Life in Barcelona

You’ll find voodoo dolls wearing big wooden shoes!?!!

My mum came over for a couple of days visit and we were strolling around the woodland area of the Montjüic park (in COMFORTABLE, modern shoes, may I add) and suddenly we encountered a museum, almost hidden, on a side-street between the trees.

The first thing staring right at us when we entered was a huge wooden figure with empty eye sockets! Passing through the winding hall, with collections of antique cultural treasures on every side, was like taking a trip to deepest Africa, ancient Asia or a quite…old fashioned Catalunya!

We dived into the exhibition about the old way of life in the Pyrenees Mountains and I can honestly say that I’m utterly grateful for today’s technology that spares us all from the footwear of yesteryear! Some of the poor Catalan guys seem to have walked around in highly uncomfortable, impractical, really heavy, wooden shoes. I guess running was not even an option….??

In another room, strange African Voodoo dolls with decorated feathers on their clothes, were watching us through their painted black eyes. I’m probably too brainwashed with our society’s way of thinking, to be able to imagine myself being afraid of the dark powers that are held in this little piece of handicraft. They look to me a lot more like a kid’s toy or a gingerbread man, rather than a divine and mystical tool!.

We actually spent most of our visit in Barcelona´s Ethnological Museum with a friendly, charming and very talkative museum guard who wanted to practice his English by telling us his whole life story. I suppose it all added to the experience!!

This is a very relaxed and peaceful Museum and great for a Sunday afternoon! We found out that, aside from telling the stories of human society in the past, the Etnological Museum also tells you the story of the present day life of the people of Barcelona! 

/ Angelika

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 2:46 pm and is filed under General Barcelona, Other, Things to do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.