Spanish-style bullfighting

This style of bullfighting involves a physical contest with humans (and other animals) attempting to publicly subdue, immobilize, or kill a bull.

Since the late 1980s, bullfighting in Spain has declined in popularity due to animal welfare concerns, its association with blood sport, and its links to nationalism.

Most historians trace festivities involving bulls to prehistoric times, as a trend that once extended through the entire Mediterranean coast and has just survived in Iberia and part of France.

[2] Alejandro Recio, a Spanish historian, considers the Neolithic city of Konya, Turkey, discovered by James Mellaart in 1958, as evidence of sacrificial tauromaquia associated with traditional rituals.

[2] These pre-Roman religions centered on the ritual sacrifice of sacred animals through direct or symbolic combat and was a likely motive for the depiction of bulls.

[6] The Romans tried to abolish and ban the "puere" practice of bullfighting, considering it was too risky for the youth and not a proper way to worship the state deities.

[8] Bullfighting was illegal in all Arab territory but became a mark of identity and resistance for Christian Iberians, especially for the nobility that started using it as a way to gain prestige.

[9] Spanish and Portuguese bullfighters kept the tradition alive covertly, and his successor, Pope Gregory XIII, took efforts to relax this penalty.

[11] The change in bullfighting standards ran parallel to the discontent of the foreign rule of the Bourbons, and their lack of interest in understanding the politics, economics or culture of their new kingdom culminated in the Esquilache Riots of 1766.

[13] He attempted to reduce the social tension by building two of the eldest and largest bullfighting rings in Madrid as part of an offensive to fix the resentment some nobles and other powerful groups held towards the Crown's authority and actions.

[17] Each matador has six assistants: two picadores ("lancers") mounted on horseback, three banderilleros ("flagmen"), and a mozo de espada ("lad of the swords").

[18][19] The modern Spanish-style bullfight (corrida, "run") is highly standardized, with three distinct parts (tercios, "thirds"), the start of each of which is announced by a trumpet sound.

[20] The participants first enter the arena in a parade (paseíllo) to salute the presiding dignitary (presidente), usually accompanied by band music.

They also note vision problems, unusual head movements, or if the bull favors a part of the ring called a querencia (territory).

[23] In a mandatory step in the corrida, regulations require that a plaza judge ensures a certain number of hits are made before it is considered completed.

If the presidente decides that the bull is relatively weak or unwilling to fight, they may order the use of black banderillas, considered to be a poor reflection on the breeder.

The faena ends with a final series of passes in which the matador with a muleta attempts to manoeuvre the bull into a position to stab it between the shoulder blades and through the aorta or heart.

[23] A clumsy estocada that fails to give a "quick and clean death" will often raise loud protests from the crowd and may ruin the whole performance.

If the estocada is not successful, the matador must then perform a descabello and cut the bull's spinal cord with a second sword called verdugo, to kill it instantly and spare the animal pain.

A matador of classical (Manolete) style is trained to divert the bull with the muleta but to come close to the right horn as he makes the fatal sword-thrust between the scapulae and through the aorta.

The bullring has a chapel where a matador can pray before the corrida and where a priest can be found in case an emergency sacrament of extreme unction (also known as Anointing of the Sick or Last Rites) is needed.

Juan José Padilla suffered extensive injuries at Zaragoza on 7 October 2011 when a bull gored him in the head, breaking his jaw and his skull, putting out one of his eyes, deafening him in one ear and paralyzing half his face.

Francisco Goya, an 18th-century Spanish painter, first depicted a female bullfighter in his work La Pajuelera, which featured a woman sparring with a bull on horseback.

[47] María de los Ángeles Hernández Gómez was the first woman to earn her bullfighting license (torera) after the ban was lifted.

[47] During the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, women were forced to exile in other Spanish-speaking countries and the United States in order to continue bullfighting.

[49][50] In the 21st century, bullfighting has come under increasing attack from animal rights activists and political actors for its links to Spanish nationalism.

[51] Separatist and nationalist sentiment in Catalonia has played a key role in the region-wide ban of a practice which is strongly associated to Spanish national identity.

Galician and Basque nationalists have also expressed abolitionist stances, although in the case of the latter this has been somewhat mooted by the conundrum of bullfighting being at the heart of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona.

Animal welfare concerns are perhaps the prime driver of opposition to bullfighting outside Spain, although rejection of traditionalism and Criollo elitism may also play a role in Latin America.

Animal rights activists claim bullfighting is a cruel or barbarous blood sport, in which the bull suffers severe stress and a slow, torturous death.