Memory Loss: Carnival in Mallorca

I pride myself on having a good memory, but memory, unless you are one of those rare people with hyperthymesia, works in different ways for different people in eliminating, filtering and archiving the past. Overload may have something to do with why some things are not always easy to recall. In my case, it is overload through the sheer amount of words I commit to an Apple Mac in the course of a day, a week, a month or year. Usually I know with clarity when I wrote about a particular subject or that I did write about it. Occasionally, however, I forget that I did or am not immediately able to locate what I thought I wrote about and so end up thinking that I have imagined ever having written it.

It could also be something to do with repetitiousness. I try and avoid this, but it isn't always possible and, with the best will in the world, there are aspects of Mallorcan life which are extremely repetitious. Each year it is the same. The only variables might be the exact schedule of events or when something took place.

And so it is with Carnival. I know, I thought, Carnival's coming up, it'll make a good hook for an article. What could it comprise? A bit about Franco banning it because mask-wearing might have been seditious, a comparison between Fat Thursday in Mallorca and Pancake Day in Britain, the strange tradition of burying the sardine. These all seemed like fertile references for a Carnival article. Until I then also thought - haven't I written about all this before? I had. Last year. End of idea for article.

So, the memory did kick in, but only eventually. But I wondered why the previous article hadn't come straight to mind. Yes, there is the overload possibility, but another is that one's senses and memory are dulled by the constant repetition, while a further is that, of the fiestas, Carnival isn't really that big a deal. It doesn't stand out. Or at least, I have never considered it to.

The Mallorcan Carnival does tend to get lost. The bombardment of fiestas in December and January, of which the events of, say, Three Kings and Sant Antoni stay very firmly in the mind, is such that Carnival, whenever it comes along (and this, the movability of the feast, may be a further explanation as to why it can be rather forgettable) appears to be something of an afterthought. It is fiesta almost for fiesta's sake.

There is an additional possibility. Easter looms as an obvious date in the calendar. Even if it wanders around all over the calendar, you know it's on its way. It is the target fiesta for the late winter or early spring, one to aim for after all the partying that goes on around Christmas and up to the middle of January. Once that partying ends, and up to Easter, it's time to get heads down and do a spot of work for a change. Or this, in a somewhat Anglo-Saxon, shouldn't-we-actually-do-some-work way, is how I tend to look upon what should be a festive hiatus.

Such a perspective doesn't of course chime with that of the locals. Any excuse, and to be honest, Carnival is. If Spain is the destination for a Carnival holiday break, which towns or cities would be top of a visitor's list? Well, there wouldn't be any in Mallorca, that's for sure. Yet again, in the winter destination stakes, Mallorca is beaten into a cocked hat by Tenerife, where they do Carnival big time and with big hats. If you are going to have bright, vibrant, spectacular street parades, it does help if the weather is reasonably warm and that there isn't the possibility of snow. But Carnival there still is, even if it is small festive beer by comparison with Santa Cruz.

One might be tempted to believe that the Mallorcan Carnival is all an expression of what was a reclaiming of a collective memory that old misery guts Franco looked to eradicate from local society's data storage and so is a perpetuation of this rediscovery. Possibly so, but such a justification would now rather over-egg the festive pudding.

This all said, it is an occasion for a spot of dressing-up, and amidst the current dreariness this is no bad thing. The mini-parades, the Ruetas, in which you can expect all manner of junior strangeness of attire (such as children being dressed as ants or having buckets on their heads), combine with the adult Ruas, which can be notable for their costume satire.

It's all fair enough, just that each year Carnival comes round and never quite registers. It is a fiesta that is easy to forget. And that was more or less what I had done.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.