When The Bullfight Comes To Town

I attend, and ponder

The Chute that lets the bull into the arena, as seen from outside.

Workmen began setting up the panels on the dusty vacant lot, just steps from our house. What was it for?

The painted-on Moorish-style arches were the giveaway. I saw these and remembered, a month or so previously, I had seen a poster for a bullfight to take place in our town. I wondered how that could possibly be? There was nowhere for a bullfight to take place. Now I understood. It was a temporary arena. The faux Moorish arches were the giveaway. For some reason “plazas de toros” (in Spanish) or “praças de toiros” (in Portuguese) usually have them. Does this mean bull fighting has Islamic origins, perhaps from the half a millennium when the Moors were in charge of most of the Iberian Peninsula? I don’t know.

So. A bullfight near our house. Should I go?

Back in Prague, I went to the opera more than a dozen times in our two years there, in part because it was just so easy. I would buy a ticket, online usually, and walk down the street to one of three beautiful opera houses. If I can go to the opera in Prague, I can go to the bullfight in our town.

I am not indifferent to objections that bullfights are cruel to the animals, that is the bulls. But I wanted to see. And I had never been to a bullfight in Portugal. So if a bullfight is going to take place just steps from my house, I am going to be there.

Predictably, the evening would not be entertainment, but a conversation with myself about just how I felt about this ritualized dance with a dangerous animal.

I had been to a bullfight once before, in Spain in 1981, almost 45 years ago. It was part of my semester abroad program, which turned into two years of living in Spain. That bullfight made a big impression on me - more about that later too - and also familiarized me with the Spanish manner of bullfights. I knew vaguely that the Portuguese way was different.

In Spain the bullfights take place in the late afternoon. Thus the title of Hemingway’s book, Death in the Afternoon. I remember picking Sol or Sombra in Spain when buying a ticket, which means in the sun or in the shade. Once you are sitting in the brutal Spanish sun, you understand why you pay more for shade.

Here the bullfight started at 10 pm, on a Saturday night. Much nicer really. This matches other events here, including the circus, which toddlers attend. They just do things differently here in the southern European countries - Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. Grown-ups stay up very late and the kids do too. No one worries about bedtimes.

Speaking of kids, our EC, now age 6, clamored to attend the bullfight. We wisely said no, even though I would find out that there were other small children there, although not many, including some directly in front of me.

The Fight

On the night of the event, I walked from our house and got there early. I was excited. Soon, I was wedged into the bleacher seats with others. I had paid 25 Euros for general admission. People squeezed in around me. The arena would end up completely full. The promoters had also sold more expensive seats for 30 and 35 euros, but I think virtually everyone bought general admission seats.

The nice thing about seeing a bullfight in an arena in a small town is the intimacy of it. It’s very similar to seeing a baseball game in an A or AA minor league team. The bullfighters were right in front of us, in a space a few feet wide between the arena and the seats. The bulls and the action were often right in front of us.

So a few things about the bullfight, before I comment on the action itself.

There were a lot of participants! I counted 35 on the field in the beginning, when they all came out. Plus there was a live band. Then there were the out of sight personnel, such as the ones who ushered in the bulls from outside or took care of the horses. I bet there were at least 50 people who were part of the fight staff.

How could this work financially? The arena was full, but that was only about 1600 people. I knew that because halfway through the event, they made a big deal of publicly giving a check for about €1600 to the ambulance and fire service in town, the Bombeiros. One euro from every ticket went to the ambulance service, so that meant about 1600 people were in the arena.

And 1600 times €25 is only €40,000. That’s not a lot of money to divide up among 50 people. Even the main guys, the stars, how much could they possibly make for the event? I had vision these middle-aged men going from town to town, getting hurt. Do they have families?

But back to the action.

The Portuguese way is different than the Spanish, more than I had expected.

In the Spanish bullfight, the star the show is the torero, the man (and sometimes woman) with the cape. Although there are various ancillary roles, like the picadores on horseback, everyone is waiting for the guy in the suit of lights who holds the sword, who takes the most risks, leading up to plunging the sword between the shoulder blades of the bull.

In the Portuguese fight, there is no one star. Most in the spotlight are the three men on horseback, the cavaleiros, which in Spain are called picadores. In the Portuguese fights, the cavaleiros play a more central role, almost akin to the torero in a Spanish bullfight. On the poster for the fight put around town, it was their faces and names that were displayed prominently. Two of them had male-pattern balding, like myself.

The cavaleiro plays with or provokes the bull similar to how a bullfighter on foot would. He encourages the bull to charge, and then skillfully moves the horse away. He did this repeatedly. I really can’t imagine how you could train a horse not to be terrified, since it is facing being gored. But the horses didn’t flinch. And almost always the cavaleiro could avoid the bull’s horns. It seemed to me amazing horsemanship.

Before the fight began, the three riders led their horses around the ring, stepping sideways, and bowing to the audience. Their horsemanship seemed amazing.

When it was time for a bull to be let out into the arena, a lone brass player put forth a mournful tune, as if grieving in advance for the bull. People got quieter. Then the bull was released and the action began.

Once the bull was in the arena, the bullfight had two main phases.

The first was a cavaleiro fighting the bull, as I described. After dancing with the bull a while, the cavaleiro eventually charged the bull multiple times, and plunged a harpoon like spear into its back, decorated with plumage. I saw up close they were like harpoons, with points on both sides. This had to hurt, obviously. Four would be placed in each bull.

Along with the cavaleiros, there were also bullfighters with capes, who would occasionally come out and do passes. But they were not the main event and seemed to not bear as much risk.

Oh yeah. One important fact. The bulls’ horns were all blunted with leather caps. Big difference from the Spanish fights! I can hear a Spaniard pronouncing this very lightweight.

Perhaps the blunted horns makes a bit more conceivable the next phase of the fight, called the Pega. The Pega was where about eight young men, called forcadores, came out and then lined up facing the bull, one man in front and the others behind him. The forcadores looked humorous to me in their special suits, which included some kind of red wrapping around their middles, probably padding for extra protection. I dubbed them mentally the Oompa-Loompas, as in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The lead forcador, or in my mind the lead Oompa-Loompa, stood at the front of the line and faced the bull. The young man, in this most dangerous position, then donned a strangely humorous looking cap. I was reminded of the “pussy” hats with two points on each side that were briefly in vogue after Donald Trump’s off-color remarks in 2016. This young man, wearing this stocking-style cap, offered his torso to the bull, turning first one way and another, hands on his hips. It was a strangely feminine pose and act. Eventually, the bull would charge, and rather then run or sidestep it, the forcador jumped between the horns, belly over the bull’s head. Then at that moment the other forcadores would run in and try to subdue the bull.

Even with blunted horns, it was clearly very difficult and very dangerous, particularly for the lead man. In the three bulls I watched, the forcadores did not succeed in subduing the bull until the third bull. The first bull threw the young man in the air, and then trampled him. A stretcher carried him away. After the second bull, another young man could not get up. He left the arena with his arms around two other men.

The third group of forcadores facing the third bull were led by an achingly handsome young man who reminded me of my own son. He was probably was at least 18, but he looked younger. I wanted to get down and stop him from doing this. He leaped and put his belly squarely between the bull’s horns. Eventually the men managed to subdue the bull. After all the turmoil, the young man limped away. Off stage, I saw an older man embracing him. Had this been a test of some sort, a rite of passage?

Once the group of forcadores subdue the bull, they hold it and then one forcador grabs the bull’s tail. Then all the other forcadores let go. The bull attempts to get the young man holding his tail, but can’t, as long as the forcador holding the tail does not let go. Sometimes the bull drags the young man around and around. It’s humorous, if you don’t mind the cruelty to the animal.

The poster advertised that the fight would be for six bulls. But after three, it was already past midnight. I certainly did not have the patience or interest to stay another hour or two, into the wee hours. I got up and left. I was not the first to do so. Perhaps this is a normal.

Unlike in Spain, the bull is not killed “on stage.” But from what I read, the bull is usually killed afterward, hopefully humanely, and its corpse sent to the butcher. Some articles I read said some bulls are allowed to recover.

Bullfighting is controversial now in Portugal, just like elsewhere in the world. A small protest took place before the event.

One of the arguments for permitting it is that there is a whole region of the country dedicated to raising these bulls, and training the young men who fight the bulls. The posters not only display the names of the fighters, but the farms that raise the bulls. If bullfighting were prohibited, a whole way of life would be gone. That’s the argument.

Judging

So what did I feel and think about my first Portuguese bullfight? I thought to myself, early on, “this is a barbaric ritual.” I can’t say I could actually feel the pointed spears being placed in the bull’s back, but it clearly was a form of torture. As much as I wanted to respect the tradition and culture, I would side with those wanting to ban it, or at least change it.

Somehow end the cavaleiros putting the spears in the bull’s back, which in a Portuguese fight is the only actually physically painful part of the fight. Maybe the cavaleiros put tranquilizer darts into the bull, decorated with the same colorful plumage! This may sound crazy, but crazier things have happened. I often believe modifying rather than banning is the way to go with things.

One should remember that if all bullfights were ended, these bulls would not live happy lives, they would not exist. The bulls are literally raised to fight.

There are many other aspects of the fight I haven’t mentioned. The other spectators were a mixed lot.

Right in front of me was a man with a wife and four young children. They were not horrified in the least, as I’m sure our daughter would have been. They must have been to bullfights before. The man seemed to know a lot and would talk to the bull fighters as they waited in the small space between the stands and the arena.

In many ways, it was like a regular sports events in the states. Popcorn was sold and beer. People chatted. When I lived in Spain four decades ago, bullfights were shown on television like baseball or football games, with running sports-style commentary. I found this incredible boring, in contrast to the one live event I saw.

I have not fully described my reaction to my first bullfight in Spain in 1981. I’m a bit hesitant to speak frankly about it, but hey, we’re all friends here, so to speak.

It was in a big bullfighting arena, either in Madrid or Salamanca. I remember that the main bullfighter, the torero, walked into the center of the arena. Then the bull was let out, with no preamble. The animal charged across the dusty arena, aiming right for the torero standing in the center. It was an amazing moment. It looked like the bull would kill the torero for sure. Then the torero swished his cape, and the bull went whizzing by him, without harm.

I had several reactions to this, simultaneously. One, was that this was thrilling.

Two - and here is where it gets hard to describe - I felt this gestalt of emotions toward the bull. One of those was that the bull embodied masculinity, both the admirable and contrary sides of it. This tendency to charge forward, unthinkingly. I felt - and I swear I remember thinking this at the time - the bull in the arena was like giant penis or cock, racing across a dusty field.

Perhaps this is why bullfighting is so ancient, so historic? There are powerful sentiments.

I did not feel all that in Portugal. I did feel this sympathy again toward the bull. Not just pity for its plight, but a kind of larger emotion, a pity for its innate nature that it couldn’t escape. The best course of action for the bull would be to lie down, and refuse to play. But it could no more do this than I could resist looking at my phone again (okay bad comparison). The bull had to charge. It’s all it knew how to do. That’s where my sympathies were drawn.

Conclusions

Today, I noticed more posters going up for more bullfights, in other cities. Summer is bullfighting season. Whatever the overtones, bullfighting is a sport, which people watch for fun and learn about the techniques and finer points of. Which to me, points me toward closing the door on it. Animal torture should not be a sport. If it were all part of some religious ritual, I might be able to defend it. But it’s not that, at least not in the main.

One of my favorite books is The Merchant of Prato, a non fiction book in which the author Iris Origo uses letters and business records to describe the life of a successful merchant in Tuscany, Italy in the 1400s. In one chapter, she mentions there was a festival going on. And that one of the minor festivities was nailing a cat, alive, to a wall, and then seeing who could batter the cat to death with his head, in spite of being scratched.

This threw me out of the book and I realized how different people were in the 1400s. Similar in some ways, very different in others. Luckily, I can’t imagine such a thing taking place today.

Bullfighting is primitive, like this. Whatever its beauty, it’s torturing an animal for sport, and I can’t get behind that.

Two cavaleiros, the horsemen, chat while taking a break from the action. In the foreground, a little girl drinks water. You can see here how small the arena is.

Tummy Time: Black-eyed pea salad

An easy salad that is common here is to take black-eyed peas and mix them with oil, vinegar, chopped onions and lots of chopped cilantro. And some tuna fish or more authentically, flakes of the reconstituted salt cod bacalhau. It’s really good, really filling in a nice way, and a great summertime meal or side dish.