 23rd, 24th April in Saint George's
honour
Photography: Maria Dolores Crispin
The armies march all
day to the sound of the bands. Berbers, soldiers from Marrakesh, Mudéjares,
Abencerrajes, Benimerines, all preparing for war. A group of Andalusian
bandits is also there, as well as Basque soldiers, an army from Asturias,
even a band of Valencian peasants armed with farming implements. All are
set for the battle. Martial music announces the glory of the coming struggle.
The people lining the streets admire and encourage the warriors. Soldiers
march, sergeants wave at the crowds and horsemen show off their skills.
All day long the hosts parade through a city decked with banners, especially
the red cross of Saint George. The mood is festive as Alcoy sends her armies
off to war.
Two days later the city is filled with the roar of battle, the smoke of gunpowder covering the city as a fog. The Moors and the Christians do battle during the whole day; the Christians, are defeated in the morning and the Moorish crescent can be seen on the ramparts of the castle were the red cross had once flown. When the fighting is at its fiercest, Saint George himself appears at the top of the castle to aid the Christian armies. The tide is reversed; the Moors retreat.
Every year, in April, the Saint gives victory to the Christian hosts
as Alcoy, in the Valencia, re-enacts the famous, and largely mythical,
battle. The celebration is one of the great fiestas of Spain, the greatest
in the world, 
according to many an Alcoyano.
La fiesta is a year-long business for the people of Alcoy, as they
prepare for those four days. Membership in one of the 28 Moorish or Christian
armies, called filaes, is much more than a hobby. The participants
meet regularly throughout the year to commune with their brethren, raise
funds, organize banquets, and plan out the many activities that make up
the fiesta. For them the year starts and ends in April, the time when
they don their costumes and march to the sound of the bands.
The euphoria is topped off during the battle, when they fire hundreds
of blanks with their blunderbusses in this, the noisiest of Spanish fiestas.
Money and time are spent prodigiously by the members of the filaes. Many
save up throughout the year, and more than a few make yearly visits to
the local pawn shops. The matter of clothes is expensive enough. Every
army has its own traditional costume design, both fancy and fanciful.
Many of them, especially those of the captains, cost a small fortune.
Every year, the Christian and Moorish captains
are provided by different filaes on a rotation basis. They always vie
for the best-dressed captain ever. At the end of the fiesta the captains,
usually well-to-do businessmen, donate their costumes to the Moors and
Christians museum.
But this is no costume party, no carnival.
No tell-tale trouser legs or modern shoes remind you that this is all
make-believe. Maybe because, in a sense, it isn't make-believe; it seems,
rather, that you are seeing these insurance salesmen, shopkeepers or bank
presidents emerge from drab existences into their true, glorious selves.
After the flags and drums, horses and castles, feathered helmets and shining
armor, the rest of the year seems like mere Clark Kent stuff.
But you don't go to Alcoy to see grown men and women make fools of
themselves, either. A welcome balance is struck between all-stops-out
abandon and respect for traditions kept alive over the centuries. This is
fun taken seriously. Even in the wildest moments there are some set forms.
At the end of the fiesta, Alcoyanos are always sad. But there remains a
consolation: "only 361 days till the next one".
Text Copyright © 1996 William
McGrath
Photography Copyright © 1996 Maria Dolores Crispin
All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without
permission
Photography Copyright © 1996 Maria Dolores Crispin