Wooly Baaad Protest
The cling of bells and the click of hooves—the sound of some 1,200 sheep and 200 red goats—replaced the normal noise of cars, trucks, and motorcycles on Madrid’s streets on Sunday. The animals were accompanied by their owners and shepherds, along with friends and supporters wearing traditional dress, entertaining the crowds with the rare spectacle. The shepherds had brought their sheep and goats down from the Leonese Mountains, some 500 kilometers north of Madrid, to reclaim their mediaeval right of passage through the metropolis and remind modern Spain that they are the bearers of a with benefits not easily replaced.
Except for areas in the very north of Scandinavia, Spain is the only country in Europe that has preserved a meaningful degree of the practice of the long-distance herding of cattle, and, along with it, the needed transhumance routes. In Spain, these cross-country highways for animals, called cañadas, date back to the thirteenth century. In fact, the sheep and goat herders who walked through the gates of the city on Sunday, are members of the national guild of sheep herders created by the same king in 1273. Until modern times, it was one of the most important guilds in Spain and had its own office in the Spanish capital long before the skyscrapers of capitalism lined the Castellana—the wide thoroughfare of Madrid’s financial district which is also, incidentally, part of the mediaeval cañadathat runs through the city.
These routes managed to be used and preserved for over 700 years but were on the verge of disappearing in the 1990s. In 1994, sheep herders protested in front of Spain’s parliament to claim their ancient rights and the passage of the Ley de Vias Pecuarias (the law of cattle routes), the protection of the cañadas, and the legal right to use them. The protest led, in 1997, to the now-annual event. Since then, Spain’s cañadas have also been declared part of Europe’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Last Sunday, the shepherds and their sheep moved north from the Casa del Campo to the City Hall. In a symbolic act, the herders paid the mayor the maravedis, an old Spanish coin, owed to the city for the use of its streets, an arrangement in force since 1418. Despite its festive, symbolic nature, the event is still, in essence, a protest. José Delgado, a sheep farmer from Palencia, told the Spanish newspaper ABC that “one day it is a show, but they are taking away our way of life.”
Sheepish Humor
How do you milk sheep?
Bring out a new iPhone and charge $1500 for it.
What do you call a flock of sheep tumbling down a hill?
A lambslide.
A paddy comes upon his neighbor carrying a sheep under each arm.
– You gonna shear’em?
– No, they’re both for me.
I’ve got a sheepdog. He doesn’t have fleas, he has got moths.
June 19th Birthdays
1979 – Zoe Saldana, 1968 – Mia Sara, 1954 – Kathleen Turner, 1962 – Paula Abdul
1964 – Boris Johnson, 1978 – Dirk Nowitzki, 1690 – Gian Gianniotti, 1947 – Salman Rushdie