Tiempo para la burla obsceno-escatológica. Las sandingas: fiesta, sexualidad e inversión del orden en un pueblo de Andalucía / Time for Obscene-Scatological Jeer. Sandingas: Festival, Sex and Inversion of Order in an Andalusian Village (Spain)

Abstract

During the Candlemas feast (February 2), the inhabitants of La Puebla de los Infantes (Seville, Andalusia, Spain) celebrate around olive bonfires (candelas­), in which they burn dummies (muñecos) and original satiric sceneries, while men and women sing sandingas, a type of eminently burlesque song in which the obscene and the scatological remarks are considered the “salt and pepper” of the festivity. Linking these carnivalesque customs to the liminal time of festive turbulence that precedes the beginning of spring, this paper intends to understand the logic of symbolic degradation and cosmic renovation that underlies the piquant songs. With these, the inhabitants of La Puebla —and very particularly women— amuse themselves satirizing the mother-in-law, the neighbor, but especially the opposite sex, in a symbolic battle that emphasizes the archaic apotropaic sense of laughter and obscenity, as well as the belief in the fertilizing power that should be born from the struggle of opposite but complementary forces.