Halumay Bullring

The Halumay Bullring is a large circular arena adjacent to the House of Brass in Halumay. Pre-dating the Wesmodian Reformation by many decades, the bullring is the main venue for bullfightinting in the Eleven Cities.

Description

The arena of the ring is a near-perfect circle of ochreous rock some 50 feet in diameter and roughly a foot thick. The quarry from which this rock was sourced is located over 100 miles from the city, indicating that the construction of the arena involved a considerable investment of resources. Brick retaining walls rise nine feet above the surface; from that height a staggered terrace of a dozen rows of seating surrounds the arena. All told the area seats about 9,000 people, or perhaps a tenth of the population of Halumay.
The retaining wall is broken in three places - one at the eastern end, where a reinforced gateway opens into a stock pen built for bulls, one at the western end, where another such gateway opens into a small but well-built stone building where the bullfighters can await their bouts, and a third roughly halfway between the two at the southerly edge of the area through which the carcasses of defeated bulls - and, much more rarely, bullfighters - can be conveyed.

Use

The maintenance of the Halumay Bullring is formally codified as one of the responsibilities of the Senate of Halumay. It is used several times a year for the purpose of hosting bullfights. Custom dictates that the sitting Primary of Halumay should observe the gravity and dignity of his office by financing a bullfight - typically a fairly lavish one involving numerous animals - once a year, during the same moon of that year as he was elevated to office. Similarly it is regarded as good form for the Senate of Halumay to collectively finance a large bullfight in early summer; this tradition tends to be observed in all but times of great crisis. Other grandees of Halumay society will engage the Bullring to put on bullfights as form, ambition and personal taste dictate. The Senate may also put on bullfights for the benefit of visiting foreign dignitaries; less commonly, those dignitaries themselves may underwrite such an occasion. The Commercial Guilds of the city occasionally put on such events as a display of institutional largesse, for example.
Overall the Bullring sees use between ten and twenty times a year. With bullfighting being a passionately-espoused element of Halumayan culture, the Bullring is widely seen as a venue for that culture to be indulged, celebrated and led; in election years, the right to use it typically becomes the subject of a fierce, sometimes acrimonious bidding war among Senators.

History and thaumatological significance

There is no written record of the construction of the Halumay Bullring. It is generally agreed by thaumatologists who address the matter - and held as a truism by those who do not - that Halumayan bullfighting originated from a heterodox form of the worship of the fire-god Ajqyod in the city. The general notion is that the people of Halumay worship Ajqyod via the sacrifice of bulls at important times of year, with the flesh of the animals distributed to the general public in much the same way (though perhaps with somewhat more solemnity) as it is at a bullfight. The Bullring, being situated within the complex of the House of Brass, was almost certainly the venue for such sacrifices.
Formal, published research on this matter is so far rather sparse, however. The definitive work on the subject is the book Vessels of Fire by the Tyrosian thaumatologists Rasendos and Anasyan Phylamoros, which contains a lengthy account of the author's extensive field research at the site itself. Forbidden from conducting this research by the Senate, the Phylamoroses trespassed on the site to do it by night. Publishing the book revealed the crime and they were thus trespassed from the entire city of Halumay; their book contains exhortations to readers to continue the research, hopefully via more official channels than they were able to use.

Type

Arena