Pictures from the Good Friday procession just below my apartment window. I live right around the corner from the Cathedral in Tarragona, and was warned/told about the Easter parades that would go through my street. (Note: I apologize for the unusual shitty quality of these pictures. Necessity of the flash, which I never like to use, and the presence of an annoying black cable running throughout the pictures are a product of the my apartment’s location and the lack of notice I had about the procession.)
I should have taken the sheer amount of people waiting in front of the Cathedral steps as a ominous sign, though.
Basically, the procession consisted of twenty or so “cars” (they called them coches in Castellano even though most of them were carried) depicting the final days of monsieur Jesus Christ. Yes, this is the Last Supper.
This was probably the most disturbing part for me. Then again, there were a lot of disturbing things about the “celebration”. Yes, the KKK took their outfits from this ancient Catholic tradition, even though the KKK hate Catholics. Originally, they were worn to signify penitents, suffering as Jesus once suffered. Nothing has changed in all the years. Most of these penitents went shoeless, while carrying those cars that probably weighed hundreds of pounds through narrow stone-cobbled streets. Worshiping can be such fun!
Oh, what flagellation!
All of the groups were followed by a group of drummers and/or trumpets and/or bagpipes, all playing very austere, droning rhythms and melodies. One group even had a choral group singing, of all things, hymns in English. Barely intelligible English, but English all the same.
All the balconies were crammed with people, and they were also lined up shoulder-to-shoulder along the narrow sidewalks. Even the building across the street from mine, which I have never seen people in, had families watching the procession. This was evidently a very big deal, even though only about half of Spain’s population is Catholic. I’d guess the figure is even less in Tarragona.
More flagellating, you say? Why, yes!
It was a sight to behold.
