- Com que t'has aixecat tard, ja no has vist l'home dels nassos! (As you have got up late, you haven't seen "l'home dels nassos")
When I was a child every 31st December my mother would give us her good morning with one of these two sentences -in other words, she would urge us to get up early or she would reprimand us for having got up late. She always said she had seen l'home dels nassos when she had gone out to buy bread and she wanted us to see him too. Literally, l'home dels nassos is "the man of the noses" and he has as many noses as days the year has.
I desperately wanted to see a man with 365 (or 366) noses on the face but the truth is that I never saw him. I thought my mother was lucky and every year I said the following year I would get up earlier so I could see him, but was never successful.
Then I learnt the trick: "l'home dels nassos té tants nassos com dies té l'any" (the man of the noses has as many noses as days the year has). How many days does the year have? On December 31st, the year has only one day, as there is only one day left! Everyone is l'home dels nassos the last day of the year!
In some cities, l'home dels nassos is represented as a capgròs (a papier-maché figure which has a big charictaturesque head with a big nose).
Different representations of l'home dels nassos, from creativity to tradition
(the third from the left is a capgròs)
(the third from the left is a capgròs)
Note: this tradition is also found in other regions of Spain
like La Rioja, Teruel, Navarra, Burgos and Álava.
like La Rioja, Teruel, Navarra, Burgos and Álava.
1 comentari:
That's really interesting, especially when it turns out that everyone turns out to be l'home dels nassos.
Publica un comentari a l'entrada