The Proclaimer Of Sant Antoni

Is there a town which does its history and culture in a more passionate and more intense fashion than Sa Pobla? There will be towns which will argue that they do, but then there is no town, other than Sa Pobla, which can claim a fiesta of the longevity of Sant Antoni that has become a genuinely island-wide occasion. Sa Pobla is blessed with being the town where the cult of Sant Antoni, brought across the sea from Catalonia by the Mallorcan kings, was implanted and where the church is the only parish church to have the saint as its patron.

Though there are other towns which have their Sant Antoni celebrations, Sa Pobla is where the fiesta started and so where the history is at its strongest. They love an anniversary in Sa Pobla, and this year is no different. It is the 650th anniversary of the first documentary evidence of the fiesta, and true to form it is being made a fuss of. It had to do with one Joan Montjiuc and his wish to wear his sword while being accompanied by two women during the celebration on the eve of Sant Antoni (16 January). It caused a bit of a row between the assistant to the governor of the island at that time, Rodrigo de Sant Martí, and the mayor of what was then referred to as Huialfàs (a convenient abbreviation for the full name of Sa Pobla de Huialfàs which was eventually altered in order to adopt an alternative convenient abbreviation, i.e. Sa Pobla). 

This document, the subject matter of which was relatively inconsequential, implies that the celebrations on the eve of Sant Antoni were by then established, though quite how well established isn't known. Sa Pobla was founded in 1300 but the original Sant Antoni church wasn't built until 1357. It is possible, therefore, that the fiesta originates from only a few years before the now famous 1365 document.

Whenever it did actually start, it carried on unmolested for nigh on three centuries when the town hall and the church ran up against a problem with a hospital in Palma run by the Antonian order. The church was told that it had to remove the image of Sant Antoni from the altar and thus started a legal battle which took six years to resolve. Eventually, in 1643, victory was Sa Pobla's. The image could stay, the fiesta would survive, and as a way of announcing this victory, a specific tradition was introduced. It was the "clam", which can be translated as cry or proclamation. The cry was "Visca Sant Antoni". The saint had been dead for nearly 1300 years by then, but no matter. Long live Sant Antoni and his fiesta.

This cry, which had been bellowed out by the assembled masses for the "Completes" solemn service on the eve of Sant Antoni in 1643, caught on. The bellowing occurred every year until 1920 when it was decreed that it was all a bit unseemly for a church service. Sant Antoni, the fiesta, carried on, but his long life was no longer proclaimed. But all old traditions in Mallorca are capable of being revived, which is what happened to the "clam". It took over eighty years for the revival to occur, but in 2002 it was back, replete with its "clamater", a crier or proclaimer, an honoured son or daughter of the town, and the first person to be given this honour was the man who probably more than any other had brought about the revival of traditions in Sa Pobla, the writer, playwright and historian, Alexandre Ballester.

Since 2002, the honour has been given to other worthies of Sa Pobla. In 2003 it was the Mallorcan actor Simón Andreu Trobat, while in 2008 it was Antoni Torrens, a promoter of Sa Pobla culture who was the one who took the Sant Antoni celebrations to Gràcia in Barcelona, where they have been re-created each year since the early 1990s. There was a slight break with tradition in 2007 when there was a group cry by Marjal en Festa, a cultural association closely linked with the fiesta through its folk dance. Then there was 2011 and Llorenç Serra Ferrer, a name which should be familiar to those of you who know something of Real Mallorca football club. Yes, that Llorenç Serra Ferrer, the one who had presided over four years of increasing calamity at the football club. One doubts that he might be invited now.

And so we come to this year. The "clamater" is chosen each year by a body known as La Prohomenia, a gathering of notables, including the mayor. The chosen one is Jaume Caldés, the grand master of the caparrot big heads who are as much a feature of the fiestas as the demons and giants. "Visca Sant Antoni" will be proclaimed following a brief speech at the end of the Completes. The congregation will respond likewise and they will then all troop out of the church and not long after, all hell will break loose.