Yule-Tide In Many Lands Part 9

The _Nacimiento_ (meaning being born) is lighted with candles, and little folks dance gayly around it to the music of tambourines and their own sweet voices, joyously singing one of the pretty Nativity songs. Groups of children go about the streets singing these songs of which there are many.

In this pleasing custom of the _Nacimiento_ one sees a vestige of the Saturnalia, for during that festival small earthenware figures used to be for sale for the pleasure of children. Although the Spanish race is a mixed one and various peoples have been in power from time to time, at one period the country was, with the exception of Basque, entirely Romanized. It is interesting to note the lingering influence of this mighty Roman nation and find in this century that some of the main features of the great Roman feast are retained in the great Christian feast at Yule-tide.

Southern races were always firm believers in Fate. The Mohammedans reverenced the Tree of Fate, but the Romans held sacred the _urn_ containing the messages of Fate. So the Spaniards cling to the urn, from which at Christmas gatherings of friends it is the custom to draw the names of the men and women whom Fate ordains shall be devoted friends during the year,--the men performing all the duties of lovers.

This drawing of one's Fate for the coming year creates great merriment and often no little disappointment. But Fate is inexorable and what is to be must be, so the Spanish maiden accepts graciously the one Fate thus a.s.signs her.

After the midday breakfast on Christmas morning the people usually seek out-of-door pleasures. Among many of the old families only blood relations are expected to eat and drink together on this holy day.

Ordinarily the Spaniard "may find perfect entertainment in a crust of bread and a bit of garlic" as the proverb claims, but at Yule-tide his stomach demands many delicacies peculiar to the season. The _Puchero Olla_, the national dish for dinner, must have a few extra ingredients added on this occasion. The usual compound of chickens, capons, bacon, mutton, beef, pig's feet, lard, garlic, and everything else the larder affords, is quite insufficient to be boiled together on this occasion. However, if one has no relatives to invite him to a feast, it is an easy matter to secure a Christmas dinner on the streets, where men are ready to cook for him over their _braseros_ of charcoal and venders are near at hand to offer preserved fruits, the famous almond rock, almond soup, truffled turkey, or the most desirable of the season's delicacies,--sea-bream, which is brought from Cadiz especially for Christmas use, and which is eaten at Christmas in accordance with the old-time custom. Nuts of all kinds are abundant.

By the side of the streets, venders of chestnuts--the finest in the world--lean against their clumsy two-wheeled carts, picturesque in costumes that are ragged and soiled from long service. Rich layer-cakes of preserves, having almond icing with fruits and liquor-filled ornaments of sugar on top, are frequently sent from friend to friend for dinner.

In Seville, and possibly in other places, the people hurry to the cathedral early in the afternoon in order to secure good places before the high altar from which to view the _Siexes_, or dances. Yes, dances! This ceremony takes place about five o'clock just as the daylight fades and night draws near. Ten choristers and dancers, indiscriminately termed _Siexes_, appear before the altar clad in the costume of Seventeenth-Century pages, and reverently and with great earnestness sing and dance an old-time minuet, with castanet accompaniment, of course. The opening song is in honor of the Virgin, beginning:

"Hail, O Virgin, most pure and beautiful."

Among the ancients dancing was a part of religious services, but it is now seldom seen in churches. This Christmas dance, given in a beautiful cathedral just at the close of day, is a very impressive ceremony and forms a fitting close to the Spanish Christmas, which is so largely made up of customs peculiar to ancient and modern races.

In every part of Spain song and dance form an important part of the festivities of Yule-tide, which lasts two weeks, although the laboring cla.s.s observe but two days of pleasure. At the palace the King holds a reception on New Year's, not for the public generally, but for the diplomats and grandees.

The higher circles of society observe New Year as a time of exchanging calls and visiting, feasting and merrymaking. At the banquets of the wealthy every possible delicacy in the way of food is temptingly displayed, and great elegance in dress indulged in by the ladies, who wear their finest gowns and adorn themselves in priceless jewels and rare laces. But there is so much etiquette to be observed among this cla.s.s of Spaniards that one looks for the real enjoyment of the season among the common cla.s.ses.

In some parts of Spain bull-fights are given as late as December, but cold weather has a softening effect on the poor bulls and makes them less ferocious, so unless the season proves unusually warm that favorite entertainment has to be abandoned for a time. Meanwhile in the streets and homes one may often see a father on all fours enacting the infuriated bull for his little sons to attack; in this way he teaches them the envied art of bull-fighting. The Yule-tide festivities end at Twelfth Day,--Epiphany,--when crowds of young folks go from gate to gate in the cities to meet the Magi, and after much merriment they come to the conclusion that the Magi will not appear until the following year.

NIGHT OF MARVELS

In such a marvelous night; so fair And full of wonder, strange and new, Ye shepherds of the vale, declare-- Who saw the greatest wonder?

Who?

(_First Shepherd_)

I saw the trembling fire look wan;

(_Second Shepherd_)

I saw the sun shed tears of blood;

(_Third Shepherd_)

I saw a G.o.d become a man;

(_Fourth Shepherd_)

I saw a man become a G.o.d.

O, wondrous marvels! at the thought, The bosom's awe and reverence move; But who such prodigies hath wrought?

What gave such wondrous birth?

'Twas love!

What called from heaven the flame divine, Which streams in glory far above, And bid it o'er earth's bosom shine, And bless us with its brightness?

Love!

Who bid the glorious sun arrest His course, and o'er heaven's concave move In tears,--the saddest, loneliest, Of the celestial orbs?

'Twas love!

Who raised the human race so high, E'en to the starry seats above, That, for our mortal progeny, A man became a G.o.d?

'Twas love!

Who humbled from the seats of light Their Lord, all human woes to prove, Led the great Source of day to night, And made of G.o.d a man?

'Twas love!

Yes! love has wrought, and love alone, The victories all,--beneath, above: And heaven and earth shall shout as one, The all-triumphant song Of love.

The song through all heaven's arches ran, And told the wondrous tales aloud, The trembling fire that looked so wan, The weeping sun behind the cloud, A G.o.d, a G.o.d become a man!

A mortal man become a G.o.d.

--_Violante Do Ceo._

CHAPTER IX.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

YULE-TIDE IN AMERICA

"And they who do their souls no wrong, But keep, at eve, the faith of morn.

Shall daily hear the angel-song, 'To-day the Prince of Peace is born.'"

--_James Russell Lowell._

To people who go into a new country to live, Christmas, which is so generally a family day, must of necessity be a lonely, homesick one.

They carry with them the memory of happy customs, of loved ones far away, and of observances which can never be held again. So many of the earliest Christma.s.ses in America were peculiarly sad ones to the various groups of settlers; most especially was this the case with the first Christmas ever spent by Europeans in the New World.

The intrepid mariner, Christopher Columbus, entered the port of Bohio, in the Island of Hayti, on St. Nicholas Day, December 6, 1492, and in honor of the day named that port Saint Nicholas. The _Pinta_ with her crew had parted from the others and gone her own way, so the _Santa Maria_ and the _Nina_ sailed on together, occasionally stopping where the port seemed inviting. While in one of these, Columbus heard of rich mines not far distant and started for them. The Admiral and his men were tired from continued watching, and as the sea was smooth and the wind favorable, they went to sleep leaving the ship in care of a boy. Who he was no one knows, but he was evidently the first Christian boy to pa.s.s a Christmas Eve on this continent,--and a sad one it was for him. The ship struck a sand-bank and settled, a complete wreck, in the waters of the New World. Fortunately no lives were lost, and the wreckage furnished material for the building of a fortress which occupied the men's time during the remainder of the Yule-tide.

The _Nina_ was too small to accommodate two crews, therefore on Christmas Day many of the men were wondering who were to stay on that far-away island among the strange looking natives of whom they knew nothing.

The Chief of Guarico (Pet.i.t Anse), whom Columbus was on his way to visit at the time of the disaster, sent a fleet of canoes to the a.s.sistance of the strangers, and did what he could to make them happy during the day. The Spaniards and the natives worked until dawn on Christmas morning, bringing ash.o.r.e what they could secure from the wreck, and storing it away on the island for future use. Strange to relate, they succeeded in saving all of their provisions, the spars, and even many of the nails of the wrecked _Santa Maria._ But what a Christmas morning for Columbus and his men, stranded on an island far, far from home, among a strange people! There were no festivities to be observed by that sad, care-worn company of three hundred men on that day, but the following morning Chief Guacanagari visited the _Nina_ and took Columbus ash.o.r.e, where a banquet was prepared in his honor, the first public function attended by Columbus in America. It can be pictured only in imagination. There on that beautiful island which seemed to them a paradise on earth, with tall trees waving their long fronds in the warm breeze, with myriads of birds such as they had never seen filling the air with song, Columbus stood, attired in his gorgeous uniform and dignified, as it befitted him to be, beside his host who was elegantly dressed in a _shirt_ and _a pair of gloves_ which Columbus had given him, with a coronet of gold on his head. The visiting chieftains with gold coronets moved about in nature's garb, among the "thousand,"--more or less,--who were present as guests. The feast consisted of shrimps, ca.s.savi,--the same as the native bread of to-day,--and some of their nutritive roots.

It was not a sumptuous repast although it may have been a bountiful one, yet they probably enjoyed it.

The work of building a fortress began at once. Within ten days the Fortress of Navidad was completed. It stood on a hill and was surrounded with a broad, deep ditch for protection against natives and animals, and was to be the home of those of the company who remained in the New World, for the _Nina_ was too small to convey all hands across the ocean to Spain, and nothing had been heard of the _Pinta._ Leaving biscuits sufficient for a year's supply, wine, and such provisions as could be spared, Columbus bade farewell to the forty men whom he was never to see again, and sailed for the Old World on January 4, 1493.

So far as recorded, Columbus was the only one among the Spaniards who received gifts during this first Yule-tide in America. But what seemed a cruel fate to him was the means of bestowing a valuable gift upon the world. Had the _Santa Maria_ continued her course in safety that Christmas Eve there might never have been a fortress or any European settlement founded. So, although it was a sad, troubled Yule-tide to the Spanish adventurers, it proved a memorable one in the annals of America.