{"id":18290,"date":"2020-12-18T11:27:28","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T09:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/2020\/12\/18\/fia-faia-celebracio-unica-solstici-dhivern\/"},"modified":"2021-03-09T12:24:01","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T10:24:01","slug":"fia-faia-unique-celebration-winter-solstice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/2020\/12\/18\/fia-faia-unique-celebration-winter-solstice\/","title":{"rendered":"Fia-faia: a unique celebration of the winter solstice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fia-faia<\/strong>\u00a0is the celebration that opens the Christmas festivities in the Bergadan villages of Bag\u00e0 and Sant Juli\u00e0 de Cerdanyola. Although nowadays \u2013and since quite ancient times\u2013 it\u2019s fully assimilated in the Christian Christmas, its origin goes back far before the Christianisation of these lands; it\u2019s a pagan winter solstice ritual, a prayer to the sun to lengthen the days again.<\/p>\n

On this year 2020, it\u2019s been 10 years the Fia-faia of Bag\u00e0 and Sant Juli\u00e0 de Cerdanyola was appointed as\u00a0\u201cTraditional Festivity of National Interest\u201d<\/strong>. Moreover, on the last 1 of December, this celebration \u2013along with the fire solstice festivities of 61 other towns of the Pyrenees (French, Catalan, Aragonese and Andorran)\u2013 had its 5th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary as UNESCO\u00a0Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite this joint candidacy of 61 celebrations, Fia-faia is different from the others. Currently, no other\u00a0faia<\/em>\u00a0(meaning torch) burning remains in the Pyrenees for the winter solstice, they all take place around the summer solstice. It\u2019s true that some Christmas bonfires can still be found, but, if they ever were accompanied by torches, these have been lost. Thus, if the fire solstice festivities of the Pyrenees are special enough to be declared World Heritage,\u00a0Fia-faia is unique among unique.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s all that Fia-faia thing about, anyway? Well, to put it short, it\u2019s a torchlight (faies<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0<\/em>the plural for\u00a0faia<\/em>) parade, followed by a\u00a0faia<\/em>\u00a0burning with bonfires downtown. However, it\u2019s quite a ritual, form the making of the\u00a0faies<\/em>\u00a0to the traditional dance and the celebration\u2019s final meal, all wrapped in the traditional chant\u00a0\u201cFia-faia, que nostro senyor ha nascut a la paia\u201d<\/strong>. Let\u2019s go step by step.<\/p>\n

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Preparation<\/b><\/p>\n

Faies<\/em>\u00a0are made of bundles of dried\u00a0herba faiera<\/em>\u00a0(faia<\/em>\u00a0grass) \u2013a particular plant. Traditionally, its harvest starts on St. Martin\u2019s Day, in November. The\u00a0faies<\/em>\u00a0are usually 1.5 to 3 metres long and 1 to 2 palms in diameter. The torches of Bag\u00e0 are slightly different from the ones of Sant Juli\u00e0; the main difference lays in the inner stick, called\u00a0\u00e0nima<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(soul): the Baganese torches never have it, while it can\u2019t be missing in the Sant Juli\u00e0 ones.<\/p>\n

Once they\u2019re made, they must be left to dry out while waiting for the celebration day to come.<\/p>\n

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Gathering of torch carriers, climb to the hills, and lighting of the fire<\/strong><\/p>\n

On December 24, the\u00a0faies<\/em>\u00a0are carried to a nearby hill (the Siti in Bag\u00e0 and the Clos in Sant Juli\u00e0) to light them up. In Bag\u00e0, around 5 pm, a horn call summons the torch carriers (fallaires<\/em>) to the main square and, at 5.30, the ascent to the Siti begins. In Cerdanyola, the climb is continuous, without a previous gathering, and the horn is blown from the fire-lighting site.<\/p>\n

At 6 o\u2019clock, the\u00a0fallaires baixadors<\/em>\u00a0(the ones who\u2019ll carry the lit\u00a0faies\u00a0<\/em>downhill) form both towns exchange fireworks to commence the ritual. The fire is first lit in Cerdanyola. In Bag\u00e0, they wait right until the last beam of light vanishes from the sky, to capture it into the bonfire.<\/p>\n

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The descent<\/b><\/p>\n

The torch downhill parade starts first in Sant Juli\u00e0, short after 6 pm. In Bag\u00e0, it won\u2019t begin until 6.30. The\u00a0faies<\/em>\u00a0are lit in the bonfire and, down in the village, the music starts to enliven the descent. In Cerdanyola, they stop halfway, at La Creu, where the authorities place a symbolic protection kerchief on the\u00a0fallaires<\/em>\u00a0baixador\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>necks. In Bag\u00e0, this kerchief is given at the arrival in town.<\/p>\n

When they get to town, the\u00a0fallaires baixadors<\/em>\u00a0will deliver the fire to all the\u00a0faia<\/em>\u00a0carriers who\u2019ve been waiting for them at the village.<\/p>\n

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The great burning<\/b><\/p>\n

The great burning in Bag\u00e0 is spectacular, with over 500 torches that expand further around town every year, as it used to be in ancient times; the main square has become too small.<\/p>\n

When the\u00a0faies<\/em>\u00a0have shortened, they are stacked on the ground and they turn into small bonfires over which it is custom to jump. In Cerdanyola there is not such tradition of jumping over the bonfires, since they\u2019re filled up with firewood and therefore much larger.<\/p>\n

In Bag\u00e0, the boldest ones pass the burning\u00a0faies<\/em>\u00a0to each other throwing them through the air. In Cerdanyola, the\u00a0\u00e0nima<\/em>\u00a0of the torches makes them difficult to throw, but instead makes them very movable. Thus, they are used to draw fire figures in the air.<\/p>\n

People form a circle around the communal bonfires to dance the traditional dance. The circle grows pretty fast so, eventually, dancers organise themselves in concentric rings.<\/p>\n

When the fires become nothing but embers, cake with quince jelly alioli \u2013the traditional meal of the festivity\u2013 is given to everyone along with a drink.<\/p>\n

The Christmas Vigil and the\u00a0Endre\u00e7a<\/em>\u00a0of Sant Juli\u00e0 de Cerdanyola<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Sant Juli\u00e0, when the Fia-faia is over, the youngsters keep vigil until dawn around the communal bonfire. Furthermore, during the night, the curious\u00a0Endre\u00e7a<\/em>\u00a0takes place. The\u00a0Endre\u00e7a<\/em>\u00a0(literally, putting in order) is a rare tradition which consist in moving any object that can be found outside the houses. On Christmas Day, each family must seek and find whatever has been \u201ctidied up\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fia-faia is an ancient celebration which, against all odds, has managed to survive in these two Catalan villages. It\u2019s part of our cultural identity and we hold it in high esteem; it\u2019s part of our legacy, of our millenniums of history, and we are deeply proud of having been able to preserve it and even prouder of it being acknowledged as Heritage. Ours, of course, and everyone\u2019s. Of anyone who wants to be a part of it. Using the words of the historian Xavier Pedrals, the\u00a0Fia-faia is ancestral, magic, unique.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And, although this damned year \u2013which is luckily over\u2013 is not a good time to come discover it, let me invite you to dive into its spell \u2013maybe in the following years, though.<\/p>\n

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Fia-faia\u00a0is the celebration that opens the Christmas festivities in the Bergadan villages of Bag\u00e0 and Sant Juli\u00e0 de Cerdanyola. Although nowadays \u2013and since quite ancient times\u2013 it\u2019s fully assimilated in the Christian Christmas, its origin goes back far before the Christianisation of these lands; it\u2019s a pagan winter solstice ritual, a prayer to the sun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":18149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_joinchat":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experiencies-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pedratour.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}