November 15, 2007: Caganer - the defecator in the Catalan Nativity scene

From Wikipedia:

“In Catalonia, as well as in the rest of Spain and in most of Italy and Southern France, the traditional Christmas decoration is a large model of the city of Bethlehem, similar to the Nativity scenes of the English-speaking world, but encompassing the entire city rather than just the typical manger scene. The Catalans have added an extra character that is not found in the manger scenes of any other culture. In addition to Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the Shepherds and company, Catalans have the character known as the Caganer. This extra little character is often tucked away in some corner of the model, typically nowhere near the manger scene, where he is not easily noticed. There is a good reason for his obscure position in the display, for "caganer" translates from Catalan to English as "defecator", and that is exactly what this little statue is doing — defecating.”

You can buy them here – there’s something to please or offend everybody. They have Santa, Buddha, angels, famous sports people, politicians (yep, Dubya is there, but unfortunately not such a good likeness) – all doing a poo for Christmas. Grandmother is doing a whopper.

Mr. Hanky, the Christmas Poo!

"Twas the night before Christmas and out on the lawn, the wisemen were using my kretsch for a john".

This is great. My sis-in-law in NZ will be VERY pleased that I sent her this link.

All you Aussies mess with my head, living in the future and whatnot.

META POST

One consequence of the New Public IotD is that those in far forward time zones will have the edge in posting each day. I wonder if, over time, it will shift the content of the IotD forum, and maybe influence the make-up and nature of the cellar a little, since many Dwellers were drawn in by the IotD, myself included. We shall see, we shall see....

Awww, speaking of poo - you know how snow cones are made?

Attachment 15777

I'm just waiting for someone to 'shop a "Caganator" terminator-like defecation.

Waiting, but hoping NOT!

What does it mean when someone says "meta post" before they post?

"Meta" generally means "referring to itself." (Hence the forum called Cellar Meta which are the topics about the messageboard itself.) Zen was posting about the IOTD in general instead of today's image.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandypossum Grandmother is doing a whopper.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shawnee123 This is great. My sis-in-law in NZ will be VERY pleased that I sent her this link.

META POST!
Wow, I wake up to this! Not the Caganers, I mean about me having dated the thread 15 November. I did hesitate when I dated it, then finally figured I may as well use my own time zone. And then I thought - buggrit - may as well use the date format we usually use as well (15 November 2007) but I see it has been converted back to the US style. By the way, when I posted it, the pictures only showed as an attachment number. Did I do something wrong? And how did it get fixed?

It's all good! I saw what you did there, and fixed it up. The attachments are fine, except that they aren't visible on the blog view, so I put them into a hosted image format. As for the date, we could have a discussion. Either way, thanks for posting an excellent IotD!

UT - have you considered using ISO 8601 standard date format (YYYY-MM-DD)?

November 15, 2007 -> 2007-11-15

This allows you to sort by date easier.

Here's a link where the date format is discussed.

I believe in that standard, and I use it often, but here the date used in a more human way, the way one actually consumes months and days.

People are not sort-friendly, nor should they ever be.

Okay, so the Wikipedia explains *what* the caganer is, but...*why* is this character present? Is it just for a little added humor, or is there some more serious shit involved?

Elspode, it's something to do with bringing the family/village good fortune; bringing fertility to the land in the coming year, and therefore good crops etc. Maybe it has a pagan history to it, and got integrated into the Christian festival. I'm pretty sure some of our more common Xmas rituals are pagan leftovers too, although I can't remember which.

I also found this lovely article from BoingBoing about related pooey Catalan Christmas traditions.

... and the angels s---ing ...

(How much room for angel poo on the tip of a needle?)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad ... the way one actually consumes months and days...

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandypossum SNIP I'm pretty sure some of our more common Xmas rituals are pagan leftovers too, although I can't remember which.

Same shit, different Christmas

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elspode Okay, so the Wikipedia explains *what* the caganer is, but...*why* is this character present? Is it just for a little added humor, or is there some more serious shit involved?

Attachment 16077