#amposta

A group of weeders standing in a rice field in Amposta (Terres de l'Ebre, Catalonia). I couldn't find the date but it's most likely from the 1920s-1940s. Photo from Museu de les Terres de l'Ebre.

This photo is interesting because it shows the traditional clothes that women from the Ebro Delta wore until the 20th century. It's very different from the image most people think of when we imagine "traditional women's clothes". The truth is that many countries (including ours when it comes to the pubilla and hereu outfit) fixed their "national costume" in the early 1900s, taking the upper class formal clothes as "the traditional clothes". However, that is not representative of the country in general, particularly of the working classes, nor of the many local variations that are always found around a country.

These weeders are wearing saragüells, which are a kind of tight-fitting trousers made of a light material that can dry easily. On top of this trousers, they wore a skirt that they rolled up to their waist. The reason behind this being the usual work clothes for women in the Ebro Delta area is because it's an area where, since 1860, most people worked in the agriculture of rice. Rice is grown in water, so they worked with their feet and lower part of legs in the water. (Ah, and by the way, yes, of course most women historically worked outside of the home, too.)

Now, here's why I find this interesting: the various dictatorships of Spain who called themselves "traditionalist" (Primo de Rivera's and Franco's) and their followers for many years forbid women from wearing trousers in many ambits or raged against women in trousers for being immoral. How is it possible that "traditionalists" said that, when there are traditional/historical clothes for women that include trousers? Don't "traditionalists" stand for keeping traditions? Well, let's hear the words of one of the movement's founders:

“For the authentic revolutionary conservative, what really counts is to be faithful not to past forms and institutions, but rather to principles of which such forms and institutions have been particular expressions, adequate for a specific period of time and in a specific geographical area.” Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist.

This was said by Julius Evola (1898-1974), one of the ideologues of traditionalism. What he's saying here is that the point of traditionalism is not to be faithful to what the past or the tradition really was like; the point of traditionalism is to have some a priori beliefs and then look back in history and cherry-pick some places where that was the case. History is long and includes millennia of different cultures, you're bound to find pretty much everything at some point, and easily those ideas that have been the status quo in the immediate previous years (which is what they defend). This is why traditionalists defend that European powers are the heirs of Imperial Rome and have claims on other countries as such, but consider things that were completely normal in Ancient Roman culture (homosexuality, multi-racial cities, racial mixing) are not part of what they defend. It was never about following a real tradition or history, that was just an excuse.

These so-called "traditionalist" governments also pick one singular culture from the whole area instead of allowing each area to continue their traditional way of life. In the case of the Spanish dictatorships, exterminating the traditional customs, languages and cultural elements of the nations whose land Spain occupies (Catalans, Basques, Galicians, Aranese...) was a priority. They banned the languages, holidays, songs, and more. At the same time, they imposed one singular language (Spanish), religion (Catholicism), and the holidays, traditions (like bull-fighting), music, etc. of the Spanish with an emphasis on folklore from Andalusia (Southern Spain).

As a historian, it saddens me when people believe that what traditionalists say is really what the past was like, and nowhere do I see more lies than in what the "tradwife" movement have been led to believe. The real past was so much more interesting.

Como todos los años, hemos pasado un finde en Amposta con nuestros amigos. Muy muy recomendable si quereis pasar un finde relajado rodeado de campos de arroz y buena gastronomía.

Tomarse un vermut en el embarcadero de Amposta con vistas al puente es un must y esto es posible en la Botiga del riu.

Y en una visita con niños no os podéis perder el restaurante Temps de Terra, con lago, patos, ocas y tortugas, granja con burros, caballos, ovejas, cabras y pavos reales y un parque infantil con tiendas tipis y montañas de arena que consiguen entretener a los niños mientras los padres se toman el aperitivo. Por no hablar de la comida, muy buena, de Km 0 y mucha cantidad!!!

"L'insoutenable légèreté de l'étai" XXV

Punta de la Banya, Amposta, Tarragona, Espagne

Este fin de semanatuve el placer de inaugurar junto a Isabel Cano en Amposta la exposición fija de RetroGaming Ladies que se puede visitar de forma gratuita hasta enero. 

Os dejo enlace para más información: https://www.vag.cat/ca/exposicions/activitat/retrogaming-ladies

The face of the architect ~ F. J. Martí Ferré

Apartment building at Carrer Sant Josep Amposta, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain; 1970’s

Ramon Laso Moreno, also known as the Amposta Parricide and the Els Pallaresos Killer is a Spanish serial killer who was convicted for the murders of his 1st wife & 6-year-old son as well as the later murders of his 2nd wife and brother-in-law. His 2nd murder conviction is the first in Spanish history without a confession, murder weapon, body, or any remains. Laso currently disputes the validity of other forensic evidence & continues to maintain his innocence. He was born in Jaen, Spain in 1955, but spent most of his life in Tarragona province. In the ‘80s Laso lived with his wife Dolors Camacho & their 2 children in Amposta. He and his brother-in-law Miguel Camacho ran a brothel from a farm, with Laso acting as the pimp/recruiter for the prostitutes. This duo split up after Laso & Camacho argued & Laso destroyed several mirrors, lights, and other items. On June 9, 1988, Laso’s wife was found, having been beheaded by a train in Amposta Station just after midnight. The death was considered a suicide despite Camacho’s suspicions. 9 months later Laso’s car fell off a 20-meter cliff whilst transporting Laso and his 6-year-old son. Laso was pretty much unharmed, despite falling off the cliff and lying unconscious for 15 minutes, while his son was killed & incinerated. The car insurance gave Laso 3.5 million pesetas which he used to open a video rental shop. Miguel Camacho, however, believed that he planned to kill the family 1 by 1 & hired a private investigator to find proof that Laso killed his wife & son. The PI managed to prove that Laso had strangled his wife, and that she was already deceased when the train decapitated her. One indicator of this was the fact that Camacho hadn’t lifted her head when the train approached, which would be instinctual. He also set his car on fire himself, burning his own child. Laso gave multiple different stories to police, and while admitting to staging both “accidents”, he never actually confessed to murder. He was convicted and sentenced to 56 years in prison for both murders in 1993 but was parole in 1999, due to good behaviour while incarcerated.

Following his release from prison Laso worked as an undertaker, a bartender and an ambulance driver. He remarried, to Julie Lamas, a Tarragona building caretaker who knew nothing of his criminal past. Despite being newly married, Laso had affairs with other women – including her own sister, Mercedes, who was married to Maurici Font. Laso proposed to Mercedes multiple times but she refused to leave her husband. On March 29, 2009, Laso met Font in an orchard they both worked in – after this meeting, Laso picked up his wife from work...but neither Font nor Lamas were ever seen again. Font would usually pick Mercedes up from the hospital where she worked, but that day he didn’t show – Laso did. He told her that Font had been sleeping with his sister-in-law and the pair had run away together. At this point, Laso was sweaty, lethargic, had lost his glasses & had a scratch on his face, making Mercedes suspicious. The pair went to the homes of both, where she saw that most of their belongings were still where they should be, including Julia’s car. Mercedes suggested reporting their disappearances to the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalonian police), but Laso talked her out of it. However, the next day Mercedes told a friend that the pair were missing and that she believed Laso was involved. Laso was interviewed by the Mossos several times – he was always cooperative but accused Mercedes of being a liar. In one interrogation Laso said that Font had called his mother from Morella, Castellon, where Julia’s son from a previous marriage lived, telling her not to worry, that they were starting a new life together and Julia had a new job in a retirement home. Julia’s son would later testify that Laso had gone to Morella to try and talk to him, but that he had ignored him. Not long after, “Font” called the offices of the Diari de Tarragona from Morella, repeating his story and adding the fact that he had left in disgust after finding out his wife was cheating, and requested that the investigation be closed. He proceeded to send a fax to the Social Security office to request that his monthly pension be put in a new bank account; the fax included a copy of Font’s National Identity Document, but the signature that came with it was a fake. Laso also tried to steal Julia Lamas’ job as the building caretaker.