Magosto from Ourense and Celtic tradition

Liminal symbolic persistences. Communitas Rites of Passage

Abstract

This episteme positions the sociocultural preparations of the Ourense magosto as a transcomplex celebration where a network of experiential significations converges, encompassing cultural anthropology, intangible heritage, and symbolic rituality, which are interwoven with the ancient practices of the Celtic Samhain and the Galician agrarian tradition. Viewed transdisciplinarily, the magosto represents a cultural device of memory and liminality (Turner, 1988) and rites of passage (Van Gennep, 2013) that open a transitional space between seasons, for the living and the dead following All Souls' Day. The fire, the chestnut, the soot markings, the bagpipe music, and the communal revelry are interpreted as symbols that condense enduring mythical structures. Although in essence it does not reproduce the expressions of a Celtic theodicy, it nonetheless sustains itself as the continuist elements of a cosmogony-nature that pays tribute in gratitude to the fruits of the earth and to ancestrality in pursuit of a seasonal renewal imbued with Galician identity. These elements amalgamate a heritage, an intangible patrimony that must be respected, preserved over time, and transmitted to new generations, framing itself in coherence with Goal 11.4 of the Sustainable Development Goals. This theoretical framework draws upon the works of Geertz (2009), Hertz (1990), Roux & Guyonvarc'h (1986), Eliade (2014), among others.