Religious Rite Takes Hamlet Back in Time Every Seven Years<br />Older residents or those who have not been chosen to play a character also make themselves comfortable along the streets, with chairs<br />and umbrellas to tolerate the sun and the many hours of waiting.<br />At the windows overlooking the square, some older villagers wondered whether they would live long<br />enough to see her again in another seven years, and dried their eyes with white handkerchiefs.<br />Every seven years, time stops again, and the Madonna, though undoubtedly a religious icon, also becomes a member of the community.<br />enti" — penitents who flagellate themselves with nails — wear white robes, disguising<br />their identities, in what is said to be intimate repentance. that batt<br />Villagers wake up at dawn to dress up, put on makeup<br />and then gather in the narrow streets around their church, awaiting an order to march, each in their position.<br />The seven-hour procession under a scorching August sun, through narrow medieval streets built when only horses<br />and people needed them, is itself an act of sacrifice.<br />Others held a wood cross in one hand and used the other hand to jab a rounded cork with<br />dozens of nails into their chests repeatedly, in a gesture of physical atonement.
