Istory festival
In the grand religious festivals of Ribadavia in the 17th-19th centuries, it was customary, as in other places, to include secular activities such as dances and pantomimes organized by the Town Council.
Ethnologic Museum
The Festivities of the Virgin of the Portal and the Biblical ‘Istorias’
Around September 8th, the grand festivities of the Virgin of the Portal take place. These celebrations are documented in municipal records from 1693 to 1865. They lasted between four and eight days and drew people from all over the Kingdom of Galicia to the capital of Ribeiro. The council members, riding on horseback, invited everyone to gather in the main square to watch a play referred to as a “historia,” or “istoria,” due to a spelling confusion. In spoken language, it resembled the medieval Galician word “estoria.” The Town Council paid the author and director of the play as well as the actors, reserving the right to select the pieces to be performed. This highlights the political and religious significance of the content of these “istorias.”
Leopoldo Meruéndano, mayor of Ribadavia and local historian born in 1845, recounted that the residents of Ribadavia, instead of the traditional battles between Moors and Christians, occasionally staged the biblical battle between Hebrews and Philistines. The participants dressed as characters from the Old Testament. When Saul, the first king of Israel, fell dead, the director of the pantomime paraphrased King David’s funeral lament: “Weep, daughters of Jerusalem, for the death of your King Saul; cursed be Mount Gilboa, where the Lord’s anointed has fallen.” Despite being persecuted by Saul, David mourned his death (1 Samuel 1:17)—a poignant metaphor for those conversos persecuted by the Inquisition.
The Inquisition was definitively abolished in 1834, which facilitated the recovery of Ribadavia’s Jewish and Judaizing memory through the efforts of 19th-century liberals and republicans. After the revolution of 1868 and the subsequent Restoration, these types of Hebrew “istorias” ceased to be performed, though Meruéndano likely knew of them… until the first “Festa da Istoria” in 1989. Since then, every Saturday before the Virgin of the Portal festivities, the people of Ribadavia dress in historical attire to re-enact the “istoria” of their medieval, Jewish, and anti-Inquisition past.
