Generally, they carry gifts in one or both arms. They are presented as part of the scene of Christ’s birth or as individual saints. In the tradition of carvings of saints, there is a great variety of iconography of the Three Kings: mounted on horses before the Christ child, mounted on horses and looking left, as if following the star to Bethlehem, or on foot and side by side on a common base. The celebration of Three Kings Day is so important in Puerto Rican culture that the verb reyar, or “to king,” has been coined, which means to enjoy the celebration of the Three Kings festivals with singing accompanied by traditional musical instruments. He found the festival was celebrated particularly by blacks, for whom Three Kings Day was a time they could freely go from house to house wearing masks and asking for alms without being recognized. The second is that the tradition comes from the diablillos celebration, a Spanish carnival festival that represented good and evil through various characters and was documented by Cuban scholar Fernando Ortiz. The first is that January 6 was the date that the first Mass was held in the Americas, a tradition that with time has fallen from memory. The reasons for the strong popularity of Three Kings Day in Puerto Rico are not clearly known, although there are various theories. Gaspar, then, is the young, beardless king. Here, and in Cuba, the North African king is Melchor, not Gaspar, and Baltasar is represented as the oldest king with gray hair and beard. Gaspar, Melchor and Baltasar are the names of the Three Kings, although in Puerto Rico the identifications are different from the European traditions. In Puerto Rico, the biggest celebration of the Christmas season is focused mainly on January 6, the day of the liturgical celebration of the Three Kings. One of my favorite Christmas carols was We Three Kings.Īs I grew older, I participated in Three Kings celebrations with Puerto Rican friends and religious family members, and learned to appreciate a tradition that had no Santa Claus. I savored the sound of the gifts that they brought with them, especially frankincense and myrrh. Thinking back, it probably had something to do with the fact that one of them was black, and that all three were exotic and mysterious, dressed in elaborate robes and turbans. When I was growing up, I was always more interested in the figures of the three kings, which were part of our family creche-nativity scene, than I was with the baby Jesus or Mary. Puerto Rican artists usually depict the wise men riding horses, rather than camels, and the black king Melchior is almost always shown on a white horse. Many santeros, who carve wooden images of saints, create sculptures of the kings, even though they are not technically viewed as saints. Puerto Ricans celebrate Three Kings Day on January 6, when families get together and children receive gifts from Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. The tradition of venerating the Magi, or Los Reyes Magos (the Three Kings), in Puerto Rico originated in medieval Europe, where the figures were included in Nativity scenes. 1875-1900, which are in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Teodoro Vidal collection. January 6 is Three Kings Day. In Spanish, it’s Día de los Reyes Magos, and it’s also known as the Feast of the Epiphany in many Christian traditions.ĭepicted above are carvings of Los Reyes Magoscirca.
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