Basura: The anatomy of Corridas in a Plaza del Toros

“People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.” —  Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto  

We English speakers use the term bullfight for the Spanish word corrida.  I spent the month of February on Bonaire with the lovely and talented Mrs. Basura.  We had a TV where we stayed.  We had it on twice; once to look for the Academy Awards coverage, which I planned to bravely endure, (we never found it, and I was spared that particular indignity) and on another occasion when, by happenstance, I watched two corridas from Spain, broadcast by a Venezuelan station.

Watching those spectacles brought up memories of the two that I’ve attended, one in Mexico City, and one in Spain.  The one I saw in Mexico was in the largest bullring in the world, and featured matadors brought over from Spain.

Music is played in every Plaza Del Toros, provided by a large band, heavy on the brass.  I find it especially rousing.  I was given the gift, once, of a LP called “Rhythms of the Bull Ring.”  It had been removed from circulation of the main Grand Rapids Public Library music collection; apparently, to my near disbelief, it was not being used much by patrons.  The explanation must be that when patrons had checked it out, they’d been so enamored that they’d recorded it for their personal collections, and had no further need for the library copy.

I will acknowledge, in the interest of accurate reporting, that the music might be a little too rousing for some, as evidenced by Mrs. Basura’s eye-rolling when “Rhythms of the Bullring” came blasting to life on the stereo at our home.  Like the Stones classic album, “Let It Bleed,” this music is meant to played loud.   “Rhythms of the Bullring” is a collection of classical, public domain stuff.  The music has been around for hundreds of years.

The corrida in Torremolinos, Spain, was more like Single A baseball, as opposed to what I’d attended in Mexico City.   The corrida in Ciudad Mexico was major league caliber.

Bullfights are performance, rather than competitions.  The bulls die.  After suffering torture.  One might think this is abominable, but the apologists for the ancient tradition ask us to consider the fate of the fighting bull in comparison to the vast majority of males not selected as worthy of the bullring.  The other guy loses his testicles early.  Such a steer lives on average perhaps 18 months, maybe not that long, before being slaughtered and turned into beef.

The fighting bull lives much longer, usually attaining four to six years.  There is a breed of bulls categorized as fighting bulls in Spain.  To be selected, they must mature to weigh over a thousand pounds.  These bulls live life in a lush pasture.  In Spain, it is required that the conditions mimic what would life would be in the wild, with benefits.  Fighting bulls have a very easy life; verdant pastures, cows available for companionship, the best of veterinary care — until death in the afternoon.

A bull’s pampered life takes a turn for the ugly for his last half an hour or so.  After his death, his body is dragged out by a team of very large, black, blindered horses.  Then to an onsite abattoir for butchering and distribution to the poor.  The rarity of a bull being pardoned and returned to the pasture is so scant as to be statistically insignificant.

The fighting bull keeps his huevos for his entire life, and lives far better and much longer.  Then he has a brutally bad time.

The time in the ring for the fighting bull is bloody and cruel.  Gates are opened, and he runs out of the dimness into a bright ring surrounded by excited spectators.  A heavily padded horse comes into the ring, with a rider – the picador – carrying a lance.  The bull charges and slams into the horse.  The rider uses the lance to weaken the bull’s neck and shoulder muscles, which will cause him to keep his head less upright.

For me, this is the worst part.  The horses often die from their gorings.  The padding is there to mask the wounds and bloodshed of the horse, which was selected as being a tall horse, well past prime, and expendable.  I don’t know if they too are butchered, and distributed to the needy as horsemeat, though perhaps that is likely.  Also, the padding conceals that the horse that comes out for subsequent fights that day may not be the same one was came out for the first bull.

Next come the banderilleros.  These men place banderillos into the neck and shoulder muscles, for that same purpose of inducing the bull to lower his head.  Banderillos look like pointed sticks, sharp and barbed on one end, with brightly colored streamers attached.   The banderilleros are on foot, and take turns dodging the bull and deftly placing the banderillos in the neck and shoulder region.  The bull is huge and strong and fast, but he charges in a straight line,  He cannot change direction quickly; the men have the advantage.

Matadors, and the others, do occasionally get hurt.  With the advent of modern medicine, especially antibiotics, fatalities are far less frequent.  Infections, from horn wounds, killed earlier matadors.  Now antibiotic treatment has greatly reduced matador mortality from infections caused by gorings, (and from venereal disease; in Spain, where matadors are widely revered, syphilis was once called “the matordor’s disease”).

The vast majority of the blood spilled in the ring is that of the bull.  Except, of course, for those horses used by the picadors, although much of that is soaked into the padding.  Matadors wave their red cape, to encourage the bull to charge.  Then, holding the cape toward the bull, they step to the side, letting the bull strike the cape.

This is all done in a stylized way, with movement perhaps akin to high dance.  The bull, frustrated by constantly missing his target, and weakened by loss of blood, slows.  The matador, with proscribed ritual, adds a sword to his cape, makes some more passes, then approaches the bull head on and stabs the bull behind his neck.  Because of the work of the picador and the banderilleros, the bull’s lowered head exposes the area for the sword to best accomplish its purpose.

Picasso did a series of art based on bullfighting.  Hemingway hit it big with his novel Death in the Afternoon.  The fighting bull is considered emblematic of the strength and bravery of the Spanish people.

As I said, I watched a couple of bullfights on TV recently.  A typical corrida will feature six bulls and three matadors.  I watched one, and then another.  The first was very bad.  The matador botched the kill.  The bull was alive, but no longer on his feet.  As the matador watched, and assistant came behind the kneeling bull, and stabbed him in the spinal cord between cervical vertebrae, causing death.

While that bullfight was aesthetically terrible, the next was considered a triumph.  The bull was one aficionados would categorize as a brave bull.  He was big and strong and charged ferociously time and again.  The matador deftly sidestepped, providing his cape to take the bull’s charge.

This matador, in his splendid, flamboyant suit of lights, knew he had a great bull, and made the most of the passes.  He worked very close to the bull.  I thought he was perhaps a little too close.  He was.  The bull hooked him in the near leg, halfway between knee and hip.  He was flipped through the air.  The men, those who had served as the banderilleros, distracted the bull while the matador regained his feet, and received heavy bandaging around the wound.

He very quickly bled through the bandage, but the show must go on, and he continued with smooth, artistic passes, which were probably a bit more cautious than his earlier work.  He limped noticeably.  I can’t say if he embellished his limp, but he’d been gored and thrown, and I thought he deserved some hobble.  The sword came out.  A few more passes, and then the moment of truth; the bull was killed cleanly with one deft thrust.

The crowd loved it.  The cheering was uproarious.  The matador was awarded the very high honor of two ears as trophies.  And the poor were fed.

One of my favorite books as a child was Ferdinand.  It was about a Spanish bull selected to be a fighting bull.  Ferdinand was the bull’s name, and he was more interested in sitting under a cork oak, and smelling the flowers.  Who could blame him?