" The symbol of our celebration has form of drum; between festive, warlike and mournful, it represents in his sound the chaos or the confusion of the world when El Salvador dies. The drum, more than an instrument than liturgy, strictly between ourselves turns into an instrument of passion. " These words illustrate the cry that Joaquín Escuder wrote for the collection Cry (10).
Darío Vidal, in the same collection Cry (4), says to us: " The drums were born on April 17, 1678, Good Friday, in full glory of the Baroque, in Alcañiz's city, on initiative of a cuaresmero of the Santa Maria Major so called Monk Mateo Pestel, whose intention was to recall the quake of the land that happened in the agony of Jesus, according to San Mateo's statement ".
The procession of the Cry initiated this tradition that lasts throughout the centuries: drums, carracks and rattles accompanied the first penitents.
The Holy Week is a feature of identity that we feel the alcañizanos as something own, justification this one, which served in 1968 to realize the Monument to the Drum, in Alcañiz's entry next to It her Suspends Jose Golzalvo raises this permanent sculpture of iron identical with the sculptor turolense, represents a confrere touching solemnly with the toothpicks the drum.
The Supreme Meeting formed by all the Confraternities and Fraternity of the Holy Week alcañizana, take the defense and the promotion as one of his basic ends of one of our more deep-rooted and admired traditions.