L
Ladeada: to one side; especially refers to an estocade.
Lances: any formalized passes made by the cape.
Largas: a pass to draw the bull toward and then send him away from the man made with the cape fully extended and held at extremity by one hand.
Lazar: to lasso; or use the lariat or riata of the American west to catch cattle or the lazo with a weight on one end used in South America.
Levantado: first stage of the bull on entering the ring when he tries to sweep everything out of the ring without concentrating his charges.
Liar: to furl with a twist of the left wrist the cloth of the muleta over the stick which supports it before profiling on going in to kill with the sword.
Librar: to free; librar la acometida: to free himself from the unsuspected charge either by foot-work or by an improvised pass with muleta or cape.
Libre de cacho: anything performed with the bull out of range of his horns; either from a distance or after the horn has passed; means literally free from the possibility of being caught.
Lidia: the fight; toro de lidia: fighting bull. Also the name of the most famous and oldest bullfight weekly.
Lidiador: one who fights bulls.
Ligereza: agility; one of the three qualities necessary to be a matador according to the great Francisco Montes; the three being agility or lightness on the feet, valor, and a perfect knowledge of his profession.
Llegar: to arrive; the bull is said to llegar when he actually reaches the horse with his horn in spite of the picador's opposition.
Lleno: a full house or sell-out; every seat in the ring occupied.
M
Macheteo: chopping as with a cane knife or machete; macheteo por la cara is a series of chopping strokes from side to side with the muleta, with the man retreating by footwork if the bull charges, designed to tire the bull's neck muscles and prepare him for killing. It is the simplest and safest way to tire a bull with the muleta and employed by bullfighters who do not desire to take any risks or to attempt anything difficult.
Macho: male, masculine, abundantly endowed with male reproductive organs; torero macho: bullfighter whose work is on a basis of courage rather than perfected technique and style, although the style may come later.
Maestro: a master at anything; as a matador might be addressed by his peones. Has come to be used sarcastically, in Madrid especially. You address any one as maestro to whom you wish to show the minimum of respect.
Maldito or Maldita: damned; cursed as in speaking to a bull, "Damned be the cow that dropped you!"
Maleante: crook or cheap criminal; the type of maleante encountered most often going to or leaving the bullfight is the pickpocket or carterista; literally pocketbooker. These citizens are numerous, tolerated, in the sense that the police in Madrid have lists of them all and if you were robbed and saw the pickpocket they will have several hundred of them called in off the streets or from their homes and paraded for you; and extremely skillful. The way to avoid them is never to ride on a street car or the subway for that is where they work most easily. They have one good quality — they do not destroy your personal papers or passports or keep them as other pickpockets would do, but after taking the money drop the pocketbook with the papers it contains into a mail-box either in a tobacco store or in one of those ambulatory boxes attached to tramways. The pocket-book will then be obtainable at the general post office. From my own and my friends' experiences at being pickpocketed in Spain I should say that in their own walk of life these gentry combine the same qualities that Montes listed as indispensable to a bullfighter — lightness, valor, and a perfect knowledge of their profession.
Maleta: literally valise; is slang for a bad or cheap bullfighter.
Malo: bad, imperfect, defective, unhealthy, vicious, disagreeable, obnoxious, lousy, rotten, filthy, stinking, putrid, crooked, sonfabitching, etc., depending on the circumstances. Toro malo: bull having these attributes and other inherent defects such as a tendency to jump the barrera into the crowd; to run at the sight of a cape, etc.
Mamarracho: insult shouted at deficient bullfighter; American would be awkward bum, stumble bum, flat-footed tramp or yellow bastard.
Mancornar: bull-dogging or throwing a calf by twisting the horns by hand at the same time throwing the weight of the man's body on them.
Mandar: to command or order; in bullfighting to make the bull obey the cloth; to dominate him with it.
Manejable: manageable; bull possible to work with.
Mano: hand; mano bajo: with the hand low; the proper way to move the cape in the veronica. Alanos also refers to the feet of the bull.
Mansedumbre: slow oxlike peacefulness in a bull.
Manso: tame, mild and unwarlike; a bull which does not have the fighting blood is manso as are also the steers called cabestros when they are trained.
Manzanilla: natural light dry sherry wine which has not been fortified by adding more than its natural alcohol. Much drunk in Andalucia and by all connected with bullfights. It is ordered in chatos or short glasses and is usually served with a tapa or bit of food of some sort such as an olive and anchovy, a sardine, piece of tuna fish and red sweet pepper, or a slice of smoked ham. One chato lightens the spirits, three or four make you feel rather good, but if you eat the tapas as you drink, a dozen of them will not make you drunk. Manzanilla also means camomile, but if you remember to ask for a chato of manzanilla there is no danger that you will be served camomile tea.
Marear: to make seasick; to make the bull dizzy by turning him from side to side by flopping a cape on each side of his head or turn him round and round. This is done to get him to his knees after he has received an inconclusive estocade and is ugly to watch and dishonorable to perform.
Maricón: a sodomite, nance, queen, fairy, fag, etc. They have these in Spain too, but I only know of two of them among the forty-some matadors de toros. This is no guaranty that those interested parties who are continually proving that Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, etc., were fags would not be able to find more. Of the two, one is almost pathologically miserly, is lacking in valor but is very skillful and delicate with the cape, a sort of exterior decorator of bullfighting, and the other has a reputation for great valor and awkwardness and has been unable to save a peseta. In bullfighting circles the word is used as a term of opprobrium or ridicule or as an insult. There are many very, very funny Spanish fairy stories.
Mariposa: butterfly; series of passes with cape over the man's shoulders and the man facing the bull, zig-zagging slowly backwards, drawing the bull on with a wave of first one side of the cape, then the other, supposedly imitating the flight of a butterfly. Invented by Marcial Lalanda this quite requires great knowledge of bulls to execute properly.
Mariscos: shellfish eaten in the cafés while drinking beer before or after bullfights; the best of these are percebes, a sort of goose barnacle with a tasty stem of a very delicate and delicious flavor; longostinos, large, plump, oversized Mediterranean prawns; cigalas, a pink-and-white, long, narrow-clawed member of the lobster family whose claws and tail you crack with a nut cracker or a hammer; cangrejos del rio, ecrivisse or fresh-water crayfish, cooked with whole black pepper seeds in their tails, and gambas or common shrimps served in their shells to be shucked and eaten by hand. Percebes which grow along the rocks of the Atlantic coast of Spain are not obtainable in Madrid after April until September due to the closed season. Eaten while drinking beer or absinthe they are very good; the stems of the barnacle having a taste more delicate and attractive than any oyster, clam or shellfish I have ever eaten.
Marronazo: the picador missing the bull when he charges and the point of the pic slipping over the bull's hide without tearing it.
Matadero: slaughter-house. Training place for the use of puntilla and sword.
Matador: a formal killer of bulls, as a Mata Toros is only a bull butcher.
Mayoral: overseer on a bull-raising ranch; also those vaqueros or herders who accompany the caged bulls fr
om the ranch to the ring, sleeping with the cages on the freight cars, seeing the bulls are fed and watered, and assisting in their unloading and sorting before the fight.
Media-estocada: an estocade in which only half of the blade goes into the bull. If properly placed on a medium-sized bull a media-estocada will kill as quickly as one that goes in the full length. If the bull is very large, however, half a blade may not be long enough to reach the aorta or other large blood vessels, the cutting of which produces death quickly.
Media-luna: sickle-shaped blade attached to a long pole used in the early days of bullfighting to hamstring bulls which the matador had been unable to kill. For a long time after it passed out of use and the bull which a matador had failed to kill was removed by steers the media-luna was still exhibited to shame the matador and order the entry of the steers into the ring. It is no longer exhibited.
Medias: long stockings such as are worn by bullfighters.
Media veronica: a recorte, or cutting short of the bull's charge, which ends a series of passes with the cape known as veronicas (see explanation). The media veronica is accomplished by the man holding the cape in both hands, as for the veronica, and as the bull passes the man, moving from left to right, the man brings his left hand close to his hip and gathers the cape toward his hip with his right hand, shortening the swing of the veronica and making the cape swing half full, turning the bull on himself and fixing him in place so that the man may walk away with his back toward the animal. This fixing in place is accomplished by the swirl of the cape cutting the bull's normal course through making him attempt to turn in a shorter distance than his own length. Juan Belmonte was the perfecter of this lance with the cape and it is now the obligatory ending for any series of veronicas. The half passes made by the matador when holding the cape in both hands and running backward swaying the cape from side to side to take the bull from one part of the ring to another were once called media-veronicas, but the real media veronica at present is the one described above. Media-vuelta: method of placing banderillas on bulls that do not charge well in which the man takes his position at the rear of the bull and runs in toward the bull's head as the latter turns to come toward him. Bulls which are impossible to kill from the front are also stuck with the sword by the man going in to kill by a media-vuelta.
Medios: central part of the ring which is divided into three terrains for the purpose of executing different suertes with the bull; the centre or medios; the next third or tercios and the ground next to the barrera called tablas.
Mejorar: to improve; mejorando su estilo: improving his style; mejorar el terreno is when a bullfighter finds himself too close to the barrera to be able to accomplish the pass which he is preparing without being caught and using cape or muleta to aid him changes to a better or safer position.
Meter el pie: to incite the bull to charge by bending forward the knee and then straightening up, profiled toward the bull, when awaiting him in order to kill in the manner known as recibiendo (see text).
Metisacas: put and pulled; estocades in which the matador through lack of decision puts the sword in a little way and then pulls it out.
Mogón: bull with one horn broken off or crumpled, sometimes leaving a rounded protuberance; such bulls are used in novilladas.
Mojiganga: masquerade; in the old days bulls would be let into the ring at novilladas while a procession was in progress or a play being acted. They were called mojigangas; the last survival of this are the various bands imitating the bullfighting band, El Empastre, founded by Rafael Dutrus, in which a young bull is released into the ring while the band is playing and is fought and killed by some of the musicians while the rest continue to play their instruments.
Molinete: pass with the muleta in which the man turns a complete circle on himself letting the muleta wind itself around his body. Is of greatest effect when done between the bull's horns or just beside them, in this case the bull being turned completely on himself while following the loose end of the cloth.
Mona: silk-covered button worn at the base of the bullfighter's pigtail.
Monerías: monkey business; childish extravagances committed with the bull.
Monosabios: red-shirted bull ring servants who aid the picadors when they fall, help them to mount, lead horses toward the bull, kill horses that have been wounded, unsaddle them, spread canvas over them, etc. They were first so nicknamed when a troupe of performing monkeys uniformed in the same colors were presented in Madrid in 1847 shortly after the direction of the ring had put the servants into red blouses.
Morillo: the hump of muscle rising from the neck of a fighting bull which erects when the bull is angry. In the top part of this hump, nearest the shoulders, is where the picador should place his pic and the banderilleros their sticks.
Morucho: half-bred bull sometimes brave, vicious and dangerous but without the type or caste of the thoroughbred. In many parts of Spain bulls are raised which have a strain of wild fighting blood by breeders who do not belong to any of the associations of thoroughbred fighting-bull raisers and these bulls are sold to be fought in novilladas in the small rings and in capeas. Their lack of good blood can be most easily seen in the thickness of their tails, the size of their horns and hoofs, and the lack of morillo when they otherwise have the appearance of real fighting bulls.
Movido: moving; toreo movido: using too much foot-work when working with the bull.
Mozo de estoques: personal servant and sword handler for the matador. In the ring he prepares the muletas and hands his master the swords as he needs them, wiping off the used swords with a sponge and drying them before putting them away. While the matador is killing he must follow him around in the passage way to be always opposite him ready to hand him a new sword or muleta over the barrera as he needs it. When it is windy he dampens capes and muleta from a water jug he carries and also looks after all personal wants of the matador. Outside the ring before the fight he takes around the envelopes containing the matador's card and a certain sum of money to the different bullfight critics, aids the matador to dress, and sees that all the equipment is transported to the ring. After the fight he sends the telefonemas — messages sent by the telephone company and written and delivered as telegrams are in the United States — or the more rare verbal messages to the matador's family, friends, the press and any clubs of bullfight enthusiasts that may be organized in the matador's name.
Mucha: much; de muchas piernas: with plenty of legs; very strong in the legs; muchas arrobas: very heavy. De mucho cuidado: very suspicious; that is, a bull very difficult to work with.
Muchacho: boy; youth.
Muerte: death; also the place where the sword should enter to kill the bull properly. Bullfighters say the bull uncovers the muerte when he lowers his head well. Pase de la muerte: pass with the muleta explained in the text.
Muleta: heart-shaped scarlet cloth of serge or flannel folded and doubled over a tapered wooden stick equipped with a sharp steel point at the narrow end and a grooved handle at the widened extremity; the sharp point is pricked through the cloth where it is folded to a point and the loose end is fastened to the handle with a thumbscrew so that the wood supports the folds of the cloth. The muleta is used to defend the man; to tire the bull and regulate the position of his head and feet; to perform a series of passes of more or less aesthetic value with the bull; and to aid the man in the killing.
Muletazo: a pass performed with the muleta.
Multa: fine assessed by the presiding officer of the corrida or by the civil-governor against a bullfighter, bull raiser, or the management of the ring itself. Fines assessed against bullfighters are a farce since all matadors' contracts contain a clause which stipulates that any fines assessed against them must be paid by the promoters. This clause dates from over thirty-five years and was first inserted to prevent promoters from contracting a matador at his own figure and then having the president fine him the difference between the figure he asked in order to fight and the figure the promoter was willing
to pay. At present with the matadors, picadors and banderilleros organized as they are and able to place a boycott on any ring whose promoter does not pay his debts and maintain that boycott until the debt is paid, not permitting fights to be held even under another promoter until their claims have been satisfied, there is no need to maintain the clause about fines to protect the bullfighters. Its only effect at present is to let unscrupulous fighters know that any fines they may be assessed, no matter how justly, for deficient or dishonest work will not come out of their own pockets. This is one of the abuses that should be corrected the next time a new government ordinance for regulation of the bullfight is drawn up.
N
Nalgas: buttocks, or rump; location of many horn wounds caused by the matador turning his back on the bull without having fixed him properly to avoid a charge. Prominent buttocks destroy the line that the bullfighter seeks to make in working with the bull and prevent him being taken seriously as a stylist, hence a tendency to carry weight there is a source of much worry to a matador in modern bullfighting.
Death in the Afternoon Page 32