Go to a herniated child, completely naked and in the moonlight, by the cleft of a tree while two officiants recite an ancestral formula. It may seem the first scene of a film or the chapter of a fantastic novel, but nothing is further from reality. Although some magic does, it is a unique tradition in Spain that seeks to heal the little ones on the night of San Juan and the only place where it is celebrated is in a small town of the Five villas: Onsolla wob.
An ancestral rite with deep roots
Snack, procession and dance to celebrate
The municipality will be filled again with magic with the celebration of the Hernad Rite on June 21 in an especially significant edition, since it coincides with the 21th anniversary of its recovery, just the same years as the Sesayo Cultural Association, a group that has promoted its value.
The town of Aragon that seems taken from a fairy tale: walls, collegiate and even vertigo routes
It is an appointment that mixes ethnography, nature and popular belief and that is celebrated in the Mosquera forest, a place fence the municipality loaded with legends and symbolism. To promote participation, this year has been advanced to the Saturday closer to the solstice, instead of being held on the night of June 23. During the ceremony, three girls from the town – a married Jiménez, Daniela Ezquerra Pallas and Lis Martínez Puentes – will pass through the tree trunk.
An ancestral rite with deep roots
This year there will be three herniated girls who will go through the grinding of the tree in the moonlight from the arms of one officer, Pedro, to those of the other officiant, Juan. While a ritual formula is repeated three times: “Take it to me, give it to me Pedro; herniated give it to you, I healthy.” After the passage, the tree opening is covered with mud and sells, with the belief that if the healthy tree, the child will also.
This ritual, which dates back to time immemorial and was practiced in other places until the mid -twentieth century, is currently preserved in Lobera de onsella. Ethnologists such as Ramón Violand I Simorra documented it in 1943, highlighting that it was the only place where it was done with fidelity and solemnity. It was also collected by Eugenio Monesma in a 2004 documentary and the Caro Baroja brothers in 1970.
The Sesayo Cultural Association, with more than 200 partners, has requested that this rite be declared an intangible cultural interest by the Aragon government, although it has not yet received a response. Meanwhile, the neighbors continue to recreate it with faithfulness, even dressed in old clothing to preserve their essence.
Snack, procession and dance to celebrate
The festive day will begin at 7:30 p.m. with a popular snack in the ages of San Juan, where neighbors and visitors will share food in a brotherhood environment. At 22:00 hours the procession will begin to the Mosquera forest, and the ritual will begin at 22:30, with the forest as stage and the moon as the only witness.
The party will close at midnight with a dance in the town square, a way to celebrate life, tradition and community. Lobera de onsella thus becomes, once again, a guardian of one of the most unique and magical ceremonies of the Aragonese calendar.
