Notes About Our Heritage...

By C. Mariano Dominguez

July 12, 2006 - “El coleo” (literally “Holding by the Tail”. In the bullfights, to hold the bull by the tail, usually when he charges a “picador” on the ground), an imposing bullfighting bronze sculpture whose author was the well known Valencian sculptor Mariano Benlliure y Gil (1862-1947), bought in Spain by the Gomez Mena family, fans of bullfights and owners of Amistad Sugar Mill in Güines.

El coleo

This artwork was taken to Cuba and placed in Don Alfonso Gomez Mena’s mansion in Havana. During the second half of the fifties, the sculpture was moved to Amistad Sugar Mill and placed on a simple but beautiful plaza in the main square, located between the owners’ residence, the offices, the chapel and the sugar mill itself.

At the beginning of the sixties, the bearded barbarians, in their futile attempt to erase all vestiges of history and of a prosperous past, removed this monumental artwork, sending it to an unknown place. It is rumored that it went somewhere to the eastern part of Cuba and thanks to steps taken by some sugar mill neighbors and workers, the sculpture was returned, being placed again, in its former location. The masterly sculpture shows a bullfighter, pulling a fighting bull’s tail that is ferociously charging a “picador”, who together with his horse, is lying on the bullring.