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The Bull Fight: Is this the Gory or the Glory of Spain?
Travelling 1,500 km through Spain, I discover the Bull Fight is no weary tradition, but a passionately popular sport. A culture divided by three languages and murderous politics is bound together with bulls blood.
Every town boasts a bull ring, a bull run, or at least, some fiesta involving a saint and a bull. The bull can be a 500 kg colossus of snorting rage and then the fights are serious and professional and the runs are staged with mostly young men, who train for the event with the Policia Local preventing drunks from joining in with suicidal fervour. Or the bull can be a bellowing, light weight youngster. Then the fights are amateur and clumsy and the runs are small and local and end in a field where, in a bizarre out burst of the Spanish love of sport, soccer and amateur bull fighting take place together in a confusion of body movement.
But the big bull fights are serious. Professional. A good matador can earn A$150,000 for killing two bulls. One nights work. And these fights are televised. I first see a corrida (bullfight) on television. Although I do not understand the language, I recognise a seriousness sports commentary when I hear one. This could be cricket with long silences and - Oh!- a very good shot through silly mid-on to covers followed by an instant reply, in this case, of the bulls final throw to death.
But the statistics tell of a game hardly balanced in favour of the bull. About 2 matadors die each decade. But in Spain 7,000 bulls are slaughtered annually in the ring. This gives the bull a chance of 1 in 50,000 plays, of scoring.
Nevertheless, we go to a bull fight at the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza, Seville's 18th century bull ring. We pay A $60 to sit on a long curved brick bench in the front row. We can see the the matadors' assistants, the pit crews behind the bulladeros (barriers), sharpen estocadas (swords) and prepare the muletas(capes) while the crowd's excited tittering fills the racked dirt arena.
Trumpets blast and the crowd roars as the matadors strut into the ring in one spectacular burst of gold finery in brilliant green, aqua and red silk suits worn with vivid pink stockings. They bow and retire behind barriers.
More trumpets. Then silence. Suddenly, the beast charges into the ring - a gleaming black bulk of a bull with rage eminating from each pumping muscle. The beast has been trained for this, it's 15 minutes of glory. It charges across the ring and slams, horn first, into the barrier. Peones, the matadors aids, scatter.
And with this rage the matadors and peones play. Pink capes swirl and flute in the warm evening air. Then trumpets sound the entrance of the picadores, horsemen wearing traditional armour on their legs, carrying lances and riding blind-folded horses. The horse too is protected. Padded. But the beast doesn't know this and he lunges at the horses flank. The picadore then lances the bulls back muscles. But not casually. He lunges and wrestles as he forces his lance into the bull, wounding it, weakening it. But not killing it. The lance can only pierce 8 cm of flesh. Blood streams in thick, clotted sheets down the beasts back. Trumpets sound. And the picadores with draw.
The banderillos then play and tease the beast and jab colourful barbs into it's back. The beast bellows with fury. But death waits in a final ballet with the red clothe as a sword gleams behind the graceful moves of this dance.
The matador, this slight boy of 24 in delicate ballet slippers, plays the beast. Even as the beast stumbles, froths at the mouth and releases it's bladder, the matador plays the beast. Ole cries the crowd. Ole. Then the matador holds his sword aloft and lunges toward the beast. And misses. The crowd sneers. Again. This time his sword line is true. The beast bellows and stumbles. But it does not die. A peone plunges a short dagger into the back of it's skull. One blow. Two. Three. The crowd hisses. Then the beast jolts in a final dance of death. Bravo. It was a good fight.
Bells jingle as a team of three mules in red pom-pommed bridles drag the carcass out of the arena to the crack of a whip. The matador bows to applause. The ritual slaughter is done.
I watch 6 of these death dramas with mixed emotions of excitement, fear, pity, horror, triumph, disgust and admiration. And I wonder, is Spain the only country in the world where tradition makes a hero out of the local butcher and a game out of slaughter? Or is this, perhaps, the only culture that gives the rump steak a fighting chance?
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