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In a country not exactly famed for restraint in its fiestas, Cascamorras celebrates, in a good-natured and barmy way, the centuries-old rivalry of two villages. Legend has it that soon after the Christian re-conquest of Granada, a labourer from Guadix, while demolishing the wall of a mosque, heard the muffled voice of a woman pronounce the words "Guadix and Baza, have mercy on me!" The labourer furiously began clearing away the rubble and soon unearthed a beautiful statue of the Virgin, presumably walled up centuries before by invading Arabs. The statue was proudly adopted by the townsfolk of Baza. Now it just so happened that the people of Guadix weren’t too happy with the statue staying in Baza, after all, it had been found by one of their mozos, or lads. After a meeting of the village elders it was decided that if an Accitano, an inhabitant of Guadix, could enter the town and get as far as the parish church without messing up his clothes, the statue would go to Guadix. Every year since then, the two towns celebrate this momentous event in the most bizarre fashion. A laughing-stock figure known as cascamorras is despatched to Baza, along with a team of representatives, to try to surreptitiously seize the statue. The people of Baza blacken their faces and gleefully await his arrival in the village. Then all hell breaks loose as the batestanos pelt eggs and drench poor old cascamorras with water coloured with a staining vegetable dye. Cascamorras and his retinue are graciously allowed to catch a breather and wash themselves down a couple of times in the village fountain, attempting a few more assaults, but needless to say their mission always ends in abject failure. His only alternative is to return home empty handed, tail between the legs, where he’s subjected to another serious egging by the ‘livid’ Accitanos. Cascamorras is attracting more and more people every year – another fine excuse to get dirty Andalucian style.
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