The idea of leading the
bulls by running in front of them is neither
very new nor very original. There have been
many examples of this throughout the long
history of man's relationship with the bulls
and indeed, at present you can find similiar
kinds of bull-running being held in several
towns around Spain. The basic idea is that
it is a way of getting the bulls into the
bull-ring from whatever kind of corral or
enclosure they are being kept in. The different
circums-
tances in each
particular place means that there are some change
in details but not in the essential spirit of the
act.
As time passed the event became more and more
popular and some people began to run in front of
the bulls
and not behind them, as the drovers do.
In 1852,
a new bull-ring was built and a new route - the
actual route being used up to the present
- was decided on and which ignored the traditional
Chapitela street. The run soon became much shorter
also, because as from 1899, it was decided to bring
the bulls up to a small corral in Santo Domingo
street the night before they fight in the ring.
So that is why there is an "encierrillo"
each night before the morning run, when the bulls
are moved from their enclosure on the far side
of
the river, up to the small corral at the bottom
of Santo Domingo street where they will spend
the
night before making the morning run up to the bull
ring.
THE DANGERS INVOLVED IN THE BULL-RUNNING
The historical evolution of the bull-running
seems to have made it an ever-more dangerous
activity. The number of risky situations (such
as the pile-ups)
the number of injured and dead,
seems to increase as time goes by.
Up to
1910 there is no evidence of anyone having
been killed in the run. But that year a young
man from Falces was injured and he dead six
months later. Since then there have been some
fourteen runners who left their lives on the
cold slabs of the narrow streets of the run.
One of the most tragic runs took
place in 1947, when, on the 1Oth of July,
the same
bull, "Semillero", killed two people
during the same run. Another "double
killing" took place on the 13th of
July 198O when "Antioquio" caught
his first victim by the horns at the Town
Hall
and carried him up to Mercaderes street.
Later, in the bull-ring he killed a second
person
with a mortal stab to the stomach.
It seems clear that these mortalities have begun
to increase at the same rate that the "encierro"
has become an ever-bigger spectacle for an ever-greater
number of people. The same macabre statistics
can be seen for the number of injured which continue
to increase year by year. By far the largest
number
are caused by contusions but serious injuries
from stabs seem to be increasing and some of
these
are dangerously close to being mortal. One such
case was the American, Stephen Townsend in 1984
who was lifted by the horns of an Osborne bull
and shaken round before being tossed aside.
The
Swede, Torly Urban was also lifted by the horns
of "Entrometido" in 1991, just when
he tried to escape through the fencing, and he
was tossed about on the horns of the bull for
more than ten seconds.
On these occasions only
a super-efficient ambulance
service saved their lives as the loss of blood
suffered by them is mortal by necessity.
