Spaniards Toss Turnips at Jarramplas Festival
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PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images(PIORNAL, Spain) — The town of Piornal, Spain, is home to one of the country’s most offbeat traditions — an annual celebration that involves throwing turnips at a man in a devil’s costume.
The Jarramplas Festival — named for a character in a costume adorned with colorful strips of fabric — takes place every year in Piornal, southwestern Spain. The town’s small population joins together to throw the purple tubers at the embodiment of the devil-masked, drum-beating figure.
Jarramplas is vilified, but his story is a bit murky; The Atlantic reports that the centuries-old tradition involves Jarramplas as a cattle thief, worthy of ridicule by his agrarian neighbors.
There are also ties to the Greek myth of Hercules and Cacus, the latter a cattle thief who found himself at the mercy of Hercules’ wrath when he learned that Cacus had stolen livestock as he slept.
Though the origins aren’t certain, the timing of the tradition is: Jarramplas is pelted by turnips as he walks about town each Jan. 20, the day of the Feast of St. Sebastian.
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