I was working online with one of my Spanish teachers, a Venezuelan woman who has fled her country with her husband to Buenos Aires. We were reviewing and discussing an article that listed various Christmas traditions from around the Hispanic world.
There is a tradition from the Catalonia region of Spain that we glossed over as neither of us really wanted to discuss it. The tradition struck both of us as a little gross. The traditional there is to place a defecating – pooping if you will – figurine discreetly?? in one corner of the Christmas Nativity scene that folks commonly put out this time of year. Typically, this figurine has always been of a peasant in the traditional dress of the region. And like most of these things it is supposed to bring good luck.
It has since morphed so frequently the figurines are of famous people from around the globe. This has grown into a big international souvenir business, with the majority of the online sales going to the United States.
Fast Forward
Talking about synchronicity… Looking at the news online this morning there was an article from The Guardian: Christmas caganer figurines of Catalonia Just a warning if your are sensitive to such things, there is a bit of a yuk factor associated with the pictures in the article, but on the whole it was an interesting read, at least for me as I had touched on the subject just a couple days before. It was also amusing to see which public figures they chose to depict.
If you are curious, look up the Spanish verb cagar (the noun caganer is derived from the verb) in an online translator. When I was young it was a word that was not used in polite company.
Oh we humans… I wonder how far we really are from the bonobos.