Artesia News

Portuguese Celebrate Festa da Bola in Artesia

 

Memorial Day weekend, 2005 – The Portuguese D.E.S. Hall gave Artesia’s residents an exciting weekend with its “Festa da Bola”, consisting of a soccer tournament, bullfight, food, drink, music, and dancing. One soccer team came all the way from the city of Altares, on the island of Terceires in the Azores, to play in the tournament. The San Jose team won the tournament.

Bullfighters Vitor Ribeiro and Manuel Carreia showed the crowd their skills and received plenty of fanfare from bullfighting fans and even a few adoring women, who threw flowers and even their jackets to the welcome hands of the horse riding matadors. One particular horse actually danced to the music being played by the Artesia Philharmonic Band, then bowed to the crowd.

After the tournaments and Saturday’s bullfight, everyone got together and danced the night away to live music.

Earlier in the week, on May 25, Artesia welcomed the city of Altares’ soccer team from Azores with a luncheon courtesy of councilmember John Martins.

The Altares team arrived Sunday, May 22, and has been visiting various tourist attractions in the Los Angeles/Orange County area. They went to Disneyland, Universal Studios, saw a taping with ABC News’ Jimmy Kimmel, and after the Artesia luncheon they left for Long Beach.

“We’re having a good time,” said Claudio Cavacas, one of the soccer team members, in a mild Portuguese accent.

During the luncheon, councilmember John Martins, spoke in Portuguese to the team, “In Artesia, we are proud to have events like this where people from other countries participate. As a small city, we are proud of that.” Martins presented the team’s coach Jose Carlos with a certificate of recognition and gave the team Artesia key chains. Coach Carlos presented another certificate to Martins, and expressed his gratitude for the city’s hospitality.

Martins replied that it’s “our obligation as compadres (meaning fellow Portuguese) [to take care of each other] and also to learn about each other’s countries and how we live.”

 
Bullfighter Vitor Ribeira --
his showmanship was a real crowd pleaser.

 
Bullfighter Manuel Correia greets the crowd after putting on a fantastic show.
Bullfighter, who's name we didn't get, elgantly swung his cape to distract the bulls.
Greeting the cheers of the crowd after his horse danced with the bulls and the music.
ONE -- Eight men line up to taunt the bull.
TWO -- The bull charges, pushing the first man into the seven waiting men.
THREE -- Men wrestle the bull to remove any spears from his back - one man holds the tail.
These animals are used to help usher the the bull back into
the corral.
Artesia Portuguese DES Philharmonic Band opened the show and provided music for the dancing horses.
Arturo Gutierrez and Stephanie Avila came from outside of Artesia to watch the bullfight and enjoy the festivities.
Terceires, Azores Soccer Team
Artesia Councilman John Martins poses with this semi-professional team.
Terceires team member Claudio Cavacas hands out the Artesia keychain gifts to his
fellow teammates.
Plenty of pizza was provided for the soccer team and guests to enjoy after the game.
Look at this fabulous submarine sandwich, waiting for the team to enjoy too!
Councilmember John Martins (left) enjoying the evening
with friends.
After the festivities of the day everyone enjoyed dancing the night away.

 

Sidebar


There is some interesting history about Portuguese bullfights. First, one influence if not the deciding factor for not killing bulls in Portuguese bullfights was the Battle of Salga, on the island of Terceires. This battle, also known as the Battle of the Bloody Sea, occurred on July 5, 1581, when a fleet of ten Spanish ships anchored off the shore of Terceira. Early in the morning on July 20, the Spanish sent their army in to invade. About mid-day, as the fighting still seemed indecisive a friar named Pedro thought of the idea of driving a 1000 wild cattle toward the Spanish lines. The strategy was a success, driving the Spanish back to the beach in an attempt to reach their ships. Almost all of the invaders were killed or drowned in their attempt to flee, hence the name Battle of the Bloody Sea.

Much later, in 1836, Portugal deemed the killing of bulls to be immoral, and passed a law banning the public killing of bulls. However, this law only lasted one year. The second time a law was passed prohibiting the public killing of bulls was in 1928.

Death bullfights were made legal again in 2002 by the Portuguese Parliament, saying that it has been a social tradition. In the past, when the Portuguese government deemed it illegal to kill the bulls, there was a great social outcry to legalize it again. In 2002, there was again a social outcry, but this time to keep illegal the killing of the bulls.

 

 

 

 

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