Sergi Alós

The ca­ganer is one of the most char­ac­ter­is­tic and pop­u­lar fig­ures of any Cata­lan Christ­mas and no self-re­spect­ing na­tiv­ity scene would be seen with­out one. It is the slightly ir­rev­er­ent rep­re­sen­ta­tion of an in­di­vid­ual bent over and bar­ing but­tocks, sat­is­fy­ing his or her per­sonal needs in the out­doors.

The fig­ure is tucked away some­where, under the bridge, be­hind a barn, half hid­den, a lit­tle out of the way from the road the trav­ellers walk on the way to wor­ship the baby Jesus. It is the first thing chil­dren look for in a manger! It de­picts a tra­di­tional farmer with a Ca­ganer beret who is smok­ing a pipe while ful­fill­ing his nat­ural oblig­a­tions.

In the past the fig­ure was a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the fer­til­ity of the land, but it is also now thought that it was most likely a protest against the power of the church. The first Ca­gan­ers are known to have ap­peared in the late sev­en­teenth and early eigh­teenth cen­turies.

EL CA­GANER began its ad­ven­ture in 1992 with Anna Maria Pla, Sergi's mother and his brother Marc (pic­tured) .

Today,this work­shop in Tor­roella de Mont­gri (Baix Em­pordà), turns out all kinds of Ca­gan­ers and each year there is some­thing new. After choos­ing the model they have de­cided to make, the plas­ter molds are made and fired in the oven be­fore dec­o­rat­ing. The Ca­gan­ers are not only pro­duced in the work­shop and now local com­mu­nity as­so­ci­a­tions have also joined the ef­fort.

The Ca­ganer is not the only typ­i­cally Cata­lan char­ac­ter de­picted going his busi­ness. We could never for­get the Tió, a log that lives under the Christ­mas tree and needs to be fed until the day be­fore Christ­mas so that it can pro­vide gifts along to the rhythm and (kindly) beat­ings and songs of the chil­dren.

1. Coloured paints to fin­ish off the Ca­gan­ers.

2. Brushes of all sizes to paint our hero.

3. A palette for mix­ing the colours any self re­spect­ing Ca­ganer needs.

4. Ca­gan­ers straight out of the mold and ready for sand­ing.

5. Ma­te­r­ial pre­pared to put in the molds.

6. Molds of dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters of Ca­gan­ers.

7. Spoon to help de­tail the fig­ures.

8.​The clas­sic Cata­lan Ca­ganer!

9. A Hillary Clin­ton Ca­ganer.

10. The Pres­i­dent-elect of the USA, Don­ald Trump's own model!

11. Ca­ganer of the Pres­i­dent of the Gen­er­al­i­tat, Car­les Puigde­mont.

www.​caganer.​com

In­sert photo: the Alós broth­ers with larger Ca­gan­ers and in the back­ground shelves filled Ca­gan­ers.