... is a sports spectacle involving conflict
between a bull and one or more contestants,
fought in an outdoor arena according to
certain rules and procedures. Traditionally,
the bullfight is a combination of ritual
and mortal combat, with an attempt, at the
risk of the principal contestant’s
life, to maneuver a bull gracefully and
kill it in a manner both brave and aesthetically
unrepugnant. Although confined largely to
Spain and to Spanish-speaking countries
of the western hemisphere (especially Mexico),
such contests take place also in southern
France and in Portugal.
In Spanish-speaking countries
the bullfight is known as la fiesta brava
(“the brave festival”) or la
corrida de toros (“the running of
the bulls”). The corrida, as it is
popularly known, takes place before crowds
of enthusiasts, often numbering many thousands.
Often termed “indefensible
but irresistible,” the spectacle of
bullfighting has existed in one form or
another since ancient days. For example,
a contest of some sort is depicted in a
wall painting unearthed at Knossos in Crete,
dating from about 1500 bc. It shows male
and female acrobats confronting a bull,
grabbing its horns as it charges, and vaulting
over its back in what is known as bull leaping.
Bullfights were popular
spectacles in ancient Rome, but it was in
the Iberian Peninsula that these contests
were fully developed. The Moors from North
Africa who overran Andalusia in ad 711 changed
bullfighting significantly from the brutish,
formless spectacle practiced by the conquered
Visigoths to a ritualistic occasion observed
in connection with feast days, on which
the conquering Moors, mounted on highly
trained horses, confronted and killed the
bulls.
As bullfighting developed,
the men on foot, who by their capework aided
the horsemen in positioning the bulls, began
to draw more attention from the crowd, and
the modern corrida began to take form. Today
the bullfight is much the same as it has
been since about 1726, when Francisco Romero
(1698–1763) of Ronda, Spain, introduced
the estoque (the sword) and the muleta (the
small, more easily wielded worsted cape
used in the last part of the fight).
Six bulls, to be killed
by three matadors, are usually required
for one afternoon’s corrida, and each
bullfight lasts about 15 minutes. At the
appointed time, generally five o’clock,
the three matadors, each followed by their
assistants, the banderilleros and the picadors,
march into the ring to the accompaniment
of traditional paso doble (“march
rhythm”) music. The matadors (the
term toreador, popularized by the French
opera Carmen, is erroneous usage) are the
stars of the show and can be paid as high
as the equivalent of $25,000 per corrida.
They wear a distinctive costume, consisting
of a silk jacket heavily embroidered in
gold, skintight pants, and a montera (a
bicorne hat). A traje de luces (“suit
of lights”), as it is known, can cost
several thousand dollars; a top matador
must have at least six of them a season.
When a bull first comes
into the arena out of the toril, or bull
pen gate, the matador greets it with a series
of maneuvers, or passes, with a large cape;
these passes are usually verónicas,
the basic cape maneuver (named for the woman
who held out a cloth to Christ on his way
to the crucifixion).
The amount of applause
the matador receives is based on his proximity
to the horns of the bull, his tranquillity
in the face of danger, and his grace in
swinging the cape in front of an infuriated
animal weighing more than 460 kg (more than
1000 lb). The bull instinctively goes for
the cloth because it is a large, moving
target, not because of its color; bulls
are color-blind and charge just as readily
at the inside of the cape, which is yellow.
Fighting bulls charge
instantly at anything that moves because
of their natural instinct and centuries
of special breeding. Unlike domestic bulls,
they do not have to be trained to charge,
nor are they starved or tortured to make
them savage. Those animals selected for
the corrida are allowed to live a year longer
than those assigned to the slaughter house.
Bulls to be fought by novilleros (“beginners”)
are supposed to be three years old and those
fought by full matadors are supposed to
be at least four.
The second part of the
corrida consists of the work of the picadors,
bearing lances and mounted on horses (padded
in compliance with a ruling passed in 1930
and therefore rarely injured). The picadors
wear flat-brimmed, beige felt hats called
castoreños, silver-embroidered jackets,
chamois trousers, and steel leg armor. After
three lancings or less, depending on the
judgment of the president of the corrida
for that day, a trumpet blows, and the banderilleros,
working on foot, advance to place their
banderillas (brightly adorned, barbed sticks)
in the bull’s shoulders in order to
lower its head for the eventual kill. They
wear costumes similar to those of their
matadors but their jackets and pants are
embroidered in silver.
After the placing of
the banderillas, a trumpet sounds signaling
the last phase of the fight. Although the
bull has been weakened and slowed, it has
also become warier during the course of
the fight, sensing that behind the cape
is its true enemy; most gorings occur at
this time. The serge cloth of the muleta
is draped over the estoque, and the matador
begins what is called the faena, the last
act of the bullfight. The aficionados (ardent
fans) study the matador’s every move,
the balletlike passes practiced since childhood.
(Most matadors come from bullfighting families
and learn their art when very young.) As
with every maneuver in the ring, the emphasis
is on the ability to increase but control
the personal danger, maintaining the balance
between suicide and mere survival. In other
words, the real contest is not between the
matador and an animal; it is the matador’s
internal struggle.
The basic muleta passes
are the trincherazo, generally done with
one knee on the ground and at the beginning
of the faena; the pase de la firma, simply
moving the cloth in front of the bull’s
nose while the fighter remains motionless;
the manoletina, a pass invented by the great
Spanish matador Manolete (Manuel Laureano
Rodríguez Sánchez, 1917–47),
where the muleta is held behind the body;
and the natural, a pass in which danger
to the matador is increased by taking the
sword out of the muleta, thereby reducing
the target size and tempting the bull to
charge a larger object—the bullfighter.
After several minutes
spent in making these passes, wherein the
matador tries to stimulate the excitement
of the crowd by working closer and closer
to the horns, the fighter takes the sword
and lines up the bull for the kill. The
blade must go between the shoulder blades;
because the space between them is very small,
it is imperative that the front feet of
the bull be together as the matador hurtles
over the horns. The kill, properly done
by aiming straight over the bull’s
horns and plunging the sword between its
withers into the aorta region, requires
discipline, training, and raw courage; for
this reason it is known as the “moment
of truth.”
Bullfighting today is
big business for the successful few who
make it to the top. Such immortals as the
Spanish fighters Juan Belmonte (1892–1962)
and El Cordobés (Manuel Benítez
Pérez, 1936?–) were multimillionaires,
but paid for their fame with many severe
horn wounds; Joselito (José Gómez,
1895–1920), Manolete, and dozens of
others paid with their lives. Bullfighters
generally expect to receive at least one
goring a season. A star matador will fight
as many as 100 corridas a year. The great
Mexican matador Carlos Arruza (Carlos Ruiz
Camino, 1920–66) once fought 33 times
in a single month.
Ranking the great matadors
is highly subjective. Most aficionados would
agree, however, that the following names
must be included in any list of the modern
greats: Rodolfo Gaona (1888–1978),
Armillita (Fermín Espinosa, 1911–80),
and Arruza, of Mexico; and Belmonte, Manolete,
and Antonio Ordóñez (1932–98)
of Spain. Few South Americans have made
an impact on the international bullfighting
world. Although several North Americans
have attempted careers as matadors, only
Sidney Franklin (1903–76) and John
Fulton Short (1933– ) managed to “take
the alternative,” that is, to pass
the requirements for professional status
and to be accepted as full matadors in a
special ceremony.
Many women also have
been bullfighters, including the American
Patricia McCormick (1934– ); the greatest,
however, was Conchita Cintrón (1921–
), who fought in Spain and Latin America
during the 1940s with great success. The
most successful matadora in recent years
is Spain’s Maribel Atienzar (1959?–
).
Although Spain’s
bullfighting season is in the spring and
summer, Mexico’s main season is in
the winter, and Peru’s is in the fall.
Bullfights can also be seen in Venezuela,
Colombia, and southern France at various
times of the year, usually on Sundays and
feast days. In Portugal the costume and
ceremony are the same as in Spain, with
the important difference that the bull is
not killed in the arena in front of the
spectators but afterward, in the slaughterhouse.
Another feature of the Portuguese version
is el rejoneo (in effect, a matador on horseback),
a skilled rider astride a highly trained
horse, who avoids the bull’s charges
while placing the banderillas in the bull’s
withers. This spectacle is appreciated by
tourists because the horses, often valued
at the equivalent of about $40,000 each,
are rarely injured.
Artists have always been
attracted to la fiesta brava. The Spanish
artist Francisco Goya did dozens of etchings
of bullfight scenes in his La tauromaquia
series, and both the French painter Édouard
Manet and Pablo Picasso were fascinated
by the personages and ritual of the corrida.
The descriptions of bullfighting
in the novel Blood and Sand (1908; trans.
1913), by the Spanish writer Vicente Blasco
Ibáñez, and in the documentary
study Death in the Afternoon (1932), by
the American novelist Ernest Hemingway,
have had the greatest impact on the non-Latin
world. B.Co., BARNABY CONRAD, B.A.
_______________________________
For further
information on this topic, see the Bibliography,
section 750. Bullfighting.
An
article from Funk & Wagnalls® New
Encyclopedia. © 2005 World Almanac
Education Group. A WRC Media Company. All
rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted
by written agreement, uses of the work inconsistent
with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright
and related laws are prohibited.
An article
from Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia.
© 2005 World Almanac Education Group.
A WRC Media Company. All rights reserved.
Except as otherwise permitted by written
agreement, uses of the work inconsistent
with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright
and related laws are prohibited.
___________________________________________
Bibliography,
taken from HistoryChannel.com
750. Bullfighting
Collins,
Larry and Lapierre, Dominique. Or I’ll
Dress You in Mourning. Simon & Schuster,
1968. Combines social history of Spain,
a biography of matador Manuel Benitez, and
politics of the arena.
Hemingway,
Ernest. The Dangerous Summer. Macmillan,
1986. Chronicle of Spain, bullfighting,
rival matadors Dominguin and Ordóñez
(whose father appeared in Death in the Afternoon).
Mitchell,
Timothy. Blood Sport. Pennsylvania, 1991.
“A social history of Spanish Bullfighting”
(subtitle); illustrated.
O’Dwyer,
James F. Art of the Matador. A. H. Clark,
1988. Illustrated look at the bullfighter’s
technique.
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