THE DRUM FEAST

Every year, and since the Middle Ages, all the community around Hellín (a village from Albacete) celebrates Easter Week like in so many other places around Spain. But this particular village celebrates it in a different way. There are these religious processions that we have always watched from the bottom of the sidewalk and there are saints and Nazarenes as well. However, in this village when the procession ends starts the feast: the “Tamborada”. This is a special celebration which consists in all the people going out to the streets and playing their drums all along. In this celebration participate around 20.000 people and the thing is basically meeting your family and friends outside and playing your drum. Hellín drums are usually handmade. You can play your drums on different days, as the tradition says, but you need to know that there’s a little diversity between those days.

On the one hand, if you are going to play a drum, you need to wear a black tunic and a red kerchief. This has been historically left from the ancestors and we still wear as it was in the past. On the other hand, if go out to play on Good Friday, you may get really tired because it is a very custom to play for the entire night until the next day’s afternoon! And on Good Saturday, you would repeat the same routine: start playing on Saturday and finish on Sunday’s afternoon. In fact, one of the things that I like the most of this celebration is Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday you have already been playing for the entire night and all the “tamborileros” use to meet at a place in the village; when they meet, and although the noise is so loud, they all keep quiet because at the same time, a religious procession has started to pass. The people that carry the saints on their shoulders put Virgin Mary in front of Christ Resurrected and on that moment, all the people start to hit their drums and such a kind of piñata breaks and some pigeons are set free also. I don’t know if you can really have an image in your mind, but I’ll show you. Here you have a picture and a short video of the feast that I hope you understood when I talked about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHTegezLKHk