Village
Municipality of the comarca of La Mancha de Toledo, in the province of Toledo, whose place name comes from the Arabic kammuniya and which was resettled around 1276 by the Order of Saint John; at the Corpus Christi celebrations it performs the Pecados y Danzantes, a ritual declared of National Tourist Interest in which two teams enact in mime and dance the struggle between good and evil, and it preserves the La Unión windmill, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), and an ethnological museum. From the town the Peninsular War guerrilla fighter known as el Tío Camuñas took his name.
Monument
Renaissance church topped by a tower of Mudéjar tradition, located in the historic centre of Camuñas (region of La Mancha de Toledo) and the town's main monument. In the 18th century it underwent a restoration to which the infante Gabriel Antonio de Borbón (1752-1788), son of Charles III, contributed, leaving his mark on the building.
Monument
The La Unión windmill, in Camuñas, was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) according to a publication in the BOE of 24 November 2000. It may have been built in 1866, the date that appears above its door, although this would actually correspond to its reconstruction after a fire, since it was previously known as Molino Viejo and is cited as the place where, in 1809, Juan Pedro Sánchez, brother of the Tío Camuñas, was hanged. Its current name comes from the fact that, after the fire, the residents of Camuñas joined together to fund its reconstruction, for which the machinery of a disused mill in Campo de Criptana called El Sardinero was used. During the works the interior of the building was enlarged, keeping the original diameter, and the old reed roof was replaced with a zinc one.
Monument
The Ethnological Museum of Camuñas occupies, on the Plaza Vieja of the municipality (La Mancha de Toledo), the former headquarters of the Hospitallers of San Juan de Jerusalén, known as the casa de la tercia, next to the start of Calle Tercia, which forms part of the processional route. It brings together explanatory panels, documents, historical photographs and original costume pieces worn by the protagonists of the Pecados y Danzantes festival, as well as documenting the trades, agricultural life and traditions of the municipality.
Curiosity
The place name comes from the Arabic kammuniya, which can mean similar to cumin or else any seed that is neither a cereal nor a pulse. The town was resettled around 1276 by the Order of Saint John.
Curiosity
El Tío Camuñas, whose real name was Francisco Sánchez Fernández, was born in Camuñas on 11 September 1762 and became one of the most celebrated Manchegan guerrilla fighters of the Peninsular War (Spanish War of Independence), from which he took his nickname. A courier by trade, his agility on horseback and his knowledge of the terrain proved decisive during his time as a guerrilla fighter. His brother, Juan Pedro Sánchez, was executed by the French in May 1809 after killing a pro-French town councillor, and Francisquete himself managed to escape an assault on the family home by jumping over the walls. He died in Belmonte on 13 November 1811. His figure, forged in these episodes of the Toledan Manchuela, passed into Spanish popular imagination.
Curiosity
During the Cantonal Revolution of the Spanish First Republic, Camuñas briefly constituted itself as an independent canton. It was proclaimed in 1873 by its mayor, the federal republican and anticlerical Luis Villaseñor y de Oliva, although it lasted only a few days, under the federalist presidency of Francisco Pi y Margall, and moulds were even made to mint its own coinage. The episode added to the already singular fame of the village, where the missionary zeal of the Galician evangelical Félix Moreno Astray had converted part of the population to Protestantism, for which it was known as the Manchegan Geneva. The historian Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo recorded the event in his Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, as an attempt to create a sort of Manchegan and smuggling Geneva.
Activity
Pecados y Danzantes de Camuñas is a festival declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Nacional (a national designation for festivals of special tourist interest) held in this Toledan municipality during Corpus Christi. Its origin may date back to the 16th and 17th centuries, when the dances took the form of an auto sacramental in homage to the Blessed Sacrament. Two groups, the Pecados and the Danzantes, use mime and dance to represent the struggle between good and evil: the former, wearing evil masks and carrying a long rod, embody the sins of man and make use of shouts, screams and gunpowder; the latter, cheerful and wearing large-nosed masks, represent the virtues and are accompanied by music. The procession sets off before the morning mass and pits characters such as the Pecadilla or the Pecado Mayor against the Danzantes, led by the Prudencia and the Cordel.
Activity
The festivities of San Nicasio are the main patronal celebration of Camuñas, in La Mancha de Toledo. According to the municipality's article, the residents took this saint as patron in the 17th century, after a serious epidemic against which they sought his protection; San Nicasio, who lived and was martyred in the 2nd century for defending his faith, ended up becoming established as patron saint in the 18th century. The festivity is distinct from the celebrated tradition of Pecados y Danzantes, held in the same village for Corpus Christi.