A Catalan nativity scene contains all the usual characters: Mary and Joseph looking lovingly at baby Jesus. There are the oxen, lowing softly, and perhaps some shepherds.
But take a closer look, and hidden among the traditional characters is a small figure, pants down, doing “his job” right in the middle of the sacred scene.
The caganerliterally “poop”, is a staple of Christmas in Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain. The traditional figure represents a peasant dressed in black trousers, a white shirt and the classic Catalan red cap, the barretina. He may also be smoking a pipe or reading a newspaper.
“It’s like the fun part of something that is supposed to be very serious: Christmas,” jokes the collector of caganer Marc-Ignasi Corral, 53, from Barcelona.
The figure is so popular that it even has its own society, the Asociación Amigos del Caganer, of which Corral is a proud member. Founded in 1990, the group has about 70 members, some from as far away as the US, who meet twice a year.
The caganers traditional are made of clay, fired in an oven at over 1000 degrees Celsius and then painted by hand. As the industry has grown, the caganer has evolved; now there are many different types, both in design and material.
“I have soap ones, I have chocolate ones, but those are for eating, of course,” said Corral, whose shelves are dotted with his collection of more than 200 caganers. “I have glass. I’ve seen them made with Nespresso capsules.”
A figure of tradition
Firmly rooted in popular tradition, the roots of caganer they are vaguebut it is generally accepted that they date from the late 17th or early 18th century, when the predominant Baroque tradition, both in Catalonia and abroad, focused on realism in art, sculpture and literature.
In their book “El Caganer”, the authors Jordi Arruga and Josep Mañà write: “It was a time characterized by extreme realism… all based largely on descriptions of life and local customs. Here, working conditions and home life were used as artistic subjects”.
A real life representation was the caganer.
However, the reason why it has been passed down from generation to generation is clear: the idea of pooping has long been associated with everything from good luck to prosperity and good health.
“Excrement equals fertilization, it equals money, it equals luck and prosperity. Or so anthropologists say,” explains historian Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, emeritus professor at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University.
“It is said that not putting a caganer in the cradle brings bad luck,” added caganer maker Marc Alos Pla, whose family runs caganer.com, the producer of caganer biggest in the world. This year he predicts that sales will exceed 30,000 pieces.
shit uncle
And far from seeing the caganer as crude or even graphic, the Catalans have a relaxed view of them as a mere representation of a natural act.
“We don’t see it as rude. I mean as rude as when you go to the bathroom,” Corral laughs. “We hide things, we are in a society where we hide everything. We hide death, for example.”
Also, Catalans do not stop at a single Christmas tradition.
shit uncleliterally the “Tronco de defecar” (also called Tió de Nadal, the Christmas Log) is also a staple in many Catalan homes in the run-up to Christmas.
On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, on December 8, families begin to “feed” shit uncle with food scraps. They cover him with a blanket to keep him warm until, on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, when he has had enough to eat, the children beat him with sticks while singing a song that prompts him to defecate:
Caga tió / poop trunk
Caga torró, avellanes i mató / caca nougat, hazelnuts and mató (cheese)
If you don’t shit bé / if you don’t shit well,
et I will give a cop de bastó / I will hit you with a stick
Shit tio/poo log!
Because the log does not produce any old excrement, it excretes Christmas presents.
Before finding him Unclethe children go to another part of the house to pray for him to bring them gifts, while their parents take the opportunity to hide small sweets such as Christmas sweets under the blanket.
“The Uncle seems to be quite an old christmas idea. In medieval times it was found all over Europe, from Scandinavia to the western Mediterranean – the idea of a ‘Christmas Log’, which lasted until around World War II,” said Ucelay-Da Cal.
What is it about these traditions, which in other parts of the world can be seen as explicit or rude, that attracts so many Catalans?
“I love the rule-breaking, the tradition they represent and the artwork itself,” Corral explained, while Ucelay-Da Cal said the caganer “has a nicely subversive quality, mischievous but nice, if you will. “.
In fact, the themes of defecation are not reserved only for Christmas, but rather run through Catalan culture like a common thread, from idioms to art.
“This fits in with the Catalan (and Spanish) taste for egalitarianism: everyone [poos]important as they are,” said Ucelay-Da Cal.
“Ass and shit”
When it comes to language, Catalan is full of sayings and idioms related to feces. While in Spanish it is said that two people are “like meat and nail”, the Catalans say that they are like “cul i merda” (butt and excrement).
“There is a cliché that the Germanic languages are full of fecal metaphors, while the Romance languages emphasize virility. Certainly the Spanish tradition, and very specifically the Catalan eschatological custom, would deny this statement,” said Ucelay-Da Cal.
Defecation has also appeared in Catalan art and literature for hundreds of years.
In his book Barcelona, which reviews Catalan history, art and culture, the art critic Robert Hughes writes that the figure of the caganer “makes an unequivocal entry into the art of the 20th century”, in the work of Joan Miró.
Look closely at Miró’s painting “The Farm” (1921-22), and you’ll see what looks like a little boy squatting near his mother as she does the laundry.
This child, Hughes writes, “is none other than the caganer of Miró’s children’s Christmases. It could also be Miró himself, the future painter of “Man and woman facing a pile of excrement (1935)”.
Catalan writers have also long represented the scatological, and Hughes argues that it is firmly rooted in Catalan popular tradition. “There has always been a vigorous tension of scatological humor in popular songs [catalanas]popular poetry and learned verses”, he writes.
He cites one verse in particular, in the 13th century Verses Bruts (Rough Poems), which recounts a discussion between two noblemen in which they describe: “One hundred noble ladies who put out to sea in a boat and, calm, returned to the shore farting in chorus in their sails”.
One area of Catalan culture that could be kept firmly away from the scatological is food, but, inevitably, I am wrong. Feeling hungry, someone might walk into a Catalan bakery and find a popular baked treat called “pet de monja” or “nun’s fart.”
The independentist caganers
Catalan politics has taken a humorous turn, with the region’s strong independence movement reflected in Caganer’s recent bestsellers. Exiled former regional president Carles Puigdemont is a favorite, and in 2017, a Tweety caganer sold out (when the Spanish government sent extra police to control the 2017 independence referendum, they slept on a boat whose exterior featured a giant Tweety) .
In 2018, it is expected that a caganer of a yellow ribbon with a pair of big eyes and a mouth representing the symbol used in solidarity with the imprisoned Catalan independence leaders is a bestseller.
“It’s a reflection of what’s going on,” Corral said. “The caganer it is now becoming a way of keeping a memory of history alive. It is a reality, we have political prisoners.”
growing popularity
Although the caganers The Christmas tree has not reached the global ubiquity, it is becoming more and more popular outside of Catalonia. The figures have long been a tradition in areas of Portugal and Naples, Italy, and are gaining a following elsewhere as well.
“In society caganer we have members from Italy, Germany, Japan, the United States, so it’s an international partnership,” Corral said.
In fact, around 50% of caganer.com’s foreign sales are shipped to the United States, according to Alos Pla, with popular figures like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And he predicts that Donald Trump and David Bowie will sell in droves this year.
“If you don’t have a caganer, today you are nobody,” says Marc-Ignasi Corral. (Credit: Toni Vilches/Alamy)
It’s up to you whether to give someone a caganer from someone you love or hate, but many people take it as a compliment:
“For many celebrities it has become an honor to have their own caganer“, says Alos Pla.
Corral is more forceful. “I want to say that if you don’t have a caganeryou are nobody nowadays“.
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