Municipal authorities attended yesterday the hermitage of El Raiguero Bajo, where the traditional mass and the bidding dance was celebrated, with the Cantos de Ãnimas in charge of the Cuadrilla of this parish, on the occasion of the feast of San Fulgencio.
This activity that is celebrated on the third Sunday of January was attended by the mayor, Andrés García, the first deputy mayor, Juan José Cánovas, and numerous members of the Municipal Corporation, who spoke during the day with neighbors and members of the Cuadrilla of El Raiguero, that animated the festive and convivial day.
The Cuadrilla del Raiguero sang the "aguilando pagao" in which an assistant to those chants, the parishioner, goes to the "script", which is the cantaor of the cuadrilla and pays him an amount of money to sing to someone that he has chosen, which is usually the parishioner who chooses a friend, family member or some pretty girl. These songs end at lunchtime when the whole group of souls will regain strength.
Afterwards, and after lunch, the party continued at the Raiguero Bajo at night with the "pujas dance", which like the morning celebration is a party that dates from very old dates in order to entertain attendees and get money for the hermitage. In this dance there are three figures: The cuadrilla with its cantaor in front and here is called "script", "the innocent" or person in charge of directing the dance and organize the bids and the public.
After the dance begins, some people in the audience address the innocent, in secret, and pay him a sum of money so that two people from the audience, a man and a woman, dance together.
Then, the script communicates to the male chosen by the bidder to dance the latter's bid, and if the chosen one does not want to dance with that woman, or simply does not want to dance with anyone, he asks the script for the amount offered and the bid increases not to do so and start an auction between the two, who wins the most money is willing to pay to get their claims and so on until the end of the party.
