The Joyride Blog
Weird Wide Web - Slamming Hammer Festival─── 16:28 Fri, 20 Mar 2020
Check out how these Mexicans celebrate
Men in the Mexican town of San Juan de la Vega were having trouble with their sledgehammers. The heads were tearing off—because they were loading them with homemade explosives and slamming them against I-beams. The practice is part of the tradition at the heart of the town’s annual festival in honor of its patron, St. John the Baptist. According to Dudley Althaus, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, the story goes that Juan de la Vega, a wealthy miner and rancher, and the town’s namesake, was aided by the saint in recovering gold stolen by bandits. Residents took up exploding sledgehammers to commemorate the victory over the outlaws. And so, on Fat Tuesday, in a field in the middle of the town, packets of fertilizer and sulfur explode into clouds of dust and shrapnel. Now the tools are reinforced with rebar, and the celebration features fabulous blasts but few flying hammer heads.
