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Show in horror, bullfighting must, how- ever, not be judged harshly by those to whom it is not a tradition. tradi-tion. Ernest Hemingway in his book on bullfighting "Death in the Afternoon," admits that, in spite of its essential cruelties, it cannot can-not be entirely condemned in the centuries of whose background it is part. "The essence fo the greatest great-est emotional appeal of the bullfight," bull-fight," he assures, "is the feeling of immortality that the bullfighter bullfight-er feels and that he gives to the spectators. He is performing a work of art and he is playing with death." The spectator no longer sees the actual cruelty of the game. To him it is maybe more than anything else a symbol. A symbol of man's fight with evil, fight against death, pursuit of immortality im-mortality .... "Death In The Afternoon", In The Western Hemisphere By the Pan American Union Washington One of the great Spanish traditions tradi-tions that is still followed in certain cer-tain regions of the Western Hemisphere Hem-isphere is that of bullfighting. However, while some of the Latin American countries are as ardent fans of the sport as their forebears, fore-bears, to other nations of the New World, bullfighting is as unknown, and in fact as alarming a spectacle, specta-cle, as it is to the citizens of the United States. It is probably because be-cause Mexico and Lima were two of the richest and most important cities of the Americas and both of them seats of vice-royalties that, ever since the early days of the colony, bulls were fought there Spanish style for the amusement of Viceroys, nobles and the general public. As the enthusiasm en-thusiasm of the population for this type of sport increased with the years it became, without losing los-ing its Spanish flavor, part of the national life of Mexico and Peru as well as that of Venezuela and Colombia. While today there remain re-main in Latin America only a half dozen countries where this diversion diver-sion is allowed, the land of the Aztec and that of the Inca still are, after Spain, the principal strongholds and centers of bullfighting bull-fighting in the world, with Colombia Colom-bia and Venezuela as close seconds. sec-onds. In a few other Latin American Amer-ican countries bulls are played with but never killed. No great "Matador' feels his career complete com-plete until he has come to the Western Hemisphere to try his luck and his sword in Mexico City's Plaza de Toros or swish his cape and smile at a beautiful Sen-orita Sen-orita in Lima's Plaza de Acho. A bullfight starts long before the fight itself with the breeding of the bull and the training of the bullfighter or "torero." Much time is dedicated to the care and selection selec-tion of the animal which must be fierce and brave and present certain cer-tain physical characteristics such as fine hide, upright ears, long tail and small, fine horns. As for the torero he must have "first of all an overwhelming desire to succeed suc-ceed in this field, for the road to fame is one of the hardest and cruelest of any sport. Absolute fearlessness is the most important characteristic of the bullfighter just as it is of the bull. Agility is also indispensable and a knowledge know-ledge which is gained through many years of close association with bulls. From the small boys who grow up on stock farms generally gen-erally spring the famous toreadors, torea-dors, who have begun as children to practice with an old blanket. It is as common a sight as marbles mar-bles in the United States to see small boys playing 'toro' on the streets in "Mexico." The young torero will most probably start out by having a minor role in the "corrida" (bullfight) and, if he succeeds in this, will be promoted to the rank of full-fledged matador, mata-dor, reaching even, maybe, the title of "torero de alternativa," given only to those "who have attained at-tained a high standard of proficiency profici-ency in the artistic and skillful handling of the bulls." For bullfighting bull-fighting is considered an art as well as a skill, and a torero in his rich gold-embroidered costume produces on the audience the same effect as a ballet dancer. "In the regular corrida which generally takes place on Sunday afternoons, six bulls are killed (20 minutes to a bull) by three matadors working work-ing alternately with their own subordinate sub-ordinate team of picadors and ban-derilleros. ban-derilleros. When the bull first comes in, he is played by banderil-lero banderil-lero and matador with capes. Then the mounted picadors enter, the bull charges them, often kills the horse, but always gets a wound in the shoulder-muscle from the picador's pica-dor's lance. Next, four pair of banderillas (barbed wooden shafts) are stuck into the top of the bull's neck by the banderiller-os banderiller-os or, with musical accompaniment, accompani-ment, by the matador himself. Then the matador takes the bull alone, plays him with the muleta (red cloth), kills him with a sword." The scene of this tragedy, and tragedy it is, for the man as well as for the bull, is the bullring, a round, circus-like construction, whose arena is surrounded by a wooden wall (la barrera) which forms a sort of alley or safety area between the ring and the grandstand. There, bullfighters await their turn, and to that alley, too, assistants in the corrida sometimes some-times jumy to safety the matador mata-dor himself, of course, never leaving leav-ing the ring until the bull has been killed. Under the grandstand grand-stand are stables for the bulls and horses and an infirmary where doctors and nurses are always in attendance. The Mexico City bullring, bull-ring, one of the most famous and the largest in the world after that of Madrid, Spain, seats 23,000 while that of Lima is famed for its antiquity, having been built in the 18th century and being the third oldest in existence. An undoubtedly cruel and bloody spectacle, from which a large por-1 por-1 tion of the hemisphere turns away |