the Burial - Turismo de Murcia

The
origins of the celebration
can be traced back to 1850, when
a group of students decided to create a procession with a sardine
as its centrepiece, as a symbol of
fasting and abstinence, in order
to revive the festivities celebrated
during Carnival.
the Burial
of the Sardine
in Murcia
DEPÓSITO LEGAL: MU-358-2012 • photographs: JOAQUÍN ZAMORA
After years of intermittent celebrations, in 1900 a project was
conceived to revive the procession
and make it part of the Murcia
Spring Festival. The Burial recalls
ancient pagan myths in which fire
fulfilled a purifying role, while at
the same time bringing back a carnival air that enables local people
to forget the recently concluded
privations of Holy Week, in an allegorical enactment of the victory
of Don Carnal over Doña Lent.
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The Burial of the Sardine is a popular
procession in many parts of Spain, where
it is usually held to mark the end of
Carnival. In Murcia, however, this event
possesses certain characteristics that
make it remarkable for its originality.
One of these is the date it is celebrated,
which is much later, on the first
Saturday after Holy Week,
when it forms part of
the city’s Spring
Festival, having
been declared
a Festival of
International
Tourist Interest.
On Saturday morning a street procession is held in the
city, for which large crowds gather to watch the “sardineros”, as a prelude to the big parade that will take place
that night, attended by hundreds of thousands of people.
The central act of the festival is a great parade, colourful and playful, in which the rites of carnival and
mythology are mixed, and dance troupes, dragons, giants, bigheads and brass bands from all over the world
take part, after which there is a procession of floats
dedicated to the gods of Olympus when, to the delight
of the thousands of children in attendance, tons of toys
are distributed.
After the parade, the final paroxysm of the celebrations
takes place, with the burning of the sardine at the Old
Bridge, an event culminating in a firework display that
serves as a counterpoint to the reverent devotion demanded by Doña Lent during the recently-ended Holy
Week.
The entire week of festivities is studded with a number
of processions and events enacted by the groups known
as “sardineros”. These groups take their names from
the gods of Greek and Roman mythology, recalling the
ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean region. The
groups elect a “Big Fish” [“Gran Pez”] and a “Lady Sardine” [“Doña Sardina”] as the patrons of the festival.
The arrival of the sardine in the city is the signal for
the commencement of this popular Murcia festivity. Each
year it arrives from one of the region’s districts, where a
farewell celebration is held and a well-attended fiesta is
organised, with parades and the handing out of toys, as a
prelude to what is to come later, in the city.
During the days prior to the burial, Murcia is a bustling
hive of activity, with an air of celebration encouraged by
the din of brass bands and street processions, as the city
awaits the arrival of the decisive moment, Saturday night.
These processions preceding the Burial include the Testament and the Sardine’s Wake. On the day of the Testament, after the procession through the city’s main
streets, at nightfall Lady Sardine becomes the focus of
the celebrations, which are always imbued with a markedly humorous aspect, through which current issues are
parodied.