For years I have seen the bull mentioned in countless pieces of research on ancient Iberian religions, including those that built the megaliths. Most XIXth century studies suggested an adoption, by a Western Atlantic Megalithic Civilization, of an Eastern Religious Cult around 2,000 BC (quite possibly, in my opinion, from somewhere in Asia Minor / the Caucasus). After seeing the many stone bulls all over the Western Iberian countryside and the gorgeous snake engraved on a huge menhir near Talavera, I was myself surprised by the accepted notions of the Cretan and Egyptian Cults of the Bronze Age in which both bull and snake appeared hand in hand in religious compositions. Surely the Western Iberian menhirs predate the Mediterranean Cults by at least 1,000 years. And the Bull as seminal character in the history of human spirituality evolved much earlier, with the adoption of Farming. Perhaps an earlier substratum lies underneath the Cretan and Egyptian myths or more possibly they themselves took it from more ancient Neolithic tribes or earlier. Even in Hal Tarxien, Malta, representations of bulls abound dating from the Maltese Megalithic (3,500 BC). Even in Paleolithic art, too, the Bull reigns supreme.
The Bull as the penetrating force, as the Power of the Sun and the rash masculine Mortality of the Heavens was represented by a phallic standing stone near an early Christian shrine near the tiny village of Buenamadre (literally ‘Good Mother’), where a small circular arena still stands next to it. Early bullrings were always circular, as the cosmic dance that the bull performs at the beginning of a bullfight reminds one of a planet circling the Sun (or more likely, of the Sun circling the Planet). These early bullrings were clearly *altars*. The relationship between the early shrines (those that are still devoted to the Virgin Mary, or the Mother) and bullrings is old, and it is evident that the siting of these ‘sacrificial centres’ was not chosen in an irrelevant way. It was based, as most early megalithic monuments were, on the confluence or affluence of rivers, underground currents, migratory birds, pilgrimage routes or one geological area bordering another*. Many dolmens were sited on purpose beside the most ancient pilgrimage routes in Western Iberia. Take the Via de la Plata or ‘silver route’, so-called by the Romans who adopted it for use as trade of metal, and being an ancient cattle trade route from north to south. Or the serpentine Neolithic cattle way adopted by the Romans for crossing the Iberian mountains on their way from the South to the North and that I walked myself last year. Many of these backbones crisscross the land, and they are teeming with dolmens.
But to go back to the Cosmic Dance inside the bullring, I was amazed to read recently that in the very centre of ancient bullrings there used to stand a proud tree. The meaning of this Tree is evidently ceremonial, it wasn’t placed there for purposes of shelter. It represented Regeneration, the spiritual link between the Heavens and the Earth. In some places of the western regions there are still festivals (Day of San Marcos, April 25th) where bulls are adorned by tree branches and flowers and dragged into the shrines. Or even trees crowned by bull horns. In Euskadi, the independentist region between France and Spain, the Tree of Gernika is famous for being the seat of power, evidence of that ancient Neolithic custom of the pre-Roman Basques, where all agreements used to be made in the hills next to trees (or standing stones). A Tree standing in the middle of a ring is a very powerful image. The sacrificial game can only be completed by the shedding of the Bull’s blood on the ground, the communion between the male force of the Sun and the receiving fertilized Mother Earth. Some festivals with bulls carrying torches of fire on their horns may date back to these spiritual ideas.
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