Figure 1.--
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Figure 1.-- |
HBC has collected information on a variety of activities in which Spanish boys have participated in over time. Many of these activiities involve specialized costumes.
Other images show trends in German boys' clothing over time. Some of the activities include choir, choir, dance, games, religious observation, school, sport, and
many other activities.
The boy choir tradition is a European tradition originating in the needs of the
medevil church for litugical music. Many countries of Western and Central Europe, have long choral traditions. The strongest tradition is catholic, but boy choirs have also been created in protestant countries. One would think that with this background that there would be a large number of boy choirs in Spain. In actuality there are only a few. " Escolania " in Spanish means school for singers, usually in a religious environment. It is similar to the French term " Manécanterie ".
Spanish children have commonly worn school smocks . Many still do. Spanish school children were commonly wearing smocks by the 1930s, although I am not sure when this paractice first began. Short pants were common until the 1970s. Young kindergarten age children still commonly wear smocks in Spain. It is no longer common, however, for older boys to wear them--but some still do. A Spanish contributor to HBC in 1999 reported school boys about about 7 or 8 years old still wearing the smocks over their street clothes.
First Communion in Spain has been a major event, as to be expected in a Catholic
country. Boys in the 1920s commonly wore formal dark suits, sometimes with wing collars and whire bowries. This is less so now, but ardently Catholic families still do attach great importance to the event. For the children it has become a bonanza, even exceeding Christmas, although only once. A Spanish contributor informs HBC that sailor suits are popular for boys' First Communion suits, even in the 1990s.
We have little specific informatioin about Spanish children's games. A HBC reader reports, "I found an interesting piece of info about the Canarian Islands. It’s about a wrestling sport fought there amongst boys. Their trousers have to be rolled up to make it easier to win. Lucha Canaria (wrestling style) of (Fuerteventura) Canary Islands, is fought on sandy surface. You are allowed to push and pull and the sand has to be touched by your feet only. Biting and beating aren’t allowed. There are many ways to bring the
combatant to the ground, most notably he has to be pulled by his rolled up trousers.
There are matches each weekends against other parties and every Canarian village has its arena, in which competitions are held and bets are made, when different parties go to fight. It’s about the same popularity as football in Europe."
The principal Spanish youth group is the Scouts. At this time we only know of one other Spanish youth group--the Fascist youth organization under the Franco regime. There may have been a Pioneer group during the Civil War era, but we have no details at this time. We know, however, relatively little about this group or the Scout movement during the Fascist era. With the fall of Fascism this group disappeared and currently the Scouts are the only important Spanish youth group.
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