On my last evening in Córdoba I got to see a corrida de toros -- a bullfight. I'd wanted to experience the 300 year old relic of Spanish tradition since I'd come to Spain, but could never gather the moral self-assurance to act on my curiosity. I felt wrong giving financial support to a sport -- or is it an art? -- that cheers on the bloody death of innocent, disadvantaged animals.

Toreros, asesinos -- bullfighters, murderers -- was graffitied
in several places on the outside of the ring.

But, as is usually the case, my curiosity got the better of me. Not only is bullfighting an integral part of Spanish culture, but I realized that for me at least, the very fact that it would be hard for me to watch was the reason I needed to see it. A few months before Federico García Lorca's 1936 execution, he wrote one of his famous plays La casa de Bernarda Alba, in which the domineering title character proclaims, "Y no quiero llantos. La muerte hay que mirarla cara a cara." -- "And I don't want to hear any crying. Death must be confronted face to face."

Death is a natural part of life, I figured. If I can eat animals daily, I should be able to stomach watching them die from hundreds of feet away.

That evening I walked to the bullring with my friends Josh, Mary and Fatima.


We had paid 10 euros and little thought to the spectacle we'd soon see and probably never forget. Of course we knew that bulls would die in front of us, but I don't think any of us had wanted to imagine what that might actually look like.

In the modern bullfight, the man-bull interaction is divided into three main phases. In the beginning, the bull gallops out into the ring, each one of the six beasts bigger and more aggressive than the last. A few men stand around using pink capes to attract the bull's attention, then run away like the physically puny species we are when it charges at them. (Contrary to popular belief, it's the movement of the cape -- not the color of it -- that gets the bull to charge.) Eventually the bull gets annoyed by this fruitless game, and rams the closest horse. Unfortunately (for the bull) the horse is well-protected by some kind of thick padding, and is mounted by a man who proceeds to jab his spear into the area behind the bull's head.

Notice that the horse is blindfolded.

But the nape of the bull's neck hasn't been tenderized nearly enough yet. In phase two, three of the men leave behind their pink capes and pick up a pair of colorful knives. As the bull charges each one, he jumps aside at the last second and drives both knives into the same spot on the bull's back. This picture (not taken by me) shows the result:


Now, with the bull panting and bleeding, he is weak enough for a single man to go cara a cara with him. This third phase of the bullfight is the most renowned. The color red takes center stage, as the torero's red cape tantalizes the bull over and over again until one final charge, when the bull's exasperated sprint comes up with nothing but air and a sword driven down to the hilt in its back.

Of the four bulls we watched die, the majority tended to react to this fatal blow by walking around in a daze for a few moments, then slowly retreating from the men to die on its own. It would become obviously exhausted and start spitting up blood.


When it neared the very end of its life it would let out a few heartwrending groans and sit down, with an almost docile air. Finally, and mercifully, it would keel over onto its side:


The torero with the red cape then kneels over the bull and takes it out of its misery by repeatedly stabbing it in the same, softened bloody spot. After the bull's body stops its macabre writhing the torero slices off an ear as a kind of trophy for a fight well done. And the crowd goes wild.