At 5:00 p.m. on August 6, the extraordinary descent of San Agustín, which will depart from the grotto in the Barranco de Añavingo and will arrive at the Church of San Juan Degollado, in the urban area, where it will remain until September 4. This quadrennial celebration was supposed to take place last year, but was suspended due to the pandemic. The same reason why the araferos have not enjoyed their pilgrimage since 2019.
The descent and pilgrimage will return maintaining the custom of setting up traditional food stalls, where the organizing committee “will toast the attendees with wine and sardines”; with the campaign mass that is celebrated in Los Lavaderos and with the verbena at the end of the festival in the Plaza de San Juan.
After two years of restrictions, the patron saint festivities will return to the streets, squares, private companies and the homes of the Villa de Arafo. The Water Community that owns the image, the San Agustín Festival Commission, the parish and the City Council are committed to returning normality to local festivals.
“The pilgrimage is, first of all, thanks to San Agustín for what we are today, but it is also a town, it exemplifies what we are,” summarizes the Arafero mayor, Juan Ramón Martín. “Our way of being and idiosyncrasy is faithfully reflected that day in a popular demonstration in a very special place for us, because Arafo has many values and in La Bajada de San Agustín he shows them,” says the alderman. “This is not a usual pilgrimage, it is an extraordinary popular festival in which an entire town participates and every four years receives whoever wants or needs to come to San Agustín.”
three centuries ago.
The origin of this celebration dates back to the 18th century. Juan Hernández Santiago, a resident of the municipality, requested the transfer of the image of San Agustín to the Barranco de Añavingo with the hope that the saint would intercede in the recovery of the water source, essential for the araferos, after the landslide that left him buried five years before, around 1745 or 1746. «And the miracle took place, causing the future of Arafo, doomed to disappear for not having how to subsist, to change radically and add to its many qualities those of being a grateful and responsible people , open and jovial, worried about moving forward, respectful, generous… », as the story summarizes. The mayor establishes that the descent of San Agustín is “a popular demonstration that we araferos celebrate every four years in order to venerate the saint who made the resurgence of this town possible.”
The Community of Irrigators Añavingo is in charge of the custody of the image in its usual stay and maintain the path and the place in the best conditions, in collaboration with the City Council and volunteers. Nicolás Santana, its president, highlights the emotional part of those who come to the ravine to meet the saint.
The organization.
The Festival Commission begins collecting donations well in advance; the City Council collaborates with the human, logistical, security, ornamental and administrative resources and the Church manages the religious programme. «People collaborate with great fervor and participate demonstrating the human quality of the araferos, a people who like to give and help. San Agustín is not only a party, but a devotion, “added Daniel Sosa, president of the commission.
«The history of Arafo cannot be understood without the miracle, a religious component of several centuries which also has a social, agricultural nuance and a link between a town and the Church”, adds Simón Herrera García, parish priest of San Juan Degollado.
The image fell from four to four years until a parenthesis occurred due to the sum of external conditioning factors. But in 1976, the current Commission is organized and, with the authorization of the Irrigation Community, proceeds to regulate its periodicity uninterruptedly until the postponement registered last year due to covid-19.
