Caganers: wtf?

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Statuettes of well-known people defecating are a strong Christmas tradition in Catalonia, dating back to the 18th century.

@wikipedia

Possible reasons for placing a man who is in the act of excreting waste in a scene which is widely considered holy include:

* Tradition.
* Perceived humor.
* Finding the Caganer is a fun game, especially for children.
* The Caganer, by creating feces, is fertilizing the Earth. However, this is probably an a posteriori explanation, and few cite this reason for including the Caganer in the Nativity scene.
* The Caganer represents the equality of all people: regardless of status, race, or gender, everyone defecates.
* Increased naturalism of an otherwise archetypal (thus idealised) story, so that it is more believable, taken literally and seriously.
* The idea that God will manifest her/himself when s/he is ready, without regard for whether we human beings are ready or not.
* The caganer reinforces that the infant Jesus is God in human form, with all that being human implies.

The exact origin of the Caganer is lost, but the tradition has existed since the 17th century. An Iberian votive deposit was found nearby Tornabous in the Urgell depicting a holy Iberian warrior defecating on his falcata. This started a short lived series of polemics between the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and the Departament d’Arqueologia in the Conselleria de Cultura of the Generalitat de Catalunya as to whether that can be regarded as a proto-caganer (which would draw the origins of this tradition far before than it is thought) or just a pre-combat ritual.

The explanations offered don’t make the tradition any less totally f*cking random, imho…