The last time I went to Rocio, the car got stuck in a sand drift which had formed across the road. The passengers had to get out and push to get us out of there. Rocio is a tiny village which sits in the middle of the Coto Doñana. Coto translates as nature reserve, and Doña Ana Gómez de Mendoza de Silva y de la Cerda was a medieval noblewoman who had her palace within the present reserve (which still exists). The village of Rocio sits in the middle of the reserve, between the marshes which form the mouth of the Guadalquivir, and the sandy pine forests which surround them. In the sixteenth century, before the river silted up, the billowing sails of the treasure galleons returning to Sevilla from the Indies might have been visible from here - well, you probably would have needed a telescope, and that hadn't been invented yet. The Atlantic Ocean is just a few kilometers away, and the sand drift had been blown from the dunes which lie along the coast. About thirty kilometers north is the village of Palos, where Columbus set sail on his first voyage of discovery in 1492. The reserve is on the flyway for birds migrating between Europe and Africa, and we had come to look at birds, but it was really the wrong time. Just a bunch of Spoonbills.

The village is centered on a baroque-appearing church; La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Rocio. Despite its appearance, the church dates back only to the 1960’s and was built on the site of the earlier church which collapsed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. It houses the venerated image of the virgin of Rocio; a wooden statue which is said to have been found nearby in the thirteenth century.

Every year, at the Christian celebration of Pentecost, which is the seventh sunday after Easter, Rocio and the Virgin are the focus of the Romerio del Rocio, (Pilgrimage of Rocio), said to be “one of the most extraordinary spectacles in Europe.” The pilgrims come from many of the local towns, and even as far away as Gibraltar. The contingents from Sevilla, or Huelva get there by walking on traditional routes through the sandy forests; unfortunately they are now joined by hundreds of thousands of tourists in buses.

The hermandades (brotherhoods) that come from Triana, (the traditonal gitano neighborhood of Sevilla), or perhaps Sanlucar de Barrameda, are accompanied by many young women riding pretty Andalucian horses or riding in decorated carts drawn by oxen. (The brotherhoods are part neighborhood organisations, part religious fraternities, and part drinking clubs.) The streets of Rocio are lined with the hermandad lodges.

The Romerio del Rocio is a popular subject for the letra (lyrics) of the traditional social dance of Sevilla; las Sevillanas. One such tells us that the singer was befriended on the trail by a fellow pilgrim, but then he found that the pilgrim had stolen his girl. The copla (verse) ends somewhat ominously: Señorito, presumio, que la virgen te perdone, pero, vete del Rocio. (OK, guy, I assume that the Virgin forgives you, but I shall see you in Rocio.) After the religious procession in Rocio there is a fair amount of drinking, dancing and carrying on ... and in this case some violence.

Another letra tells us that the singer is from the Triana brotherhood:

Al Rocio con Triana siempre fui
Yo siempre fui con Triana
Con Triana siempre fui
Desde niño siempre fui
Y al llegar al Ajoli
Me bailo por sevillanas

To Rocio with Triana I always went
I always went with Triana
With Triana I always went
Since I was a kid I always went.
And when we arrived at the Ajoli bridge
I danced the sevillanas

The sevillanas are a variation of las seguidillas, one of the oldest documented Spanish dances and the full name should be las seguidillas sevillanas. In Miguel de Cervantes’ 1600 novela; La Gitanilla (the little gypsy girl), on the first page we meet Preciosa, the girl of the title, and she is dancing in the streets of Madrid. She is dancing, he tells us, las seguidillas.

(Las Seguidillas translates as the little things that follow on. Sevillanas is the version from Sevilla, and carries the ‘s’ because it is a plural adjective. In the Andaluz dialect, however, the terminal consonant is usually silent, anyway.)

Since las sevillanas are a couples dance with a fixed choreography, they are not considered a part of the flamenco repertoire, but are often taught to new flamenco students, and sometimes used in theatrical presentations.

Another sevillanas letra is about the sands and the wildflowers encountered on the romerio:

Háblame de las arenas
De la jara y el tomillo
De la jara y el tomillo
Háblame de los arenas

Tell me about the sands
About the rockrose and the thyme
About the rockrose and the thyme
Tell me about the sands

I am thinking of writing another letra about the sands, which will begin:

When you go to Rocio,
watch out for the sand,
the virgin may bless you,
but watch out for the sand.

Have to work on the compas.

The Rough Guide to Andalucia;
Manuel Salado, Sevillanas; Solo Compas, Original Future Sounds, Sevilla; Juan Antonio Fernandez, Doñana, Editorial Oliva, Sevilla,1974

Illustrations from Doñana

 

Flamenquito 2007