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Last modified: 2015-10-18 by ivan sache
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Flag of Soportújar - Image by Ivan Sache, 5 October 2015
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The municipality of Soportújar ((320 inhabitants in 2014; 1,416 ha; municipal website) is located 60 km south of Granada.
Soportújar must be of Roman origin, being named for the Latin word sopor, "a porch", referring to the typical, narrow streets of the village, locally known as tinaos. The modern village was established in the 13th century as an alquería (estate), part of the taha of Órgiva. Soportújar was a morisco stronghold during the Alpujarra Wars (1568-1571); after the expelling of the defeated Moriscos, King Philip II re-settled the place with 27 Christian families. Most of the village was maintained as a common shared among the inhabitants, without private property rights. Soportújar grew up from a small hamlet to a big village, counting around 700 inhabitants according to the Ensenada Cadaster (18th century). The village still counted 850 inhabitants in 1950, a number that decreased to hardly 200 in 1975, following emigration to Germany and France.
The first Buddhist monastery in Spain, O Sel Ling (The Place of Bright Light), established on the Atalaya hill by Lama Yeshé, was consecrated by the Dalai Lama.
Ivan Sache, 24 July 2009
The flag and arms of Soportújar, approved on 23 September 2014 by the Municipal Council and submitted the next day to the Directorate General of the Local Administration, are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 1 October 2014 by the Directorate General of the Local Administration and published on 14 October 2014 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 200, p. 21 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular panel, in proportions 2:3 (from hoist to fly), vertically divided into three equal vertical stripes. The stripe at hoist, crimson, the central, white, and the stripe at fly, black. In the center, the municipal coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Per pale sinister [2:1), 1. Azure a sorceress riding a broom sable, 2. Per fess, 1. Argent a lion sable langued gules, 2. Or three fesses gules, 3. Argent six roundels sable. A bordure gules four castles or port and windows azure and four pomegramantes proper faceted gules and leaved. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.
The symbols were inaugurated on 27 February 2015. The supporting memoir was redacted by José Luis Parra. The symbolic of the emblems is connected to sorcery, the inhabitants of the villages having been known for centuries as brujos (sorcerers) and brujas (sorceresses). The village has developed the "Sorcery" project, with the support of the Government of Andalusia and the Province of Granada; a Sorcery Center has been set up, while the Cave of the Sorceress' Eye, the Sorceress' Fountain and the Sorcery Mirador were revamped.
Red is the colour of Granada, white is the colour of the Sierra Nevada, and black is the colour of sorcery - therefore the colour of the sorceress featured on the arms. The sinister part features the arms of the lineage of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the "Great Captain", who suppressed the first %osrisco revolt in 1499, and of two of its descendents, the Valenzuela (lion) and Sástago (roundels) lineages. These three quarters are also used on the arms of Órgiva.
[Municipal website; El Faro Motril, 27 February 2015; Europa Press, 6 August 2014]
The flag inaugurated on 27 February 2015 is indeed in proportions 2:3 instead of the prescribed 2:3 (photo, video).
Ivan Sache, 5 October 2015
