Mula, Spain

Mula is a municipality in the center of the autonomous community of Region of Murcia in southeastern Spain, with approximately 16,000 inhabitants (2007, INE figures). It is best-known for the tamboradas (drumming processions) held during the Holy Week. Tamboradas are a tradition in the area spanning the Murcian towns of Mula and Moratalla and the towns of Hellín and Tobarra to the north in the province of Albacete.

Geography

Districts and Neighborhoods

The neighborhoods of Mula include Fuente Librilla, Yechar, Los Baños De Mula, Puebla De Mula y Casas Nuevas.

Municipal Limits

The municipality of Mula has the following neighboring municipalities:

• Calasparra, Cieza and Ricote to the North
• Ricote, Campos del Río, Albudeite, Alcantarilla and Murcia to the East
• Librilla, Alhama de Murcia and Totana to the South
• Bullas, Cehegín and Lorca to the West
• Pliego surrounds Mula completely.

Economy

The economy of Mula rests on dryland farming and ranching. Manufacturing in Mula is concentrated in the food and beverage sectors. The "El Arreaque" industrial park, to the east of the town center, was inaugurated in 2004.

Government

List of Mayors of Mula

Term	Name	Political Party
1979-1983	Antonio Hernández Cava	Democratic and Social Centre
1983-1987	Bibiano Imbernón García	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
1987-1991	Bibiano Imbernón García	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
1991-1995	Bibiano Imbernón García	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
1995-1999	José Iborra	People's Party (Spain)
1999-2003	José Iborra	People's Party (Spain)
2003-2007	José Iborra	People's Party (Spain)
2007-present	Diego Cervantes	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Vice Mayor en Mula is from Izquierda Unida Jose Luis Alvarez Castellanos Rubio {|

Demographics

*

This graph shows the changes in the population of Mula from 1900 to 2005.

Monuments in Mula

Religious Monuments

Saint Michael's church (la Parroquia de San Miguel) is located in Mula's City Hall Square (La Plaza del ayuntamiento de Mula). With its two towers, including a clock tower, it forms a large monumental complex that often serves as the logo of the municipality. This church suffered near total destruction during the Spanish Civil War; only the entraceway was saved. The rest of the decorative paintings and sculptures were destroyed. It is known that the canopy of the old altar and the wall paintings were done in the Baroque style. It was quite tall for its era.

The church contains two chapels: to the right, the Chapel of Marquesa (marchioness) Vélez, and to the left, the Chapel of San Felipe. The latter chapel contains relics of the saint brought from Sicily by Marquesa Vélez in 1648.

This church has an art museum made possible by a donation from Doña Pilar de la Canal, widow of Don Pedro Luis Blaya, in 1940. It collection spans from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Secular Monuments

Castle of the Vélez Family

The first thing that draws the attention of a visitor to Mula is the castle that watches over the daily lives of the city's inhabitants from above. The passage of time has left numerous traces in this emblematic construction built not to protect the people but to subject them.

There are many documents that tell of the castle. It was mentioned by Al-Idrisi, the famous traveler of the twelfth century and King Alfonso X. In the fifteenth century it had a massive wall to the north. There was one wall to protect the cisterns of the city and another wall to watch over the city's two parishes recently converted to Christianity; these walls remain.

The architecture of the castle is Renaissance in its defensive character nad simple forms, situated over a crag of rock. Of the two entrances, one of them accedes better to the high part of the wall and the towers of the old Muslim fortress in addition to a drawbridge. It contains four differentiating elements: the torre del homenaje, a central nave with a barrel vault, a structure semidetached from the nave and a cistern. The cistern is an indication of Muslim influence because it is an essential element of a mosque.

Culture

Museums

• "El Cigarralejo". In this museum are exhibited the remains, ceramics, and utensils of the Iberian epoch, which have been taken out from the ruins of a town, necropolis, and sanctuary of that time.
• Casa Pintada (many-colored house): The museum is located in a Renaissance palace, and contains a collection of many of the works of Cristobal Gabarrón.
• The "Castle of Alcalá" or castle of La Puebla, is also near to visit, situated on a hill near the La Puebla district. The castle is Muslim and one can visit the gateway and the cisterns that supplied the water to the city.

National contest of rapid painting

This is called each year on the second Sunday of November, coinciding with the Craft Bazaar "Las 4 Plaza". On the first occasion (November 11, 2007) 114 painters, coming from all over Spain, met on a sunny, spring-like day. It was in every way a success that did not distance the residents and visitors, given the beauty and variety of places that Mula possesses. It was one more occasion to visit this historic and welcoming Murcian city.

Spanish Film Week

Since 1988 the "Second Cinema Club of Chomon" has been coming together as a denominational competition of the Spanish Film Week, and since 1993 the National Contest of Film Shorts. Both events are now obligatory appointments of the aficionados of the seventh art, each year in spring. It's an occasion to benefit from the actors, directors, and invitations to enjoy the historic resources, cultural inheritance, excellent temperature, and partake of the rich gastronomy of the region.

Sports

In sports, Mula counts some swimming pools, situated around the soccer field. Mula has two municipal soccer fields (one of grass and the other waits to become artificial). There is a soccer pavilion, hall, "Grand Route" and a sports center with another pavillian, an outdoor pool, and tennis and basketball courts.

Festivals

The Night of the Drums

The origin of the playing of the drum in Mula is difficult to narrow down, but it seems to have taken place during the 14th century, as a form of protest. It is not presently clear that the first mention written that we have of the playing of the drum through the streets of Mula go back to the municipal ordinances of 1859, where it is written that only those persons authorized through the Brotherhood of Carmen were allowed to go through the streets with drums, and only in the procession. For this reason it is supposed that already at that time in the Saint Week of that year the people went out to play drums through the streets.

It is believed that this tradition of playing drums comes from the principles of the fourteenth century. It is possible to think that through the ages in which the playing of the drum in this locality, Saint Week, it could have been thought that it is a form of religious demonstration, but it is not at all the case that the people of Mula begin to play drums in protest of the restrictions and prohibitions imposed by the civil and catholic authorities in the locality.

The night of Saint Tuesday and Saint Wednesday, in the plaza of the town hall, thousands of persons dressed up in black tunics with huge drums plan to come, intent on entering the plaza but already it is impossible. It is almost twelve at night, the lights of the plaza are dimmed, people seek a great outcry, when suddenly, the little drummers raise their hands and begin to shake their drumsticks in the air, they begin to seek a heart beat, and sound the so hoped for fanfare of trumpets, finish the music and thousands of drums begin to play at once, the ground begins to tremble... and in this way begins the Night of the Drums of Mula.

The little drummers don't stop the playing of the drums in all of the night. Hour after hour they do not stop the beating of the skins of the drums with their big drumsticks, give equal age, sex and their origin. We are allowed to see little boys carried by their fathers in small chairs, until persons very good play their ancient drums, of which that long ago were used with cords to tauten. The drums do not understand the age or sex, they envelop you with their peculiar sound, from the night until the following day the only thing that is sought for anyone in the area is the playing of the drum.

It is a magical mixture, the night, the noise, the people dressed in black, and about all the quaint must of anise that is consumed for the stamina of the body, that is offered to them for the pains of the drums. In that way they make sure that until the dawn the body has stamina.

The drum

The instrument is fabricated in a homemade form by craftsmen from Mula. The modern drum may have changed over the length of the years, perhaps losing something of the originality, taking many of the elements of the next town of Moratalla. But moving toward perfection in many perceptions.

The instruments, whose diameters seldom approached 45 centimeters, had a like complement of drumsticks with fine points, that served to drumroll and beat without great force. Now, the drum that is highly valued is that with large dimensions (55, 60 or 65 centimeters in diameter) and drumsticks with point in form of a "club" with which one can strike with force on the skin of the drum.

The method of manufacture of the drum also has changed. In the past it was not possible to commission a blacksmith for a box and screws. The people used their ingenuity with laths, to constitute the base of the drum. In those cases the skins were tightened using some holes punched in the rings and winding a cord to constrict them. The strings were made with intestines of animals. In the present day, the drums are made with a metallic box, screws to tighten and the strings are guitar cords.

Notes

References

External links

• El Portal de acceso a la Ciudad de Mula Nonofficial site, in Spanish.