In Seville, you can smell "Semana Santa" before it arrives. In the lead-up to the holiday, also known as Holy Week, the smell of burning incense lingers in the air on street corners, a trademark scent of the spectacular Easter processions that take place in the week before Easter Sunday. Tens of thousands of visitors flock to the capital of Andalusia province each year to take it all in.

Observant Catholics come to offer their devotion, and nonbelievers come to marvel at the floats, immense structures laden with flowers and religious statues that are carried on the aching shoulders of a lucky chosen few, the "costaleros" or float bearers.

"It's an honor, a source of pride," Jose Gonzalez, a long-time "costalero," explained at a rehearsal in Seville's Omnium Sanctorum Church. In the roughly seven hours it takes 45 men to slowly walk a 1,800-kilogram (nearly 4,000-pound) float with a statue of Jesus Christ to the city cathedral and back, they serve as "the feet of God,” as Gonzalez put it.

Female float bearers to the rescue

In Seville, this physically grueling task is only entrusted to men. Demand for a spot like Gonzalez's under a float is extremely high, and many contenders miss out.

But elsewhere, like in the tiny town of La Campana just a 50-minute drive away, women have been taking up float bearer roles for almost 30 years.

In 1993, one of the community's five brotherhoods — the religious bodies that organize Holy Week — were short on men. Local women decided to step up and they have never looked back, Reyes Zarapico, the elder sister (highest-ranking member) of the brotherhood, told DW. Now and then they've been short on women but thankfully not this year, she explained.

"The men were hoping that there wouldn't be enough women so that they could get under the float again," Zarapico, 43, told DW in La Campana. "But there are no problems at all."

'It's like childbirth'

Maricarmen Silva, 43 and the longest-serving "costalera" in the town with over 20 years of experience, finds it hard to sum up just how profound an experience their four-hour procession is. "It's like childbirth, when the mother is exhausted but then she sees the child and it all melts away," she said.

This year, many young female float bearers in La Campana are taking part for the first time. Andrea Calzada, who's just 16, stepped in for her mother, who had to pull out after a traffic accident.

"I've been happy in this environment since I was a little girl," Calzada told DW. "I used to come with my mother to rehearsals, and it is something I always dreamed of doing, since I was small…This is my family." 

Float bearers are the 'heroes' of Seville

It's hard to overstate how deeply embedded the traditions of Holy Week are in Andalusian culture. The holiday is observed throughout Spain but is chiefly associated with its southernmost region, and particularly the capital city, Seville. For one week, the city grinds to a halt as the narrow streets throng with parades and onlookers.

Float bearers occupy a special place in the public imagination and are linked with a sort of masculine ideal, according to Pilar Fernandez, who is now a social worker but spent time observing the city's float bearers as an anthropologist interested in masculinity. 

Until the 1970s, float bearers were typically dock workers paid by the brotherhoods to lift the heavy loads. These days, it is more or less a voluntary role. The name "costalero" derives from the "costal," or sack, worn on the head as a buffer against the float.

"When the 'costalero' goes to the bar after practice, he keeps his sack under his arm. He has public favor, he's kind of a hero," Fernandez told DW by phone.

Many float bearers, particularly in the regional capital, are deeply and sincerely religious, seeing their physical service as a type of penance or an opportunity for spiritual reflection. The training sessions also result in the formation of close social bonds, Fernandez said. There is a martial atmosphere, but at the same time men help dress each other in their headgear, and can express a certain intimacy or vulnerability, she explained.

The traditional role of women during Holy Week is behind the scenes, said Fernandez, although these days many also take part in the procession as Nazerenes, the cone-headed, masked penitents. Historically, women would prepare sandwiches for the Nazarenes, make clothes for the float bearers or dress religious icons.

Twenty years ago, when she carried out her research, Fernandez asked one leader of the float bearers, whose role was to shout out instructions from outside the float, what would happen if there weren't enough men. "He told me more or less that he would put it on wheels before he saw women carry it," she recounted.

'Holy Week in Seville is a man's affair'

Despite the attitude of this particular man, women have become float bearers elsewhere. So why not in Seville?

One local with a few theories is 82-year-old Maruja Vilches. In 1985, she was one of the first five women to take part in the city procession as a Nazarene. "Seville had no idea," she explained. The women kept their masks and robes on so the secret didn't get out.

Later, in 2012, she was the first woman elected to lead a Seville brotherhood in their centuries of history, serving as elder sister. "There was more astonishment than resistance," she recalled.

For Vilches, it's not down to sexism that there are no female float bearers in her city. It's about supply and demand. "If Seville needed more float bearers, women would step up. But if a brotherhood is looking for one, men fill the street waiting," she said.

Nonetheless, Vilches sees the need for change. "Holy Week in Seville is a man's affair, that's for sure."

Andrea Calzada, the 16-year-old from La Campana, would like to see more women carrying the precious floats.

"I think women should go for it," she said. "We should show how we can parade the statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary like we deserve, that it's not only something for men."

Edited by: Andreas Illmer