We found these big gegants during our trip to Barcelona in 1997. They reminded me of 大仙尪仔 that we had for rituals back home at Taiwan. As young children, we always got fascinated and frightened together by them. Catalan is the french name of Catalunya where it used to be an independent kingdom between France and Spain. Today you still see the signs of yellow and red Catalan/Catalunya across both countries. In fact, when we travelled through Perpignan to Barcelona, we even felt the French languages turned gradually to Spanish with the accent changes...More information about Gegants below:
Gegants /Giants and Capgrossos originate from the Corpus Christi processions. Nowadays many Catalan towns have "giants" which are brought out on high days and holidays. There is an annual "giant" meeting in early September every year in which all the local "giants" come to L'Escala for the day and parade around the town.
Ethan became a fan of Chien-Li-Yen (far-seeing) and Shun-Feng-Erh (far-hearing) after the animation movie Matzu. We found this a good opportunity to have some historical education and took him to the Tienhou Temple （天后宮）at Lukang where he took pictures with both "gegants".The parade of gegants of Barcelona. Search "gegants" in Youtube to see more gegants in parade.
The "gegants"(大仙尪仔) at Taiwan during the parade for Matzu. Matzu is the goddess of the sea for Taiwan. She guides and guards the fisherman on the sea, a very important goddess to Taiwanese people. In fact she is as popular as Mother Maria for mediterranean people. Some even said they are related due to 16th~17th Century European settlement in Tawain. Interestingly I also found Taiwanese pronunciation of "Mah-Niu", the original name of Matzu, is very similar to "Maria" and for unclear reason, Matzu was entitled Holy Mother from the Heaven, which is also similar to the status of Mother Maria.
Interestingly, even the instruments used in the Catalan parade is almost the same as what we called Sonar 嗩吶 in Taiwan.
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