RAPA DAS BESTAS | Shearing of the Beasts
RAPA DAS BESTAS, SABUCEDO | SPAIN
The name of this festivity, originally in Galician language, is A Rapa das Bestas, which means “The Shaving of the Beasts” It is an 400-year-old festival that takes place during four days, on the first weekend of July. The first morning, at half-past six in the morning, the church bells start ringing, and firecrackers are released, in order to call all the villagers to a mass that is celebrated to ask for the Saint Lawrence’s protection and guidance in the Rapa. After the horse hunting in the mountains they are brought down to the village and kept in a compound outside the village until the Curro takes place. The Curro is the central part of the celebration where hundreds of wild horses, male (garañones) and female (bestas) horses are brought into the stone compound and rounded up and wrestled to the ground for for a 'haircut' as part the tradition. Summing up, this is a very impressive celebration that dates back to prehistoric times, a real force between man and beast, between humans and nature, between tradition and modernity.