2023-05-03 22:55:55
Alfonso Gomerafrom the ‘Los Tobones’ family, and Juan Antonio Vazquez, known in the town by his last name, put one euro per head every day in a piggy bank that a butcher from La Escala, on the Costa Brava, where they live, gave them as a gift. Coin by coin they are saving to Beas de Segura, 800 kilometers to the south. The ‘La Hucha’ club, which is only made up of these two compadres, Andalusian emigrants in Catalonia, is the smallest of those that buy a bull to Saint Mark. That is why the wife of Alfonso ‘el Tobón’ always tells him: «With what you spend on bullfights, we could go on a cruise». Yes, but then, what would he do, lost in the waters of the Mediterranean, far from family, friends and memories that crowd while in his town, surrounded by infinite fields of olive trees like the entire province of Jaén, returns to be April 25?
The same thing happens to Jose Carlos Cuadros, a quality operator at the Ford factory in Almussafes, Valencia, whose rock, ‘El Quiebro’, ensures that its bull is “one of the greatest”. “We like that it gives a show and that people applaud,” he comments, surrounded by the crew at mid-morning, just before the procession, recovering his strength with a championship lunch. This 2023 they have invested 9,000 euros in Muslim, from El Tajo, the cattle ranch of the bullfighter Joselito in Talavera de la Reina. In ‘El Quiebro’ they visited a dozen farms and traveled 2,000 kilometers en route through Cádiz, Seville, Extremadura, Madrid, Ávila or Salamanca until they chose.
Between April 23 and 25, 145 tethered brave animals were exhibited in the streets of Beas de Segura (63 males and 82 females; 58 cattle from 31 cattle farms in the municipality and 87 bullfighting cattle with 33 irons, some with trapio of first place). A whole record in a municipality that is exceeded from spring to spring almost without meaning to. “There are more than those who will take part in the next San Isidro Fair,” he presumes Juan Tomas Garcia, president of the Brotherhood of San Marcos, in charge of organizing an event declared a Festival of Tourist Interest in Andalusia and which is now seeking national recognition. «I think I don’t have time to get nervous. The pressure is very important, the responsibility is huge », he adds.
The Brotherhood of San Marcos and the peñas are in charge of buying the cattle. This year they have come to pay up to 9,000 euros for a bull
Taming of wild animals
We are in a corner of the natural park of the Cazorla, Segura and Las Villas mountains. One of the peculiarities of this festival is that the residents raise part of the cattle that they later release around the town. TO Maria Martin, for example, they gave him a cow on his 18th birthday. “It transmits a lot of peace to me and, at the same time, a lot of respect,” she says in her farmhouse, posing for the camera with Diabla, Fermina and a couple of calves. “They are never one hundred percent tamed, after all they are brave animals,” he warns Jose Javier Ruiz ‘Jota’, young legionnaire who helps with chores.
In the past, animals were used to till the fields and were essential for family support. That was lost with the advance of the machinery, until “the crazy head” of Antonio Rubio ‘the Murcian’ he insisted on recovering the tradition. He started with females and came to tame utreros. In San Marcos he enjoyed walking to Beas like no one else with the yunta (a pair of yoked cattle) and the ubio (yoke with which the cattle were yoked to work the land).
When the regulation forced to sacrifice these animals at the beginning of the 90s, the Murciano was stabbed directly to the heart. And the pity is that he died without being able to see his “great illusion”: that the cattle raised by the neighbors can return to the field and thus show themselves year after year, an exception to the law that the beatenses obtained in 2019 after battling during decades. That’s why Paco y Nicholasthe sons of Murciano, toast to heaven excited to be able to guide the team, free the cows and that these, which a while ago seemed trained, put the brave fans in trouble.
María Martín and José Javier Ruiz ‘Jota’ raise cows that they later exhibit in San Marcos. These cattle can return to the field thanks to an exception to the law that the beatenses obtained in 2019 after battling for decades
The bulls sleep in houses
Another of the singular characteristics of Beas is that the bulls sleep on the night of April 24 in the houses of the neighbors, who have built their own pens and proudly maintain them “so that tradition is not lost.” Those of the picador are famous Guillermo and the pianist Jose Pedro Rosales, from the ‘los silleros’ family, in the central street of Angosto. “Animals need water and, above all, tranquility,” explains the first at the foot of a staircase that it is not uncommon for a cow to come up to drink coffee in the living room and say hello from the balcony.
In that street, the rancher Victorino Martin, who has just triumphed at the April Fair in Seville and makes his debut in San Marcos, becomes just another rope (those who pull the rope or rope) with a bull and a cow from Monteviejo. The cracking (immobilizing the cattle on a door, fence, stick or ring for its decoration) may be the peak moment of this festival on the morning of the 25th, with the peñistas putting the tackle (a kind of cloth blanket that is placed on the back), the collar (goes on the neck, is lined with leather and embossed with bells or bells) and the front (another ornament on the forehead). “You can tell that it is a deeply rooted tradition,” confirms Victorino.
The bulls sleep the night of April 24 in the houses of the neighbors, who have built their own pens and, proudly, maintain them so that the tradition is not lost.
From Santa Teresa
The oldest document of the roped bulls of Beas de Segura dates from 1575, the year in which Santa Teresa de Jesús founded the monastery of San José del Salvador. Juan Francisco Heredia, history teacher and archivist of the brotherhood, who has written a book to give “a certain order”, explains that San Marcos has survived the condemnations of popes and kings. Even during the Franco dictatorship, bullfighting was not allowed either. However, the authorities “turned a blind eye” for fear of the riot.
Juan Francisco speaks from the ‘La Guardería’ club, created in 1989 when Santi, Carmen and Irene, three women, went to the family doorway of one of them with their children. The husbands brought them a box of bottles and two roast chickens. And so it started. And although the children have grown up a long time ago, “this is still a kindergarten: they come here to drink the broth, to look for substantial meals and to give news.” Precisely, one is his son MarcosForest engineer and Town Planning councilor, who adds: “Now that I am a father, I would like to pass it on to mine.”
The shelling is perhaps the highlight of this festival on the morning of April 25, with the peñistas putting the tackle, the collar and the front of the animals
against hoaxes
Finally, in an informal lunch with journalists, already relaxed, the president of the brotherhood jokes that he commands more than the mayor. However, there are 5,112 residents registered in Beas and some 3,400 are members of the brotherhood, which is two out of three. by his side, Jose Alberto Rodriguez he laughs and agrees convinced, despite the fact that he enjoys an enormous majority (ten of the 13 plenary councilors are from the PSOE).
The City Council estimates that between 30,000 and 40,000 people come to enjoy San Marcos. Its mission is to combat “hoaxes”, which do “a lot of damage”; those videos and images taken out of context on social networks that the animalist ‘lobby’ manipulates so well. “We have zero tolerance against any attitude of mistreatment towards cattle,” says the mayor.
Y Fran Lozano, deputy for Promotion and Tourism of the Jaén Provincial Council, states that it is a festival “of an ancestral nature”, which “has been passed from generation to generation, something precious, a unique experience”. “Our interest is that it be known,” he insists. The downside will be that many will get poisoned and will have to return to Beas de Segura every April. Like ‘el Tobón’ and Vázquez from La Escala; like José Carlos from Almussafes and like so many other ‘san marqueros’ around the world.
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