The Baby Jump May 26, 2008

The Baby Jump

By Guest Contributor
May 26, 2008

Since 1620, residents of Castrillo de Murcia (Spain) have been holding a baby jump to ward off the devil.

Yep. A baby jump.

Like this:

74506290.jpg


Jumpers dressed as the Colacho, a character representing the Devil, bounded over clusters of bemused infants laid out on mattresses.

So far this year, no babies have been injured. Which says nothing about how they fared in previous years…

The wiser among us know that jumping babies this way is no way to keep the devil away.

To do that, you need to stack them vertically and do a pole vault.

My high score: 11 babies. Including one very angry infant at the bottom of the stack.

(What’s with all the religious rituals that involve putting babies at risk…?)

(Thanks to Julie for the link!)


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

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What Are Your Thoughts?leave a comment

  • LMAO! I don’t know why this surprises me. My first thought was that it was invented by The Onion.

  • Zachary B.

    I prefer our atheist ritual of the Baby Barbecue.

  • Excatly how does does this alarm the Devil? Is he afraid of illogical services?

  • Richard Wade

    This is ridiculous. Everybody knows that won’t intimidate the devil. What they should do is to line the babies up in a single line and have the Colacho guy leap over them on a motorcycle, Evel Knievel style.

    Some people just don’t know how to do basic supernatural hygene.

  • Why can’t they just jump overs some vegetables or something? People are so stupid.

  • Julie

    Wow, you got a better angle on the babies than I saw on the BBC website. You can really see how cute they are dressed!

    We have had four babies due in my family in the last two months–I’m the last up, due this week. So we’re thinking we’ll give this a shot at the family reunion!

    (Soooo kidding.)

  • You have it confused, Hemant. Jumping horizontal matrices of babies does keep the devil at bay. Stacking them and pole-vaulting them keeps the squawkers from The View away.

  • Katie

    Never before have I been horrified and amused at exactly the same time.

  • Alyssa

    This is why I study religion. People have some freakin’ WEIRD ideas.

  • Fengie

    This happens in my country???? Anyone out there accepts inmigrants?

  • Susan

    Oh, I don’t know. I spent some quality time by the pool yesterday. Three couples brought in nearly-newborn babies to indoctrinate them in the sacred ritual of being swathed with Coppertone and dipped into chlorine water. Jumping seems kinder.

  • Jen

    What I really want to know: who the hell volunteers their babies for this? Raising children: you’re doing it wrong.

  • Pah, they’re no even on fire.