This is as true of the folklore of Spain as anywhere else. Indeed, the richly diverse strands of Spanish history have provided fertile ground for the evolution of folklore that merges the sacred and the profane and draws that on both its pagan and its Christian past. There are many manifestations, of course, but an area of the country that has a particularly rich heritage of folklore are the Catalan provinces of Catalonia and Valencia. Another reason for choosing this area of the country is that the beginning of September sees a number of festivals incorporating the folk arts of Castell-building and the wonderfully named Muixeranga.

A castell (“castle” in Catalan)is a human tower – of up to 10 “storeys”, or people-height, tall – and they are traditionally “built” during festivals throughout Catalonia where competing teams (colles castelleres) meet to try to build the most impressive towers they can. This tradition – or demonstration of physical folk art – is believed to have originated in Valls, near the city of Tarragona in the southern part of Catalonia, towards the end of the 18^th Century. The tradition became very popular and later spread to other parts of Catalonia and even reached Mallorca. It is generally reckoned that the best and most skilled castelleros are still found in and around Tarragona.

The aim, of course, is to build the castell as high as possible and then stage an orderly dismantling of the human pyramid. The mission has been accomplished when everyone has climbed into place, the enxanetaenxaneta must then climb down the other side of the castell

(the “last one”) has climbed to the very top and raises one hand with four fingers held high (and said to symbolise the stripes of the Catalan flag). The and the rest of the team then also comes down safely.

Special terms are given to each level of the structure, including the all-important base (the pinya), which serves as the broad foundation for the structure of bodies above and acts as a human safety net for any members of the team unlucky enough to fall from the shoulders of the person below.

All well and good, you may say, and impressive as it might be to create a human pyramid ten people tall, what exactly is the point of it all? Although some could – and do – argue that it all helps to instil qualities of strength, balance, courage and planning, the castell is a good example of tradition and folklore precisely because there is no real point in the exercise. It’s done because it’s done, and has been done the year before and the year before that. Any better reason that might once have existed is now well and truly lost in the mists of time.

It’s almost as true of a closely-related and very similar activity called la ball de la moixiganga or simply moixiganga. But here the action often takes on a more spiritual or religious significance, very often with scenes depicting the Passion of Christ (again created from human towers of up to a hundred men, women and children in each towering, “sculpture”). Despite the explicitly Christian scenes depicted, it is interesting that one translation of the Catalan moixiganga is the English “mummer”, whose folk dances continue to blend the sacred and profane, the fight between good and evil and the crusader against the Saracen. The similarity between the moixiganga and the mummer is an interesting confluence of a common European heritage, perhaps.

In the Catalan town of Vilafranca del Penedès the first recorded performance of the moixiganga was in 1713, some 13 years after the relics of the community’s patron saint, Saint Felix, arrived in the town. The performances lapsed between 1905 until their revival again in 1985 – thanks in no small part to the suspicion with which the Francoist government viewed anything other than orthodox, established Catholic ritual.

In the moixiganga, therefore, the mission appears to be about more than simply building a human tower higher than the competing teams. There are messages to be conveyed (again, as in the “miracle” plays of medieval England) and the towers themselves take on more (intended and deliberate) movement than the more popular castell.

But the moixiganga does also feature tower-building – of heavyweights who form a base of concentric human circles that supports a narrowing tower of younger and more lightweight members. As in castell-building, the last to climb the wavering tower is a young child, often no more than five or six years old, who clambers up the backs of the rest of the crew to stand at the top. In the procession that winds through the centre of Vilafranca del Penedès, the human tower moves forward several yards or even rotates on its axis before dismantling (or collapsing).

For the social theorists, or those who want to endow this carnival-making with a greater sense of purpose, the towers form a striking image of communal interdependence, involving male and female, young and old, in a complex series of movements in which there is no room for individual flamboyance or expression and in which each part must depend on all the others. To play your part in the muixiganga is to submit to the good order of the whole. And yet the goal of all this order is a striking image of the reversal of conventional social hierarchy: the tower is supported on the backs of adult males hidden in the base and at its visible pinnacle is a small child, often female.