Today's Relgious Question

[infrogmation]

Antigua Guatemala, Thursday, 14 June, 1979:



"What's going on here?" I asked a local.
"It's Corpus Christi"
We watch the giants dance to marimba music for a while.


"So, Why are there dancing giants?" I asked.
"Because it's Corpus Christi, of course." the local told me. "Don't they have Christians where you come from?"

....

I have to admit, I'm still in heathen ingnorance about that. The Catholic Encyclopedia Feast of Corpus Christi article doesn't shed any light on the dancing giants issue. Perhaps one of my Christian readers can enlighten me?

Wondering simply, -- F.

A 1989 sighting of the Corpus Christi Dancing Giants of Antigua

Comments

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Did they at least let you roll them into your katamari?

Hunh? You're allowed.

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Sorry, video game references (post Q*Bert era anyhow) are generally at least as obscure to me as Midaeval Spanish Catholicism.

Yes, I'm the lost prophet of Kiboloby who doesn't know squat about video games (and also doesn't much care for bacon).

not a catholic and don't play one on tv

[plorkwort.livejournal.com]

... but a proto-librarian can't resist a reference question!
The tradition of giants appears to be associated with passion plays for the feast day. This (http://est.estcomp.ro/~cfg/giants.html) seems to suggest it's a Catalonian folk custom; Spanish tourism materials (http://www.gospain.org/fiestas/corpus.htm) note that this holiday was "closely linked to the craft guilds."
Here's an 1899 article (http://www.sacredspiral.com/Database/Giants/1giants.html) (supposedly) on miscellaneous European feast-day giants. I'll try to find more reliable information when I'm actually over at the library later on.

Re: not a catholic and don't play one on tv

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I had lots of interesting cultural /ethnographic /anthropological experiences during my time down there. It was only going through my old photos that I recalled that this was one I'd never learned to decode.

The Catalans seem to be responsible for lots of the more interesting Spanish customs.

This sounds awfully familiar, but

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

in the location I heard about I thought I remembered giants on stilts, not on shoulder frames. I'm not managing to Google up anything about Corpus Christi and stilts, though. Do I have the wrong festival?