When I started the Cercedilla Field Notes series my intention was to publish about the natural diversity of Cercedilla (topics such as birds, trees, and whatnot), but Cercedilla has such interesting cultural aspects as well, I feel I need to expand the series to include them as well and the first post is regarding a traditional Easter week game called calva that is so unique and so Cercedilla.

Basically the game is like horse shoes or corn hole, in that one throws an object at a target. In this case the object is a cylindrical stone (known as the marro or borrillo) and the target is an elbow shaped piece of wood (known as the calva). The objective is to knock the calva over directly without hitting and bouncing on the ground first. This year the championship was held over 4 days (Thursday - Sunday) in the bullring (very cool place and that now the series has expanded its scope I surely will have a future post about it) and we were there on the first day at 16:00 when it started.

The championship is organized by the Sociedad de Mozos (young men’s association) and when we arrived we were the only spectators and we think they were all practicing with the actual competition beginning a bit later. I say “think” as our questions posed to the bartender were not readily answered with sufficient details to clarify our doubts, and when we attempted clarification we sensed we were offending said bartender, raising concern on our part we were risking our future supply of drinks. So we were able to ensure a secure line of beverages, but little in the way of knowledge on any details on why they felt a need to run to retrieve their marro, the point system, or how the actual championship and elimination process works over the 4 days.

I later asked ChatGPT for any of the knowledge it had scraped from the internet and was surprised to see it go directly to a web search to provide this insight:

The calva is believed to have originated from ancient pastoral practices, where shepherds would throw stones at horns or wooden targets for entertainment. Over time, this evolved into the structured game known today. While its popularity has waned in some areas, towns like Cercedilla continue to keep the tradition alive, integrating it into local festivals and community events .​

So I now have a year to find a team (I think I need 3 other males as we did not see any female participants) and a suitable marro to register for next year’s competition!

Thanks for reading and feel free to give feedback or comments via email (andrew@jupiterstation.net).