The Museum of Chiclana hosts a new 'Guest Piece' on the occasion of International Archives Day. In this sense, the first deputy mayor, Ana Gonzalez, and the municipal delegate of Culture, Susana Rivas, as well as the municipal archivist, Diego Vidal, attended the presentation of this work, which commemorates this event. It is a document that shows the relevance of Corpus Christi in the society of the eighteenth century, the exhibition of the consecrated host and the activities that were carried out and how the people participated in them.
"It is important to emphasize the role of archives as guardians of rights and freedoms, so I invite all people who have some curiosity about our history to visit the Municipal Archives. In addition, they are also guardians of the collective memory of our city," said Ana Gonzalez, who stressed that "in the eighteenth century the feast of Corpus Christi was more important than Easter".
For his part, Diego Vidal has stressed "the importance of the archives, having in our facilities very important documents from 1560 to the present"."Thus, we wanted to pay tribute to the International Day with this document of the Corpus Christi because two very curious characters appear as the papahuevos (cabezuelos) and the vejigueros," said the municipal archivist.
Dated in 1732, it is part of the file related to the expenses generated during the aforementioned festivity, and it lists the concepts and the amount of money that was used for each purpose. In this way, we can read in this description the purchase of wax, of illuminations, of sedges to decorate the streets or of the mats that were placed at the foot of the church pews, for example. Also, the Town Hall was decorated, located at the corner of the Plaza Mayor with the current Arquillo del Reloj street, a building that, by the way, was not yet built.
What is most striking in this document are the data relating to the procession itself, to the Corpus Christi procession, to the elements that made it up. Although it was primordial the exhibition of the monstrance, they emphasize in a specific way in those accounts of expenses, the two giants that were brought from Cadiz, as well as the papahuevos, term almost lost today that makes allusion to the cabezudos habitual in this type of parades that with their dances and mojigangas animated the spectators. The drummers and dancers would provide the music necessary to bring a cheerful and festive character.
The exhibition of this document at the Museum on the occasion of this unique event aims to highlight the importance of historical archives in today's society. Archives are not only the guardians of rights and freedoms, but also of collective and individual memory, of the history of peoples, of their identity. On International Archives Day, all citizens are invited to get to know these institutions and make use of them. In their repositories is kept and preserved a documentary heritage essential to understand what we are and where we want to go.
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