Yesterday I posted a few teaser pictures from the bullfights I went to last night.

The bullfights are bloodless bullfights and are also in the Portuguese-style of bullfighting.

The Portuguese-style differs from the Spanish-style bullfighting.

In Portuguese-style bullfighting you have cavaleiros and forcados. More about them later in the post.

In this picture we can see some of the participants in the bullfight. At the front of the group you see the matador and his helper the bandarilheiro. The matador fights the bull and the bandarilheiro helps position and distract the bull. Behind them we see the cavaleiros or horsemen. The horses are usually Portuguese Lusitanos who are specially trained for bullfighting. In Portuguese-style bullfights you will also see cavaleiras or horsewomen. Standing to the side of the cavaleiros are two squads of forcados. I did not have a wide enough view to show the full squads. Each squad has eight men. Standing in the back are the campinos who herd the bull back to the pen when the fight is over.

Unfortunately, I do not have very good pictures of the cavaleiros in action, but fighting the bull from horseback is a very big part of Portuguese-style bullfighting. I will work on manipulating the pictures for a future post. The horse were amazingly quick and agile. With their speed and the combination of low light and distance from the action I did not get the best pictures.

Instead, we will focus on the matadores and forcados in this post.

Here we see a matador with his elaborate suit of light. The matador uses the pink cape to help position the bull in the arena or to help distract it to help out another matador or cavaleiro.

Here we have a bandarilheiro. His outfit is different as he doesn’t wear the gold sequins that the matador does. The bandarilheiro helps both the matores and the cavaleiros by using the cape to position and distract the bull.

So, now on to the action.

Here we have a matador using the red cape to work the bull. The matador skillfully maneuvers the bull through a series of passes to set up for the critical pass where he will symbolically spear the bull.

Here we see the critical pass. The matador is using a sword that has Velcro on the end of it. If the strike is made successfully it will attach to a Velcro pad that is on the back of the bull.

As mentioned above, I don’t have good pictures at the moment of the cavaleiros or horsemen. They are actually the main performers of the bullfight and use bandeirilhas or small javelins to stab the bull in the back. Again they are also Velcro devices that also have special effects such as flags or streamers when they have a successful strike on the bull.

Here is a bull that has taken multiple strikes from a cavaleiro. You can see the bandeirilhas in the Velcro pad on the back of the bull.

After the bull has been fought by the caveleiro, it is time for the second stage which is called the pega. This is short for pega de cara or face catch.

Here a picture is worth a thousand words. Even though it is not the best picture because of the fast action and low light, we can get a feeling for what is happening. The eight forcados are lined up to catch the bull. The lead man provokes the bull to charge and then tries to catch the bull between the horns. The rest of the squad then piles on and subdues the bull. There is a lot of skill involved in this and it also relies on the bull not losing momentum after the initial hit. This was very interesting to watch.

In the US the forcados are known as the suicide squad. You can tell why when you watch them in action. I can only imagine positioning myself in front of a charging bull. Look at the two lead forcados in this picture as they are tossed in the air. They held on though and the rest of the squad quickly subdued the bull. Amazing!!

I hope that you enjoyed this peek at Portuguese-style bullfighting. I may write a few posts in the future after doing a bit more research.

Steven

p.s. Hopefully the Portuguese words in the post are spelled correctly and used properly. If not, please feel free to comment so I can make corrections.