The final fiestas of the summer start in Santa Margalida on Wednesday (27 August). The La Beata fiestas are in honour of the beatified Santa Catalina Thomàs. Despite the saint having had no direct association with Santa Margalida (she was from Valldemossa), it would seem that celebrations of the beatification, which occurred across Mallorca by the end of the eighteenth century, were then consolidated in Santa Margalida. The elements of the procession of La Beata (this year on 7 September) - the carrying of pitchers (jars) by couples, the smashing of these jars by demons - are all pretty much an invention of Santa Margalida. The fiestas, and especially the procession, are considered to be among Mallorca's most important, if not the most important, and this may well be because Santa Catalina's story (or stories, because there are different ones) was exclusively Mallorcan. She clearly wasn't a saint in the normal sense of the religious tradition, as she wasn't a saint from the Bible.
The programme in English at:
http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/2014/08/santa-margalida-la-beata-2014.html
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