{"id":33065,"date":"2021-12-21T22:15:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T22:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.blog\/?p=33065"},"modified":"2021-12-21T22:15:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T22:15:00","slug":"setting-up-a-nativity-in-catalonia-dont-forget-the-pooper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2021\/12\/21\/setting-up-a-nativity-in-catalonia-dont-forget-the-pooper\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting up a nativity in Catalonia? Don’t forget the pooper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Since it’s Christmas-time, this is your annual reminder that in Catalonia, a traditional part of the nativity scene for the past couple of hundred years or so is the “caganer,” a small figurine of someone taking a crap. It’s become such a prominent tradition that dignitaries such as former US president Barack Obama have been given figurines of themselves as “caganer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why? Interestingly enough, no one is really sure<\/a>. The following is from Vox:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Though excrement is gross, for peasants and farmers it’s actually important since it serves as fertilizer. Some think the caganer was originally a portent of good harvest and fortune to come, a type of fertility symbol. “There was the legend that if a countryside man did not put a caganer in the nativity scene, he would have a very bad year collecting vegetables,” Joan Liiteras, a caganer connoisseur, told the BBC. In the words of an old Spanish proverb, “Dung is no saint, but where it falls it works miracles.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There might also be theological reasons for the nativity addition. According to Maureen Tilley, professor of Christianity at Fordham University, the caganer is significant because it’s a reminder of the early Christian belief in the Incarnation: that in order to redeem humanity, God had to be fully embodied (incarnated<\/em>) in human flesh. And what’s a more unifying human trait than “Everybody Poops”?<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since it’s Christmas-time, this is your annual reminder that in Catalonia, a traditional part of the nativity scene for the past couple of hundred years or so is the “caganer,” a small figurine of someone taking a crap. It’s become such a prominent tradition that dignitaries such as former US president Barack Obama have been … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Setting up a nativity in Catalonia? Don’t forget the pooper”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}