Catalonia's wonderfully-weird fixation with poo at Christmas
When it comes to weird Christmas traditions, Catalonia takes the biscsh*t. (Credit: GETTY / REX)
Barcelona was the first place I lived and worked in after finishing university. It is a beautiful, vibrant city, somehow chaotic and calm both at once.
I had visited it before, and, like the millions of tourists who visit every year, broadly confined myself to the hot spots, to Las Ramblas, the port, the gothic quarter, the Camp Nou. I experienced Barcelona and Catalonia through the lens that most tourists do (I ate my paella and went to some flamenco bars – forgive me my Catalan friends – I was ignorant).
But when I decided to live there, I moved in with a Catalan family for my first few months. They were exceptionally kind and welcoming (I still refer to them as 'my family'), and they introduced me to their customs and traditions, their proud Catalan identity and it was through them that I started to experience Barcelona differently.
I began to notice how, entirely through the prism of love and admiration, that some Catalan traditions were, charmingly, a little bit odd.
Case in point: for many of the years before living there, I, like many of the city’s tourists, would catch sight of the figure of man wearing a red hat in a shop window. He would be squatting down, grimacing, over a lump of poo.
I remember double-taking, acknowledging it was odd, and going about my day. Years later, Caganer, Catalonia’s odd addition to the nativity scene, became my introduction to the most intriguing Christmas tradition I had ever experienced.
Meet 'the crapper' (Credits: Getty Images / Fredy Ferreri)
Caganer translates, unambiguously, as ‘the crapper’, he’s a staple of the Catalan Christmas scene and you’ll often find him camped outside the manger, looking in on Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and co, usually with a cigar or newspaper in his hand while he defecates.
Why is he crapping? Nobody really knows. But it's very Catalan.
Am I awaking some very weird memories of strolling down Las Ramblas and spotting a collection on mini Queen Elizabeths, or Popes, or Obamas, or Tom Cruise squatting down taking a dump? That is the Caganer tradition (in tourist form).
Although the exact heritage is vague, the crapper is known to have originated in either the late 17th or early 18th Century.
Speaking to the BBC, historian Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, emeritus professor at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University, suggested the tradition started because defecating was historically linked to good luck, prosperity and good health.
'Excrement equals fertilisation equals money equals luck and prosperity. Or so say the anthropologists,' he said
But the Catalan’s insistence on including poo in their Christmas celebrations doesn’t stop with Caganer.
Meet Caga Tió (which, unsurprisingly, translates pretty directly to ‘Sh*tting log’). Bear with me for this one though, I can promise this does not go where you think it might go.
Meet Caga Tió (Credits: Getty Images/Mario Marco)
As Christmas 2014 approached, my wonderful Catalan family got their Caga Tió out from storage and propped him up on his little stick legs next to the Christmas tree.
I watched as the two kids adorably ‘dressed’ Caga Tió with a cute red hat (the traditional barretina) and wrapped him in a blanket 'to keep him warm'.
Every few days they placed some milk or some cookies on a plate in front of him 'to keep him well fed'.
The adorable Caga Tió loving the Christmas build-up. (Credit: Carme Quiles Blasco)
There’s a Caga Tió in most houses and schools. Picture kids cuddling him and treating him like an adorable, snuggly Christmas pet. 'Oh, he ate all the cookies? Fill up the tray! Bit chillier than normal outside? Give him an extra blanket!’
Come Christmas Eve, however, that's when things took a dark turn.
In an unexpected twist, kids pick up their sticks and start beating Caga Tió, chanting a song which lyrics include:
Sh*t, log,
Sh*t nougats (turrón - a Catalan sweet),
Hazelnuts and mató cheese,
If you don't sh*t well,
I'll hit you with a stick,
Sh*t, log!
If you want a video example of the song/stick beating in action, here it is.
After which Caga Tió, obviously, proceeds to defecate turróns (or other little sweets and mini gifts), usually by adults removing the blanket to show all the treats that had been stuffed under it.
If you have many questions, it seems there are very few answers – at least among non-historians.
‘Why do the Catalans love poop at Christmas?’ I asked my Catalonian colleagues while working over there.
I get simply shrugs in response, as if it’s a pointless question.
‘Why do kids have to beat Tió to get presents?’ I ask my family at the time.
'No one knows,' they reply.
That’s the thing about Catalans. They know it's peculiar – and they charmingly don’t care. And when you live there long enough, you get swept up onto the weird train and just shrug along when others ask questions.
A few months later you might even, like me, get invited to a Calçotada, a friendly gathering where everyone dangles whole, massive, green onions above their head and eats them in one go, and you’ll just compliment the cook on how well grilled the calçots are. Or you’ll walk past a human tower (the chaotic-looking els castells) outside a cafe and comment on the little kid’s balance as they climb to the top.
Because Catalan culture is more than just 'on-the-surface oddness'. Even watching little kids beating a smiling log with sticks telling it to poop out presents, means something more.
When I asked my Catalan family what the tradition is actually about, they, once again, educated me:
'If there is something we Catalans love, it is tradition and family, and the tradition of Tió has always been about families coming together.
'What is a better way to celebrate than with everyone gathered around the Tió?'
To be Catalan is to embrace weirdness, and to embrace family.
They take that sh*t seriously. And I love them for it.