La fiesta de la Cruz de Alosno

This essay is a social-anthropological approach to the Cruz of Alosno, a popular festive expression celebrated in Alosno (Huelva), in south-west Spain. The ethnographic study has been conducted using a qualitative methodology. Specifically, data has been collected through observational techniques and interviews. The study aims to explore the following lines of investigation: a) popular festivities as forms of expressive communication; b) collective memory as encouraging the construction of social bonds; c) the communication act as having a perlocutionary dimension in rituals like the one approached in this essay; d) The Cruz of Alosno as a ritualized form of symbolic redistribution of prestige, social and collective skills, and resources; and e) an approach to seduction understood as a provocative game and as a way of restoring social order. The results demonstrate that popular festive expressions serve to express and communicate what is common, what is shared by the community, reaching a sublime time where eternal moments happen. These popular festive expressions, therefore, contribute to imagine Reality in a different way and provide a basis for its transformation.