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On the left, the work Plantas medicinales. El Diosc\u00f3rides renovado<\/em> work (1962), by Pius Font i Quer (on the right\u2019s image) \/ Daniel Climent \/ Wikipedia<\/a><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n In southern Valencia, we have recorded it by oral transmission in Altea and Villajoyosa (Marina Baja), and on Tabarca island. Overall, the protocol was to pass the \u201cbroken\u201d creature in a snapped branch opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Tabarca, or \u201cthe Island\u201d for natives, the last woman who practiced this ritual was Mar\u00eda Ripoll. Married to Manuel Parodi (killed by smallpox), she was the great-grandmother of this article’s author, my \u201cnana Mar\u00eda\u201d. The second nuptials took her to El Campello with her first husband’s daughter, who would be my \u201cGranny\u201d Encarnaci\u00f3 Parodi Ripoll. Despite being born in Alicante in 1952, I spent my summer holidays in El Campello. Every day, first thing in the morning, I went to \u201cnana Mar\u00eda\u201d house, in calle del Mar, where there was a fig tree in the backyard. I used to harvest figs, keep them in a carrycot of esparto grass, and cover them with leaves to take them back to our house as a meal dessert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tabarca island panoramic in the 50’s. \/ Alicante vivo<\/a><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Until her long life last moment, \u201cnana Mar\u00eda\u201d had a very clear mind \u2013in addition to a guaranteed audience among my cousins, my sister, and I, to whom she was used to telling a lot of stories and fables. As far as the fig tree is concerned, in more than one session, she told us about her active participation \u2013and protagonism\u2013 in the healing broken children ritual done on the island on the June 23 to 24 night, San Juan Night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Little, more or less, was what she tells me <\/a>about that night. The families having some child in those conditions used to head to the only existing tree on the Island back then (between the 19th and 20th centuries), a fig tree. My nana and a man whose name had to be Juan were the officers<\/a> . They chose an appropriate branch that was cut lengthwise by half distance, then opened and spanned with the help of both hands. Mar\u00eda and Juan stood on both sides of the cleft. They had to alternately pass the child through the branch opening three times in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, I learned that a fig tree was also used for the same purpose in Altea, and that, in other places, the participants\u2019 names had to be Juan and Pedro instead of Juan and Mar\u00eda, and they were helped by the creature\u2019s parents. In this case, the exchange was accompanied by the following dialogue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n -Juan, I give it broken to you<\/p>\n\n\n\n Juan took it and returned it while saying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n -Pedro, I give it back to you<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so up to three times, but to the third Juan answered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n -Pedro, I give it cured to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the child\u2019s parents prayed three Hail Marys and three Glories in honor of the Holy Trinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever formula and liturgy were employed, whoever had directed the process had to joint the two damaged branch parts with a piece of cloth and clay, while, with another piece of the same cloth, he properly girded the child, compressing the inguinal area in order to prevent that part of the guts from coming out again. The belief was that if, after forty days, the damaged branch had healed without drying, the internal wound (hernia) would have healed too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Either way, we\u2019re left with some unanswered questions because the officers are no longer alive. For example, why choose a fig tree, which spills a pungent and irritating latex once damaged? In Tabarca it would have sense: it was the only tree on the island. But, what about Altea? Often, questions generated by ethnobotanical studies have no answer, because the last knowledge repositories of this type have died, lost their memory, or do not want to remember. And it will have to be some very well-founded hypotheses, proper comparisons, or indirect sources that bring us closer to some sensible response. The case of these inconclusive questions regarding the ritual’s fig tree would be a good example in order to stress the need to address, expose and show the shortcomings in ethnobotanical research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even so, and as we will see, this ritual is in a similar way celebrated also in other places such as, for example, Villajoyosa and Manacor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is other version I heard from my father-in law, Juame Soler Soriano, from Villajoyosa, he also recorded it in his book Des del cant\u00f3 d\u2019El Mercantil<\/em> (1995).<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the left, Des del cant\u00f3 d\u2019El Mercantil<\/em> book\u2019s cover, by Jaume Soler Soriano. On the right, Era Soler laction, Vialljoyosa (Alicante), Google Maps. \/ Daniel Climent \/ Googlemaps<\/a><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n In the book, he says that next to the Vila, or Amad\u00f2rio, river and nearby the Llinares mill of the known as Era Soler district, had appeared \u2013many, many years ago\u2013 a unique bush in the region: a crack willow. Healing virtues were attributed to it on the most special night of the year, San Juan Night. It likely was a Salix fragilis<\/em>, with whose fine branches basketry objects can be made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Salix fragilis. \/ Willow – Wikipedia<\/a><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n For decades, mothers with broken children came to visit the crack willow from all over the Marina Baja region in order to carry out the San Juan Night ritual. There were people from neighboring Orxeta, Sella; Aig\u00fces, on the other side of Cabe\u00e7\u00f3 d\u2019Or through the Mola ravine; and even wealthy people from Alicante and Elche riding luxurious carts with a broken son in it. This influx allowed to set up a small trade fair, in the Jeroni Zaragoza eras, where traditional products such as muffins and to\u00f1as, brown coca and rolls, mantecados, mistelas, medicinal herbs, etc. were sold. At dusk, old things and dry bushes were collected to set them on the San Juan bonfire, around which it was customary to sing and dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gathered in the fire\u2019s light they took out from the carrycots their prepared dinner: rabbit with tomato, pepper with sangatxo (the black part of the bluefish meat: tuna, frigate tuna, bonito), potato and onion tortilla, brine, xafaes <\/em>(crushed) and del cuquello olives… while the wine barrel were passing by among the diners. After dinner, the improvised barbed orchestra tuned the instruments and began to liven up the party encouraging them to dance \u2013something mainly done by the younger and unmarried, while the older ones, sittings in the traditional cadires de bova<\/a> (vogue chairs), enjoyed watching them dance and remembering with nostalgia the times when they did it too\u2026 or the chance to do it they lost. All this while talking about harvests, water, or weather. Between the pieces, the soul was filled with sweets or spirits’ sips sweetened with anise (Pimpinella anisum<\/em>), els anisats<\/a> \u2013emulsified in water in order to form the so-called “nuvolets“<\/em>. And people coming from Elche would surely sing allusive drink-related songs, such as \u201cDe l\u2019aigua dol\u00e7a venim<\/a>\u201d (we come from sweet water).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heal the broken<\/em> child<\/p><\/h2>\n\n\n\n At midnight, the mothers with broken<\/em> children went to the Llinares mill, next to which grew the miraculous crack willow. Those in charge of the ceremony<\/a> made a longitudinal cut in one of the crack willow branches in order to be able to separate it into two parts, leaving a buttonhole through which passed the creature<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crack willow ritual in Manacor (Mallorca). Although the \u201ccrack willow\u201d name remains, it is not really a Salix<\/em>, but a Buddleja madagascariensis<\/a><\/em>, a shrub introduced in Mallorca in relatively recent times. It would be a kind of functional lexicalization, in which the so-called \u201ccrack willow\u201d ritual Is applied to another plant to which, despite not really being any Salix<\/em>, the same property is attributed. \/ Diari de Mallorca<\/a><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Once reached the bush and placed in a circle, they began the liturgy of passing the child through the cuts made in the crack willow branches while repeating the magic formula three times:<\/p>\n\n\n\n -Here it is, Juan<\/p>\n\n\n\n -Here it is, Mar\u00eda<\/p>\n\n\n\n -Those who have got \u00abtrencaura<\/em>\u00bb (hernia)<\/p>\n\n\n\n -May the one who heals everything heal your \u00abtrencaura<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crack willow ritual \/ Diari de Mallorca<\/a><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n A ritual\u2019s moment in which the child is passed between the two parts of the branch. Then, they will be joined again and covered with mud. \/ Diari de Mallorca<\/a><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Tabarca fig tree<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Villajoyosa Crack Willow<\/h2>\n\n\n\n