Human towers called “castells” ( castles, in English ), are based in a great teamwork.

Click on the images to see them bigger

This tradition comes from the North East of Spain, from a certain area near Tarragona, and it’s performed during local festivals or special meetings, for example the contest you see in these pictures. Many “colles” ( teams ) compete during a whole weekend. The towers they build get a punctuation depending on its difficulty and towers that have been loaded and unloaded get more points that the ones that have only been loaded. You may wonder what happens with the tower if it has been only loaded…well, the answer is very simple and unpleasant. They just fall down. Usually, nobody gets harmed because there is a kind of “mattress” formed by people and called “pinya” ( pine cone, the reason is obvious ). You can see it on the next pic.

This is the same castle after being loaded, the child called “anxeneta” climbs to the top and raises an arm to indicate that the castle has been loaded. Children are essential for the castle and because of the risk involving its building there has been a lot of controversy about if children should take part in a castle.

Little by little, people climb over their team members until they reach their position. People at the upper part of the castle must be rather lightweighted and people at the lower part tend to be stronger.

A closer look at the castle:

A castle almost ready for the “anxeneta” to raise an arm…

Each castle has a name depending on the number of people forming each floor and the number of floors. The children at the top are considered as three floors. The “pinya” or base doesn’t count as a floor. So, what you have in the last picture is a 4 of 8 (”4 de 8″).

There are many variations of the typical castle I’ve described here, for example there is a pillar, build by only one person each floor. Or castles that have a pillar inside, etc…

Sometimes pillars on local holidays walk and go down stairs. It’s very impressive.

A video:

Credits:
Pictures: Sabrina’s friend
Video: The respective owner at Youtube