Carnival Crazies: Burying sardines

Francisco de Goya knew a thing or two about painting. He could turn his hand to pretty much any subject and do so with a remarkable ability for subversion and the portrayal of darkness. His painting of the burial of the sardine is a good example. Apparently there were at least two alternative versions, but the one most commonly known is an expression of supreme grotesqueness with the "sardine" symbolised by a grinning but disturbing face on a banner. Goya's painting, while celebrating the joy of the common man, is a satire on the church and on the crown. It was created during the reign of the absolutist monarch, Ferdinand VII, who had attempted to outlaw carnival and so the end-game of carnival, the burial of the sardine before the start of Lent.

Goya didn't invent the tradition of the burial of the sardine but he certainly helped to popularise it. Quite what its origins are is open to debate. The generally held theory is that it arose during the reign of Carlos III, so some time between 1759 and 1788. The king, the story goes, ordered that there be one final party before Lent and, because there was an abundance of sardines, these were the culinary centrepiece. However, because there were so many sardines and because the weather was particularly warm, there was an almighty great pong on account of sardines rotting in the heat. The solution was to bury them. As theories go, it seems as good as any, though the fact that there appears to be no documentary evidence to support this royal command could mean that it is just a tall tale.

Goya's painting (or paintings) most definitely assisted in spreading the sardine tradition and in also reinforcing the bizarre, profane and anti-establishment nature of carnival as a whole. Over the decades of turmoil through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, carnival and the sardine were symbolic of the people taking over for a short while and poking fun at those who often made their lives a misery.

The burial of the sardine is nowadays absolutely central to the carnival story. It clearly isn't a Mallorcan tradition as such, but it finds expression here in Mallorca as much as it does on the mainland. Consequently, this week there will be sardine-burial ceremonies, most of which confirm that, on occasion, Mallorcans are more than capable of acting in a totally bonkers fashion.

A sardine, being a sardine, is only small. As such, it doesn't command a great presence when it comes to a spot of street-theatre, fiesta-style celebration. In order to overcome its diminutive nature, there are mock, giant sardines instead, and nowhere does this in any more peculiar fashion than the village of Portol in Marratxi. Its twenty-third burial of the sardine takes place on Shrove Tuesday, the last day of feasting before Ash Wednesday and Lent kick in. At 6pm, as has become traditional, a giant, comedy sardine will be paraded through the streets, carried as though by pallbearers, accompanied by suitably solemn music from the local band (music of a tongue-in-cheek variety, if it is possible to describe music in such a fashion) and by ladies of the village, clad in black mourning dresses and weeping (in a hammed-up, over-the-top manner). The weeping, so tradition suggests, is all to do with the people being saddened at the end of the carnival festivities and being faced with the prospect of several weeks of strict religious observance (or not). 

The Portol sardine, as is the case with some sardines elsewhere, doesn't actually get buried. The Mallorcans enjoy nothing more than setting fire to something, and little excuse is needed for a festivity to feature a roaring bonfire. The comedy sardine is toast, its final moments being marked by the sound of a trumpet reveille. Having committed the sardine to its fiery end, it is of course time to get eating. Cue, therefore, many a real sardine and any amount of strong alcoholic beverage plus, of course, the ubiquitous ball de bot folk dance.

The actual burial (or burning) usually requires some form of blessing, which may or may not be serious and may or may not actually feature clergy. In Pollensa, as an example, where a sardine is normally paraded with a collection of candles, the "clergy" can typically consist of blokes dressed as nuns and a priest who, on account of his appearance, would not normally get within a mile of a church.

So, take note. If you see some strange sorts wandering along the streets carrying something which looks as though it is destined for a funeral, don't be alarmed. In Mallorca, just as you are never far from the sea at any time of the year, at the end of the carnival, you are never far from a sardine.

Photo: Portol sardine, from Marratxi town hall, www.ajmarratxi.net

Carnival: Inverting the established order

General Franco's old mate Benito Mussolini was the first to realise that carnival might not just be an ideal celebration for the fascist state with authoritarian or totalitarian tendencies. For Benito, there was a problem with the masks. They could be used to hide possible criminal or subversive elements. They were a matter of national security. Mussolini, therefore, banned the Venice Carnival, and once Franco had taken control of Spain, he took a leaf out of Mussolini's book and banned the carnival in Cadíz. In fact, he didn't stop there. He banned it everywhere. Like Mussolini, he sensed possible subversiveness because of the wearing of masks, while the church weighed in and suggested that carnivals were all a bit of an excuse for licentious behaviour.

The Cadíz Carnival was the original carnival in Spain, and its inspiration was the carnival tradition in Italy, notably that of Venice, but also elsewhere. It was Italian merchants, especially those from Genoa, who helped to create the Cadíz Carnival, and despite various attempts over the centuries by the church to ban it, it continued and grew until Franco stepped in.

The banning orders weren't necessarily that well observed. Even in Cadíz, they managed to have a carnival in secret - quite how, I'm not entirely sure - while in more remote parts of Spain, the islands for instance, they could get away with more than was the case in the main urban centres on the mainland. The carnival in Santa Cruz in Tenerife more or less carried on uninterrupted but under a different name, the Winter Festival.

Mallorca doesn't have the same tradition of carnival as, say, Tenerife, but carnival there most definitely is and its popularity has arguably never been stronger than it is today. Every town has its carnival, and in some towns there are more than the one, depending on the parts of a town - Santa Margalida, just as an example, has three separate carnival parades.

Yet, and it is a familiar lament with the winter fiestas and celebrations, little attempt is made to turn carnival in Mallorca into something with which to attract the tourism punter. There may not be parades on a similar scale to those of Cadíz or Santa Cruz, but there is often much to be said for events that are less grand; it can be easier to enjoy them.

Observed through British eyes - the eyes of the British tourist, that is - it might be argued that carnival doesn't carry a great deal of weight because it isn't a British tradition. Perhaps so, but the British have their own way of celebrating the days preceding the start of Lent, and they are as peculiar as some aspects of carnival. Pancake Day is as mad as the burying of the sardine, and once upon a time it was a staple of news reports. Perhaps it still is, I couldn't honestly say, but I well recall the footage of housewives with headscarves and curlers dashing along streets with frying-pans. Things don't get much madder than that. Or do they?

German tourists, unlike their British counterparts, would be fully aware of the craziness that carnival can create. Unaware of the strength of carnival in Germany, I once switched on the telly there and was confronted with what looked like some parliamentary session or other that was being staged by Coco the Clown and his friends. After some minutes I realised it was a parliamentary session being staged by Coco. Politician sorts actually dress up in silly outfits for carnival. Whoever said the Germans lacked a sense of humour? And a sense of humour is required, if you happen to be a male, for the tradition of females seeking out males wearing ties and cutting these ties off with pairs of scissors. Bonkers or what?

And that - bonkers - is the essence of carnival. Masks, fancy dress, colour and even more colour; they will all be in evidence today, as they have already been in evidence around Mallorca these past couple of days. Maybe there is something to be said for Mallorca inventing itself as a sort of carnival island, staging grander parades and seeking to upstage Tenerife. But one supposes that would be beyond the wit of someone to organise it and, as importantly, promote it.

That there isn't really much by way of carnival promotion for the tourist is, in one particular way, odd. This is because of how carnival is now perceived, if only in scholarly circles. The foremost authority on carnival in Mallorca is Caterina Valriu. She has written two books about carnival which draw on the research that went into her dissertation. This was based on oral history, i.e. people's personal recollections. And she considered how carnival was - pre-tourism - with how it now is. It is the very use of the term pre-tourism which indicates that current-day carnival has, not unlike other celebrations on the island, been moulded to suit a potential tourism market. Pre-tourism, carnival was an occasion to "invert the established order" and for satire, excess, food, drink and sex. While some of this does still exist, Caterina Valriu's point is that sophistication and originality have taken precedence over simpler and baser instincts that prevailed pre-tourism.

And it was those baser instincts which of course didn't appeal to Franco. He wasn't one for people having fun, as fun was not compatible with another F-word.

Photo: http://www.firesifestesdemallorca.com

The Carnival Of Protest: Spain's Citizen Safety Law

General Franco had an inconsistent policy towards traditions. Advocate as he was of strict Catholicism, he didn't much care for some of the traditions of religious fiestas. One which he was particularly unkeen on was the tradition of Carnival. Celebrated just prior to Lent, Carnival was not originally a Spanish tradition but it was one that came to Spain from Venice. This said, the celebration of Carnival has very much older origins than that of the mediaeval masquerade of Italy.

For Franco, Carnival was all a bit too decadent and a bit too much like good fun. He banned it in 1937, taking aim in particular at the Cadiz Carnival, the most decadent of all the Carnivals. Though the ban was primarily imposed in order to deal with Cadiz, it was applied universally. Towns across Spain had, therefore, to pull the plug on the Carnival, even if some managed to keep the tradition going in a somewhat different form.

But Franco wasn't only concerned with decadence. He also didn't like the fact that people wore masks at Carnival time. This disguise, so his regime believed, would allow all manner of miscreants to go without being apprehended, and included among these miscreants might be opponents of his regime with one eye on causing bother and protest while all the time being in disguise.

The traditionally satirical nature of Carnival meant that it was not fully restored until censorship in Spain was lifted after Franco died. When the newly democratic Spain finally abandoned censorship, Carnival became a huge demonstration of liberated expression, and in its satirical guise, it remains such a demonstration.

In September 2011, Sa Pobla became the first town in Mallorca to ban the wearing of the burka. It is still the only town to have introduced such a ban. While it was the burka that caught the headlines, the ban was rather more wide-ranging. Probably in an attempt to not make the burka ban appear to be discriminatory or anti-Muslim, Sa Pobla town hall also banned the wearing of anything which obscured the face. In theory, therefore, a balaclava became illegal. The local by-law made it clear that this banning was on the grounds of public safety.

The Spanish Government is now in the process of passing a law which imposes stricter controls on protest and other forms of street behaviour. Included among the prohibitions under this law will be the wearing of anything which covers the face when a protest is being staged. Fines for doing so could be as high as 30,000 euros. The bill, known as the Citizens Safety Law, is expected to be approved by Congress in the new year.

There is a world of difference between a by-law in a small Mallorcan town and a national law, but there is a strong similarity, and it lies in the justification for the legislation. Public safety has been invoked in both instances but this is not the main reason for the legislation. Where the national law is concerned, the main reason is an attempt to limit protest and to exert governmental control and power. Safety is a convenient argument, because the general public might be willing to swallow something couched in safety terms. If the bill were to have been called Anti-Protest Measures Law, then the public reaction would be different.

As it is, anti-protest measures is just how the law is being described. And the criticism goes further. It is undemocratic. It also seems like an over-reaction. Protests there have been in Spain, but generally speaking, austerity and other aspects of government policy have not provoked extreme protests. So, the question is why does the government feel it necessary to introduce stricter controls? Does it fear that it is in fact losing the battle where austerity is concerned? Does it fear that something will provoke more extreme protests than have thus been witnessed?

Or is the law just the case of another government flexing its muscles and exerting ever more control over the people? It has been a disturbing trend over the past few years for governments which ostensibly operate under a democratic system to do so. Citing safety makes the law appear "democratic" in upholding order for the majority but can all too easily be seen as "undemocratic" as it imposes greater restrictions on the right to protest, and in Spain, the right to protest since Franco's day has been a fundamental means of liberated expression, just as the restoration of the Carnival tradition was.

And indeed, where does this law leave something like Carnival? What happens if there are protests at Carnival time with people wearing masks?

The law could in fact create all sorts of problems that might not be envisaged. One of its provisions is the banning of outdoor drinking parties, i.e. the botellón street parties. Fair enough perhaps, but so widespread are these parties and so inadequately controlled are they, that it is impossible to see how local police forces can really prevent them. They can't at present, even with local by-laws in place. So, one ends up with a national law which, in certain instances, will be ineffective and which, in others, will be used to limit protest against a government which even one conservative commentators has condemned for the "stigma of authoritarianism", an observation which carries a reminder of the days when Carnival was banned.

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.

Dress-Up Weekend: Carnival

Carnival. Just when you thought everyone was thoroughly fiesta-ed out, up comes another opportunity for a bit of street party and a DJ or two. Carnival often seems like an after-thought to the revelries of January, but it captures the imagination largely because of the dressing-up. Even more than Sant Antoni, which offers the chance to become a devil for a day, Carnival has the scope to let the imagination run wild. Despite recession, the demand for costumes is high, and the specialist shops are doing a roaring trade, especially where children's outfits are concerned.

Today is "Dijous Llarder", first day of Carnival (in that Carnival can be said to have a first day, as its chronology is lengthy, to say the least). At the weekend, the local towns will have their parades and their costume parties, and costumes are "obligatory", the poster for Alcúdia's party on Saturday night says. TV characters, Disney characters, pop stars, superheroes, these are the most popular, certainly with the children. Political figures have fallen out of favour, except perhaps as the objects of satire or utter contempt. Anyone for a Miquel Nadal?

Carnival in Mallorca is not on the scale of Carnival in parts of the mainland, in particular Seville and Cadiz, or in Tenerife, but any excuse for a bit of a do is not to be sniffed at. Pollensa has its parade on Saturday, Muro and Alcúdia have theirs on Sunday.


Tourism confusion and car hire
Good news on the tourism front on the front page of yesterday's "Bulletin". Or is it? TUI is reported as announcing that summer sales in the UK have risen by ten per cent. Sounds good, even if it's not clear what period we're talking about. When it says that TUI had an "increased first-quarter operating loss" but has seen improved trading in the second quarter, I confess that I am somewhat confused. Are we not still in the first quarter? Whatever. To add to the confusion, I was told yesterday that the figures were rubbish and that someone from TUI had said that the reverse was the case, i.e. ten per cent down. Who knows? You pays your money and you takes your choice, or maybe you don't pays your money and you don't makes a choice - First or otherwise. But look closely at the report in the paper, and you will realise that nowhere is Mallorca mentioned. The TUI announcement refers to sales in general. It also goes on to say that TUI has seen an increase of six per cent in British sales. Six per cent, ten per cent, Mallorca, the world? What is all this? Confused? I am, and so, I'd imagine, are you.

Elsewhere in the paper, one must congratulate a letter-writer for stamping on "the whining of some part-timers and tourists about conditions on the island". He refers in particular to a previous letter about that something about which the authorities should be doing something and about which they have no right to intervene, the apparently inflated prices being charged by car-hire companies. That letter claimed a charge of a thousand pounds per week. So this latest letter-writer, "tired of the whining", did a bit of googling and came up with a couple of quotes (among thousands of hits) that were anything other than unreasonable. Yes, there have been and are examples of high prices for car hire, but the recourse to single cases to seek to prove a point and with which to beat Mallorca with the "too-expensive" stick is tiresome and unbalanced. Look around, shop around and it never is as expensive. Now, just stop it.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Man On The Moon", REM, http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1f9sm_rem-man-on-the-moon_music.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Carnival Is Over

Carnival. A word and an event that resonate around the world. For the British, who have turned away from religiosity and its celebrations in ever-increasing degree since the Reformation, there is a collective forgetfulness to appreciate Shrove Tuesday as its remnant of Carnival. Elsewhere, where religiosity, or at least its social convention, has retained a hold, Carnival remains the party atmosphere of pre-Lent, a riot of gluttony before the fast. And as such it is total hokum of consequent non-observed abstinence. Carnival, subdued under Franco, has passed into current-day tradition as no more than another fiesta, another excuse for street celebrations and DJs in the squares. Let the good times roll. The more parties the merrier. But Carnival is now just one of the rest. When recently I spoke about time in winter being marked by the intervals between fiestas, I forgot about Carnival. How could I have? Easy. It is just another, and it comes at the fag-end of the winter fiesta season. We are all fiesta-ed out, but there’s one more to give an excuse to some parade dressing-up, some dancing giants and some free nosebag. I am not against Carnival, I am not against the celebrations, but I am against fiesta-fatigue and the ennui of ritualism and familiarity that surrounds much of the so-called spectacular.

Holidays, fiestas, call them as you like, what they need, what they deserve is their place, their special place. Caught in an endless chain of events, often sharing similar styles, they lose their specialness and their point. Only another thrash and an opportunity to wear some daft clothes.

In Britain, because the British have forgotten their traditions, holidays and days-off have to be invented. There is something callously opportunist about the idea of a bank holiday as a way of supporting British troops. Callously opportunist and ridiculous. The B&Q car parks packed, while a few worthies watch a march past. It is an absurdity. At least with Carnival there is some sense to it.

Mallorcan Carnival is not on a Brazilian scale; the scale is more Brazil nut than the nuttiness of Rio. It is groups of children wandering along streets, adults with “wacky” costumes and the inevitable scratch and turntable of an earnest technoist in the mix at the Carnival street rave. It could be worse though. In Germany they have got Carnival off to an art of self-ridicule and have the lunatic tie-cutting terror – of Bavaria’s “Fasching” at any rate. Males frantically removing their neck furniture in fear of a scissors-wielding fraulein.

Which is not to say that Carnival does not put on its best party frock and go to the ball in other parts of Spain. And here one has the potential alternative take on Mallorca Carnival; it is too spectacle-lite. Mallorca is missing a trick, but the message may be getting through. The keeper of the Palma Sant Sebastia keys has admitted that this celebration could be improved and marketed internationally. With so many fiestas, the danger is that individually they lose their significance, but not if they were perceived and promoted as a whole. Mallorca could be 24 hour party people, 365 day a year party people (with one more day added this year). “Mallorca, where the party never stops.” Carnival would recapture its specialness as one of the peaks of this endless bout of hedonism attracting the foreign throngs. They could even learn a lesson from the one street party that the British do which is any good – Notting Hill.


QUIZ
Yesterday – “Wish You Were Here”, Pink Floyd. Today’s title – well, it’s only really started, but whatever. Who?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

Index for January 2008

Alcúdia like Blackpool – 24 January 2008
Alcúdia Pins – 5 January 2008
All-inclusives – 5 January 2008
Awards 2007 – 3 January 2008
Baby buggies – 29 January 2008
Balearic Government – 9 January 2008
Bars – 3 January 2008, 25 January 2008, 31 January 2008
Beaches – 28 January 2008
Bottled water – 6 January 2008
Britain – 4 January 2008
British Consul – 9 January 2008, 11 January 2008
Brochures – 5 January 2008
Building conversion – 26 January 2008
Café del Món – 31 January 2008
Cafés – 25 January 2008, 31 January 2008
Cars for sale – 19 January 2008
Catalan – 30 January 2008
Catholic Church – 15 January 2008
Characters, local – 16 January 2008
Clínica Juaneda – 8 January 2008
Credit squeeze – 10 January 2008
Cycling – 12 January 2008, 27 January 2008
Devils – 14 January 2008
Direct Holidays – 5 January 2008
Do-it-yourself holidays – 22 January 2008
Education – 30 January 2008
Eroski Syp – 16 January 2008
Estate agents – 18 January 2008
Expatriates – 20 January 2008
Fiestas – 14 January 2008
Fishing – 17 January 2008
Football – 18 January 2008
General election – 15 January 2008, 20 January 2008
Goats – 17 January 2008
Holiday prices – 5 January 2008
Hospital General de Muro – 8 January 2008
Hotels – 5 January 2008
Hunting – 17 January 2008
La Victoria – 17 January 2008
Language – 30 January 2008
Mallorquín – 30 January 2008
Mile, The – 24 January 2008
Mosquitoes – 21 January 2008
Moths – 7 January 2008
National anthems – 13 January 2008, 16 January 2008
Nit Bruixa – 14 January 2008
Patio heaters – 31 January 2008
Pine trees – 7 January 2008
Political parties – 15 January 2008, 30 January 2008
Playa de Muro – 5 January 2008, 6 January 2008
Processionary caterpillar – 7 January 2008
Property market – 18 January 2008
Rajoy, Mariano – 15 January 2008
Restaurant Boy – 27 January 2008
Restaurants – 3 January 2008, 27 January 2008
Sa Pobla – 14 January 2008
Sand – 28 January 2008
Sant Antoni – 14 January 2008
Sant Sebastia – 14 January 2008, 21 January 2008
Sewage – 26 January 2008
Share prices – 10 January 2008
Spanish economy – 15 January 2008
Supply and demand – 25 January 2008
Terrorism – 15 January 2008
Tour operators – 5 January 2008, 10 January 2008, 22 January 2008
Tourism economics – 10 January 2008
Tourism marketing – 23 January 2008
Tourism statistics – 5 January 2008
Voting rights – 20 January 2008
Water quality – 6 January 2008, 26 January 2008
Weather – 7 January 2008
Winter tourism – 9 January 2008, 11 January 2008

Zapatero, Jose Luis Rodriguez – 15 January 2008