Caganer, the star of Christmas in Catalonia

Setting up a nativity scene is a Christmas tradition in Catalonia, even for households that are not particularly religious. And, of all the figurines in the nativity scene, by far the most popular is that of “el caganer” (literally, “the pooper”), a defecating man squatting to commune with nature in some corner of the manger scene. Viewers, both young and old, always try to spot him, with varying degrees of discretion, as the caganer is not always in plain sight.

In recent years, the quirky figurine has transcended the Christmas tradition to become a design and decoration item, a publicity device, a tourist icon, the protagonist of solidarity campaigns, the inspiration for songs and stories, and the object of monographic exhibitions, doctoral dissertations, and urban graffiti.

Together with the tió de Nadal (a Christmas log that delights children by pooping gifts), the caganer, which depicts a crouching, defecating peasant in a traditional floppy hat (called a barretina), rounds out the scatological characters present at every Catalan Christmas. It is the most emblematic, peculiar, and characteristic figurine of the Catalan crèche.

The caganer is believed to have been incorporated into nativity scenes in Catalonia during the Baroque period, probably at the end of the seventeenth century or early eighteenth century, for reasons that are as yet unknown. The character of caganer, however, was already present in popular imagery, for instance in the so-called trade tiles (tiles depicting each of the trades, popularized starting in the sixteenth century). Later, the character of “the pooper” appeared in many nineteenth century novels.

Joan Amades, the great Catalan ethnologist and folklorist, has the following hypothesis about caganer: ‘He became a fixture of nineteenth-century nativity scenes because people believed that by defecating he helped fertilize the soil of the manger scene, ensuring both its renewal the following year, as well as the bodily health and peace of mind needed to set up the crèche, while at the same time bringing Christmas cheer and joy to the home. Its addition to the manger scene brought joy and luck, while failure to include it was a harbinger of misfortune.’

More recent interpretations have focused on the festive, carnivalesque dimension of the nativity scene phenomenon, as represented by the caganer.

Xavier Borrell, president of Friends of Caganer, an organization that brings together fans and scholars of this character, explains the enthusiasm: ‘First and foremost, the caganer is typical of Catalonia, and it has a touch of rebellion and humanity that makes it unique’.

It should be noted that other countries also have a pooping man tradition (including Portugal, Italy, and a few South American countries, as well as France up until the mid-twentieth century), although never as a character linked to the nativity, which appears to be a Catalan peculiarity. Probably owing to historical links between the regions, caganer was apparently exported to the manger scenes of Provence, Naples, and Sicily.
The second great appeal of caganer, according to Borrell, is that ‘it’s a quirky and surprising figure to people who don’t know about it . . . although sometimes the first impression can be one of revulsion’.

Such was the reaction of Linda Wormsbecher, a native of Germany, who discovered the caganer while strolling through the Santa Llúcia Christmas market in 2008, when she was studying in Barcelona on an Erasmus scholarship.

‘I saw these figurines and I was taken aback’, says Wormsbecher. ‘I was surprised by many things during my stay in Barcelona, and caganer was one I could not easily forget’. Such was Wormsbecher’s fixation that she decided to make it the focus of an ethnological study, which later became her doctoral dissertation. Her findings were published in 2015 in a bilingual German-Catalan edition titled ‘El caganer. Ethnographic anatomy of a figurine in the Catalan nativity scene’.

In 2009, a year after Wormsbecher’s first sighting of caganer, it was the multitalented English actor and presenter Stephen Fry who discovered the character for viewers beyond our borders, discussing both caganer and tió in a hilarious segment of the BBC Two quiz show ‘QI’.

Since then, the caganer has been featured in articles and media reports around the world, in all its incarnations (from the customary representation of a peasant in traditional attire, to the countless versions depicting local and international personalities produced every year by the company Caganer.com). This newfound popularity can be traced, in part, to the growing international media attention on Catalonia’s drive to break away from Spain. Writing in the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung in 2014, journalist Dirk Engelhardt said that the day of caganer’s internationalization had officially arrived.

And he was not mistaken: that same year, the British daily The Independent, the Chinese news agency Xinhua, and the US online news site GlobalPost all featured the caganer. In 2015, the official magazine of the Smithsonian Institution, the prestigious US organization promoting knowledge and research, took interest in the caganer as well; the magazine ran an article titled ‘Catalonian Nativity Scenes Feature Man Pooping in the Manger Scene’s Corner’, which mentioned a number of strange Christmas traditions from around the world, and focused on the two in Catalonia that revolve around defecation.

In the same vein, but with another tone, a video on the popular website CollegeHumor, which receives millions of visitors, included the caganer among what it called the six most incredible Christmas traditions on the planet.

More recently, coinciding with the US presidential election, the caganer has jumped to the front pages of the international press, thanks to New York Times correspondent Raphael Minder, who penned an article titled ‘Caught with your pants down? Must be Christmas in Catalonia’. Published on 5 December, the article began like this: ‘Here’s one thing Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton have in common. They are being depicted in new Christmas figurines in Catalonia in a rather rude position: squatting to defecate’.

The article explained the origin, tradition and significance of the caganer figurine in Catalan nativity scenes, and provided a surprising piece of information: half of the figurines sold by Caganer.com are shipped to the United States. Needless to say, caganer sales shot up following the article’s publication. Caganer, it seems, is making inroads into the US. ‘Just as we imported Halloween from America, I guess some Americans have discovered our tradition and really like it’, Sergi Alós, managing director of Caganer.com, told the New York Times.