Pin The Tail On The Tourist

Esporles. What do we know of the place? It is home to La Granja, it has a sweets fair every October and Mick of the Council was its mayor for ten years. Since ascending to the presidential throne at the Council, Mick and his cultural vice-presidential compadre Frank (Miralles) have been bigging up the island's fiestas. They are a means for tourists to get to know the real Mallorca, the authentic Mallorca. Not, therefore, the Mallorca with roads with all-summer-long jams, with every last piece of the streets of old Palma crammed with visitors, with locals ejected from their dwellings by Airbnb, with youthful tourists leaving trails of vomit between Magalluf and Playa de Palma. No, this is the authentic Mallorca with tranquil village squares cooled by Tramuntana breezes and where visitors can engage in cultural exchange with the locals and discover the limitless joys of bread with oil and tomato and of ball de bot, little-jumping folk dancers.

Esporles does have tourists. Not huge numbers but numbers nonetheless. They are swelled by cyclists overrunning the tranquil squares in springtime and excursion trips to La Granja. The right sort of place, in general though, for the Mick'n'Frank vision of touristic cultural harmony and appreciation of the rich and long history of the Island of Calm to flourish. However.

There are two bits to Esporles: the old bit and the new bit. The latter of these, Vilanova, has had its fiestas. Jolly little affairs, they will be more of an occasion for the indigenous population of the new bit than for outsiders. Which may be as well. Each year, the fiestas use a mascot for promotion. This mascot is the Boc, a goat. The poster took the word Boc and came up with "OverBOCking". How clever. Then there was a game to be played. Was this in the style of the "jocs tradicionals" that feature so heavily in village fiestas and can allow visitors to understand the traditions of jewel races and spinning tops? Well, it depends what you mean by tradition. There is a new tradition. A new craze. Everyone seems to be playing it. And so in the new bit there was "hunt the guiri".

The guiri of the poster didn't, it has to be said, look like a typical tourist. Certainly not one along Punta Ballena. He was an Inspector Poirot type of character carrying a rolled-up beach umbrella (not that you really need a beach umbrella in Esporles). Anyway, if the guiris could be hunted down, there would be a free supper for the winner. Goodness, they know how to make their own fun in the new bit.

No, it wasn't xenophobic, which had been a criticism. It was all a spot of humour with an ironic touch, said the organising committee, that took "massification" and holiday rentals as its themes. And humorous it no doubt was. Absolutely no offence was meant or indeed caused. It was all just a variation on a "joc tradicional" that isn't necessarily one here in Mallorca. Pin the tail on the donkey, with a tourist as the substitute. Mick'n'Frank, as far as one is aware, haven't commented.

Driving The Rooster Of Pollensa Home

It was Willie Dixon who provided one of the means by which The Rolling Stones demonstrated that they were originally a blues group. In Little Red Rooster, Mick, as had been the case with Willie himself, pleaded for anyone seeing his little red rooster to drive it home. This was because, as Mick and Willie informed us, there had been no peace in the farmyard since the little red rooster had been gone.

The little red rooster of Pollensa is now typically driven home. Or at least to a finca belonging to the conqueror of the Sant Antoni pine on top of which the rooster (some say cock) had been too lazy to "crow for day" because it had been stuck in a bag. Well, it's always possible that it had crowed earlier on, but by seven in the evening, it would indeed have been too lazy. Once upon a time, the cock would have been driven home and ended up dead meat to be served on a plate. Not now. The cock has his own finca yard home, unless another cock from on top of the Sant Antoni pine is brought along to share the same living space and promptly kills him. Which has happened in the past.

The fact that the cock is now typically allowed to grow and crow old gracefully hasn't persuaded opponents of the pine climb that all is right in an animal-welfare style. The Alternativa per Pollença party, perfectly capable of starting a political fight - and often with very good justification - in a bag empty of a cock or anything else, has registered a motion to be debated at the next council meeting. It says that the use of a cock aloft the pine in the Plaça Vella each Sant Antoni Day in January breaches the 1992 animal-protection law.

The party objects to the use of a cock for purposes of "simple entertainment", observing that it can suffer if it is thrown or falls from the top of the pine. But the objection is based more on a point of law, and it is the one contained in the 1992 act under which traditions involving animals are defined. In itself, this is a curious approach to setting law, a seemingly arbitrary longevity established as a threshold for defining tradition or not. The law states that an act, such as the use of a cock at the Sant Antoni fiesta, can be deemed an exemption if there is evidence of one hundred years uninterrupted use. If there isn't evidence, then the involvement of live animals on fiesta occasions is proscribed.

This is the situation in Can Picafort. The use of real ducks for the mid-August swim was finally stopped ten years ago, the town hall in Santa Margalida having consistently ignored the law. Only when legal action was being taken seriously did the town hall comply. There are those in Santa Margalida, and not just at the town hall, who want the law amended and have proposed that the 100-year threshold is reduced, the point being that the earliest evidence of the ducks and swim comes from the 1930s.

As far as the cock of Pollensa is concerned, there is little documentary evidence to back up how long the cock has been a feature of the pine climb. Indeed there is little evidence that shows when the climb started (with or without a cock). A newspaper report from the early twentieth century appears to be one of the few actual references.

The Alternativa is pursuing a line that it adopted ten years ago. On its Urxella blog in March 2007, it referred to an official complaint lodged with the Balearic government by ANPBA, the national association for the protection and welfare of animals, and also to an initiative by the town hall itself (in 2004) to prevent actions that cause suffering to animals. Proceedings were to have been initiated to withdraw the cock, but these were not seen through, the suggestion having been that it would have been a vote loser.

In 2010, it would seem that the town hall was in fact fined for breaching the animal-protection law and that there is also an open case for the same reason that is outstanding since 2015. At the start of that year, the Baldea animal-rights group proposed to the town hall that the cock should be substituted by a rag-doll version. It set out seven ways in which the law was being violated, referring, for example, to "unnatural treatment" by suspending the cock at a height of some twenty metres on top of the pine. To authorise such "illegality" would warrant a charge of abuse of public office.

A hundred years or not, why should longevity have anything to do with it? Should the little red rooster stay in the farmyard and never need to be driven home?

The Unmovable Feast Of Sebastian

Remember November 2001? If not, let me remind you. There was freak cold weather in the middle of the month and there was also the hurricane. The weather caused havoc with the island's most important fair.

Weather can occur at any time. Inca's Dijous Bo wasn't a complete victim as some of it was held indoors. But a fair is there to be held outdoors, unless the weather gods decree otherwise. Which they did in 2001. The fair, most of it therefore, was cancelled. Some events are just too complex for them to be rearranged.

The recent bad weather has created havoc with fiesta scheduling, but it is possible to push much of it to a later date. Something that wasn't postponed was the big Palma night out for Sant Sebastià, but the weather was hardly conducive to creating the type of party that was hoped for. As a consequence, there is talk of holding Sant Sebastià at some other time of the year.

The councillor for youth affairs, Aligi Molina, has said the proposal for a date change is "most interesting". It may well be most interesting, but the general reaction is leave well alone, with the mayor, José Hila, to the fore in insisting that there should be no change.

Hila has had his run-ins with Som Palma (Podemos) before over fiesta scheduling. Last summer, Eva Frade (citizen participation) said that all of the Christmas/New Year occasions traditionally held in the Plaça Cort would be moved because of building work. Oh not, they won't, said the "pact", i.e. the mayor. In the end, Eva got her way, and only the Standard festival survived.

It is therefore notable that Hila should react as quickly and as assertively as he has in heading off any further Som Palma claim on fiestas. Sant Sebastià, he said, is a winter fiesta. The town hall can't do anything about the weather. At no time has the administration planned a move for the fiestas. That's the whole administration, he was implying, including Molina.

It might be tempting, given the Podemos philosophy, to think that shifting Sant Sebastià would be an example of thumbing a nose at religion and the church. Tempting, though probably not accurate. Or it may be a case of if something is fixed (as in the date), then break it, which might also be in line with Podemos radicialism. No, not even that. Rather, it's all a question of the weather.

There are dates which aren't fixed. Easter is the most obviously movable feast, and its movement means that other celebrations have to move likewise: Carnival, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi. This doesn't particularly help when it comes to scheduling, not least for tour operators, who would probably welcome the the pope fixing the date for Easter, as he has suggested he might. But everyone's been dealing with its movability for eons and has got used to therefore never being certain when Carnival is.

Everyone has also got used to fiestas taking place on the same day (or more or less the same day with some fiestas). And Sant Sebastià is one of them. Given that he officially became Palma's patron back in the 1600s and was supposedly and finally killed on the orders of Diocletian on 20 January 287, there isn't a great deal that can be done about the date.

But the problem has long been, therefore, that Palma doesn't have a summer fiesta. There are fiestas in different parts of the city, but notwithstanding the night of fire for Sant Joan in midsummer and the lame attempt at celebrating the Virgin Mary's birth in September, there isn't a summer spectacular.

No one has as yet made a firm proposal of an alternative and later date for Sebastià, and it's highly unlikely that if anyone did, it would be followed up. But a further reason, other than just the weather, has been put forward for a move, and this has to do with Sant Antoni. It is thought in some quarters that there is confusion because they are only three days apart and that aspects of Antoni have entered Sebastià, such as the demons.

While it's true that the two can seem to merge into one and so it isn't entirely certain which saint a particular bonfire might be for, it is a bit of an overstatement to say there's confusion. After all, the two saints have been at it for centuries. As for the demons, they are an Antoni legacy which is shared by all manner of fiestas, and not only Sebastià. The argument isn't strong.

But a big summer fiesta for the Virgin Mary, well that's a suggestion that should be considered. It would be a fiesta in addition not instead. Summer and winter, and winter, as in January, is where Sebastià belongs, as does Antoni.

The Joys Of Sant Antoni

Goig. There's an odd word. It is derived from the Latin gaudium, which means joy, pleasure or delight. It means the same thing in Catalan but it is also a verse in praise of the Virgin Mary or saints, and it was from Catalan that the genre came. This genre is described as a poetic composition, popular in character, which is sung collectively to give thanks or as a prayer to ask for the physical and spiritual health of a community.

Back in the fourteenth century, it was Saint Peter who was being sung to. The chronicler Ramon Muntaner noted what is taken to be the first documented evidence of a goig. The Catalan navy, all of its men apparently, called on Saint Peter in an action against Gallipoli. The Catalans and Aragonese set fire to the city in 1307. The chronicle in which Muntaner mentioned the goig came a few years later, but it may well have been this 1307 event that he was referring to.

Anyway, the navy had clearly started something of a trend, so much so that by the end of that century (1399 to be precise) the Red Book of Montserrat made reference to the popularity of goigs and dance in churches. This book contained choreographic notation for dances and also verses for songs that were performed during vigils in the square in front of the church of Montserrat.

While Saint Peter (Sant Pere) was doubtlessly felt to be useful to the Catalan navy because of his seafaring connections, other saints were to prove to be popular when it came to the odd goig or two. The rather obscure Sant Roc (not obscure in Mallorca it must be said) was one of them, as was Palma's patron, Sant Sebastià. These two saints shared something in common - dealing with the plague. Prayers for physical well-being and an end to plagues became a goig speciality.

And there is another saint who was to acquire the goig treatment, more really because of thanks being given to him for being a saint and one embedded in Mallorca's Christian culture. Who else but Sant Antoni?

The town which makes most of its joys of Sant Antoni, more so than Sa Pobla, is Manacor. Six years ago the then mayor of the town, Antoni Pastor, explained that the Sant Antoni fiestas were the most important ones for Manacor and for Mallorca. The emotion of the occasion, for him, was partly because Sant Antoni "is my saint" but also because the singing of the goig by hundreds of residents of the town brought him out in goosebumps.

Manacor doesn't go mad for Sant Antoni to the extent that other towns do. Yes, there are bonfires, but there aren't demons roaring around on Sant Antoni Eve as is the case in the likes of Muro, where they take their Sant Antoni just as seriously. The centrepiece of the occasion is the singing. At the parish church the Compline service is sung, which doesn't happen in the same way elsewhere. And the goigs are very much part of the occasion.

So important are these songs that the good folk of Manacor put in some practice. Not one, not twice, but three times. One of these practice sessions involves a barbecue as well; not that any incentive is needed as the folk turn out in good number and in good voice. The final practice is this evening after mass. The real thing is at half seven on Monday.

And what do they sing about? Well, it's all about glory to the saint and overcoming Lucifer, that sort of thing. It may be recalled that Antoni had the odd brush with the devil while he was enduring his hermitic existence in a desert cave; the brushes, so it is said, were hallucinations. As for the singing itself, so ingrained are the goigs in local culture that many people know the words off by heart. In case anyone doesn't, song sheets are provided, and the result of all this is like some grand beer hall sing-song-cum-football crowd, except in a church.

Different it certainly is. If you thought Sant Antoni was just about demons and setting the place on fire, then Manacor proves that there is another aspect to his celebration. Joyous.

Julian And The Cossiers Of Campos

One Saint Julian, there's only one Saint Julian. If only there were. There are Julians aplenty and the legacies of no fewer than eight of them are celebrated during January. However, there is only Saint Julian in the town of Campos. Sant Julià is its patron, assisted to a degree by Santa Basilisa, who was his wife.

Tradition, aka legend, has it that Julià and Basilisa met their maker in the year 304 in Antioch. Or possibly Antinopolis. History is vague on the matter to the extent that the rival places of death are in different countries (Turkey and Egypt) and are divided by some considerable distance. What is certain, insofar as there can be any certainty, is that they were victims of Diocletian, the Roman emperor who made a habit of creating martyrs.

According to legend, neither Julià nor Basilisa was minded to getting married. Julià had vowed chastity. Basilisa was determined to maintain her virginity. Coercive parents insisted otherwise, though history is silent on the question of marital consummation. He founded a monastery, she a convent, and together they established a hospital, which is a reason why the Campos Julià is often confused with one of the several other Julians - the Hospitaller.

Whether they really did have a hospital is open to doubt. History, lacking firm information (if any) about either of them, has been forced to bow to legend and storytelling. It is possible that they did exist, unlike some saints who were total fabrications. But real or not real, their place in the saintly hierarchy is nowadays a fairly lowly one when compared with more famed saints of whom there are serious question marks concerning their existence, such as Valentine.

They did, once upon a time, command higher status. From the eighth century they were accorded great veneration, but their demotion may well have owed something to the way in which their liturgical celebration was moved around. Even now, there are four competing dates - sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth of January. The most recent reform of the Martyrology applied the first of these dates. In Campos, they've stuck with the ninth.

Basilisa, strictly speaking a joint patron the town, is generally disregarded in all the celebrations. The town's church is Sant Julià, the fiestas are Sant Julià. But they reside next to each other in the splendidly massive neoclassical church that dates from the nineteenth century.

The fiestas, it's fair to say, do tend to be rather overlooked. It's Julià's misfortune to have at least one of his competing dates clash with Epiphany. The ninth of January falls close to the Kings and also to Anthony and Sebastian, the two saints among the saints of a Mallorcan January. Another obscure saint, Honorat of Algaida, likewise goes to the back of the queue; his day runs up against Sant Antoni Eve, so there's little contest.

Mindful perhaps of all the fiesta competition, a new ingredient was added five years ago. Following a hiatus of some one hundred years, the cossiers of Campos made a comeback. Promoted by a local association, Pinyol Vermell, the folk dancers emerged after mass on the evening of 9 January. There was at least one problem with this revival: making the cossiers as authentic as possible with their ancestors. There was firm evidence of the cossiers' past - the Archduke Louis Salvador had noted their existence in his epic "Die Balearen" - but of images there were none. In the end, Pinyol Vermell borrowed from styles that were current in towns where the cossiers had endured and adopted the siurell figure for the demon of the dances.

Despite the Archduke's records, the church (Sant Julià) was unable to provide much by way of archive material. It was able to confirm that the church had once upon a time paid a small sum to the cossiers to dance. It has been suggested that they weren't therefore from Campos, and it's possible they were not. There were, after all, any number of cossier performances in villages and towns where they have long ceased to be staged. These cossiers may well have been itinerant performers.

But now they are definitely Campos's own. The fiestas are a further example of tradition that has been revived, and so the cossiers dance for Sant Julià (and Santa Basilisa). The only slight further issue with this is that no one knows the exact date when they used to dance over a century ago. A bit like the exact date of Julià's fiesta then.

Breaking Pots: Games And La Beata

I am reminded of a game I played many a long year ago (when a child) at a birthday party. As far as I can recall, it was the only time I ever encountered the game. It had been, therefore, a novelty. The name of the game was (and no doubt still is) Are You There, Moriarty? Who Moriarty was I had no idea - I'm assuming, rightly or wrongly, that he had something to do with Sherlock Holmes' archenemy - and in the game he was your opponent. Blindfolded, and without going into too much detail, you basically tried to belt your opponent with a rolled-up newspaper.

This memory of a blindfolded game comes flooding back because of pots, which might also be termed jars or pitchers. All of an earthenware variety, these pots are central to a children's game in which the player is blindfolded, spun around a few times and given a cane (certainly something more robust than a rolled-up newspaper) with which to try and break a pot that is hanging from some cord.

This is a very popular game among others that crop up at Mallorcan fiestas under the general heading of, well, popular games. Rather than enquiring after the whereabouts of Moriarty, other players seek to assist the prospective pot-breaker by shouting instructions - right, left, back, forward and so on.

Where this game came from is anyone's guess, so a guess has been made. This has it that it originated from mediaeval China and was imported to Venice by that Venetian traveller extraordinaire of the period, Marco Polo. (And before you say that Polo never went to China, scholars have ripped to shreds the theory that he didn't.) So, Polo brought the game back and it was adapted to Lent celebrations. Given trading relations between Venice, other Italian ports and Spain, it made its way across the water. It was to develop into one of the final acts of Carnival, similar in a sense to the burying of the sardine in marking the onset of the abstinence of Lent. Break a pot and out would fall something tasty. Nowadays the pots have sweets. 

Pot-breaking is therefore a common theme of fiestas. In its children's game guise it isn't violent, but it takes on a whole different significance on the first Sunday of every September. Pots aren't just broken, they are smashed. Force is involved, though blindfolds are not. Indeed, and somewhat unusually, no masks are involved. The demons of Santa Margalida are identifiable, and it is they who engage in a great deal of pot-smashing.

The legend of Santa Catalina Tomàs - La Beata - is enshrined in an old folk song. It is a song which tells of Catalina taking food to poor labourers (sometimes stated as farmers) and being confronted by an envious demon who grabs the pot, jar (or pitcher) with the food in it and smashes it, only for Catalina to pick up the pieces and to deliver a feast that was even tastier than it would have been. La Beata of the procession of the first Sunday each September defies demonic pot-smashing, while couples from the town likewise are undeterred by the demons who snatch their pots and give them a good smashing.

The procession, which the Bishop of Mallorca attempted to at least modify if not ban outright in 1849 because the whole occasion was felt to be disobedient to God, attracts vast numbers. Although it is now far better known, especially among tourists, than was once the case, even some thirty years ago it was attracting, according to a local publication, more than ten thousand people. It is not termed the "most representative" Mallorcan procession for nothing. They've been calling it this for decades.

There was never any association between the saint and the town. She wasn't born there (she came from Valldemossa) and she didn't enter a convent there (that was in Palma). Quite why Santa Margalida came to have the association is something of a mystery. However, it was evidently the case that some one hundred years after she died in 1574, the town felt a particularly strong devotion towards her. In 1687 the town hall advanced "ten Mallorcan pounds" to the cause for her to be beatified. (This didn't occur until 1792.) And somewhere along the line came the folk song and thus the legend of the pot-smashing.

A New Fair In Town

There's a new fair today. It's in Inca, a town known for its autumn fairs, for the daddy of all Mallorca's fairs - Dijous Bo - and for the revived Dijous Gros of early May. It's a town also known for its market, the Thursday market especially. Inca would like to be more firmly on the tourist map, but it struggles to find a place. For most tourists, the Thursday market is the only touristic game in this town of leather and footwear - there's a museum dedicated to both, to which no one much goes. Otherwise, it's off the beaten motorway heading towards Alcudia or in the other direction to Palma. It's easily bypassed.

Next weekend, Inca will be where most of the pilgrims undertaking the "part forana" walk to Lluc arrive prior to setting off on the pilgrimage at four in the morning. Proximity to the mountains as opposed to being in the mountains makes the town the start point, a place to be left. In tourism terms, the walk means little or nothing. There's no real reason why it should. It is after all, and as the name suggests, a walk for the part forana, for people in the sticks of Mallorca; no one else.

Dijous Bo is a fair which, on account of its mediaeval antiquity and sheer scale, attracts attention like no other (in Mallorca, that is). November doesn't perhaps help, but when has it ever been a tourist attraction? Is there any real reason why it should be? It's more like a massive social gathering on which all quarters of the island descend in order to admire pigs in pens and canaries in cages. A massive gathering, it's a massive market, more massive than the normal massive market of a Thursday, one which itself has received its share of criticism for the sameyness of its stalls and the proliferation of exotic tat.

To counteract this criticism, efforts have been made to promote the wares of the artisan class. Mallorca has become an island nation of potters and purveyors of home-made chutneys/jams with indigenous (or other) ingredients plucked from the island land. The artisan has his or her place at all fairs, markets or fiestas (they can overlap and be indistinguishable). He or she is ubiquitous as are the mainstays of local gastronomy. The new Inca Friday fair will have both. Fried sobrassada in a llonguet loaf will be topping the culinary bill. Add mustard or ketchup and it could be like a German or British hot-dog, except of course that it is artisan and thus charcuterie apart.

Mayor Virgilio Moreno says that the fair is all about providing an additional element to the summer programme in the town. Dubbed "Divendres a la fresca", its combination of artisan craft and tapas is to be an annual occasion going under this name, a late summer add-on to feature on the same calendar as the spring and autumn Dijous of Gros and Bo. If you - be you resident or tourist - were unaware of today's fair, you are now aware. I've done my bit in promoting it. What has the town hall done?

Inca is a prime example of seeking to acquire an "alternative" tourist but of not seeming to know how to go about it and of not appearing to know if it really wants it or not. It's not as though there haven't been ambitions. Most certainly not. But some ambitions can be over-ambitious. The footwear industry, it has been reckoned, offers an opportunity to attract Japanese tourists, as the Japanese love footwear (this was Inca speaking, not me). There is more than just one problem with this, and you don't need me to tell you what. Suffice to say Inca is unlikely to become akin to Brontë Country with signage in Japanese. 

The sad thing is that today's fair is part of what is a highly vibrant summer programme in the town. Jazz, classics, all manner of events at the showground at the General Luque Quarter (there's more ubiquity there on Sunday - a Holi colours festival). Inca has a lot going for it, but who ever truly finds out about it? What real incentive is there to go, when the resorts offer their entertainment and restaurants?

Inca, although not central to the island's tourism, does rather sum up a general impression of treatment of fairs and fiestas. Who are they for? What does Mallorca want from them? Who knows about them? Sure, there are the well-known events, but there are a hell of lot of others for every Moors and Christians battle.

This is all in sharp contrast to what has just happened in Valencia. The "Tomatina" of Buñol is, says the mayor, the most international fiesta in Spain, with 60% of participants coming from overseas, including Japan. Buñol knows what it wants from its fiesta. In Mallorca ... ?

The Seven Sins Of Saint John

Sant Joan is a town in the middle of Mallorca with just over 2,000 inhabitants and is one of a smattering of municipalities which owes its name to a saint. And he's not any old saint. He is, or rather was, John the Baptist, very much a member of the biblical A-list.

As befits a town with this name and patronage, Sant Joan honours John the Baptist with having fiestas not once but twice. Along with much of Mallorca, the town has the midsummer Sant Joan, a time of fires on the beach (not in the case of Sant Joan, it probably doesn't need to be pointed out), all manner of demonic carrying-on and, where the town is concerned, appearances by one of the Hairy Johns - Sant Joan Pelós - and the Corb (crow) de Sant Nofre.

Most of Mallorca does not, however, concern itself unduly with the second of these fiestas. In fact, hardly anywhere else does. Maybe it's due to the fact that midsummer coincides with John the Baptist's birth, whereas 29 August is the date of his death, i.e. his beheading. This said, saints' deaths aren't necessarily reasons to be reticent in having a shindig. There are a number of sticky ends that get the Mallorcan fireworks and DJs in the squares treatment.

The beheading does, nevertheless, suggest that the Sant Joan Degollat (beheaded) fiestas should be somewhat more solemn affairs than the cavorting of midsummer. A glance at the programme for today, the eve of John the Baptist's demise, might indeed hint at such solemnity. What is the "condemna" if not his  condemnation?

Well no, it isn't. And nor does the subsequent "sortida rabiosa" (rabid exit, if you like) have anything to do with a manifestation of wild behaviour in light of any condemnation. The thing is that the good folk of Sant Joan have turned the whole episode into an occasion for demons to be taught a lesson and for demons to have a go at the locals.

Many a long year ago - who can say exactly when - the people of Sant Joan (once upon a time known as Sant Joan de Sineu) started having a festival of demons to coincide with the Baptist's headlessness. Way back when, there was a single "grand demon" who would appear amidst the folk of the village and terrorise them (the sortida rabiosa). Such was the apparent fear to be struck into the hearts of the locals and such was the demonic nature of the demon, it was not uncommon for a ringer to have to be brought in from another village to perform the task. For a "santjoaner", it was hard to be a beast and be utterly beastly to the neighbours.

Gradually, or in fact many years later (as in the 1990s), the solo demon was replaced by a gang of demons - seven of them to be precise. They were to represent the seven deadly sins - lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride - and they are what you now have on the eve of the decapitation of the Baptist. What once may have a genuine attempt at striking fear has been replaced by the (half-hearted) strikes of a rope against the legs and ankles of taunting locals by the seven deadly sinning demons.

The rabiosa has thus become like a football crowd with its songs combined with a lot of jumping up and down and the pipers and whistlers doing what all good pipers and whistlers do, which is to pipe and whistle for a great length of time. Plus, of course, there are the demons who nowadays aren't terribly terrorising. And if they don't cause enough terror, the locals let them know about it.

Demons come in different guises and different styles. The really frightening ones are those who play with fire. Others can be almost comical, and the Sant Joan demons - for the rabiosa anyway - fall more into this category. But they are also part of a class of demons who chase and kidnap - the ones of Alcudia for Sant Antoni in January are a good example.

The demons are looking to get their own back. This is because prior to the rabiosa, the condemna entails demons being grabbed and put into a carriage of the type that might once have been used to transport those heading for execution (by losing their heads or other means). Consequently, a demon who might have been enjoying a refreshing libation (in honour of the devil no doubt) in a local bar suddenly finds himself being dragged out of the bar and dumped in the carriage.

After all this demonic activity, everyone - demons and all - head off to the bar, wait for the fireworks and then the DJ to crank up in the square. The demons for Sant Joan Baptista Degollat are an old, old tradition; the DJ rather less so.

Saint Rock And The Plague

There are saints with whom those not generally conversant with Mallorca's Catholicism will nevertheless have heard of. Sant Pere (Saint Peter) or Sant Joan (John the Baptist) are just two fairly obvious examples. But there are other saints who are far more obscure. How many local Catholics might be fully up to speed with, for example, Santa Praxedis, let alone non-Catholic visitors? For the record, she's the patron of Petra, and as far I'm aware nowhere else celebrates her. Likewise we have the twin brother saints Abdon and Senen, for whom Inca held its summer fiestas last month.

While these saints mysteriously found their way into very local devotion and attained patronage status, there are certain others who, while barely known in non-Catholic circles, are widely honoured on the island. And one of these is Sant Roc, whose day is 16 August, which means, in fiesta terms, that there can be two days on the trot, as 15 August is the day of the Assumption.

In English he's known variously as Roch, Rocco or even Rock, while there is a Saint Rollox in Glasgow (the same saint). Be these names as they are, it is not untypical for there to be some doubt as to the authenticity of some saints, and in Roc's case he is almost certainly fictitious. Common tradition claims that he was born in Montpellier either in 1295 or 1350. Whichever it was, it doesn't really matter as the birth itself is mere legend.

It is, though, a useful one where Mallorca is concerned. Montpellier was the birthplace of the conqueror, Jaume I. Coming from the same city - allegedly - would not have done Roc's claims on Mallorcan devotion any harm whatsoever. As it is, a recent scholarly study of the saint concludes that he was historically implausible. A generally accepted view, if not by all Mallorcans, is that he was a derivation from a Sant Racus, who died more than six hundred years before the first year given for Roc's birth in Montpellier.

Whatever his origins, Roc was to acquire another very useful attribute for his saintly CV, and that was being a patron against the plague, of which there were once upon a time goodly amounts in Mallorca. The Sant Racus angle is significant here. He was a patron for protection against storms, and in the Occitan language (close to Catalan) this was "tempesta". The word for plague was and is "pesta". Roc was not only derived from Racus, his patronage was as well by a trick of language.

Given all this, it is perhaps understandable how he came to have the kind of reputation he now does, meaning fiestas in his honour in, for example, Alaro, Cala Ratjada and Porreres.

This does, nevertheless, invite a question as to why Sant Roc (or indeed some other saints) come to actually be honoured by having fiestas in their name. In Porreres, there are two patrons - John the Baptist and another Saint John, the Evangelist. Roc isn't as such a patron, yet there he is with the principal fiestas of the summer; John the Baptist gets a mass, and that's more or less it.

Might this all just be because August is a good or better time to hold a fiesta celebration? Possibly, but where Roc and Porreres are concerned, you do have to go back to his patronage of fighting the plague.

Sixty-four years ago, Porreres staged an exhibition. It was to celebrate a three hundredth anniversary. In 1652, the town had celebrated its first ever Sant Roc fiestas. And what was the reason for having done this? Yep, it was the plague.

Among the various documents, paintings, sculptures and what have you that were placed on exhibition in 1952 was a text that referred to the Reverend Rafael Barceló who three hundred years earlier had seemingly seen to it that the parish of Porreres would have a benefactor in the form of Sant Roc. This was because in that year "the intervention of the saint" freed Porreres from the plague. And there was no better way to celebrate the fact than have a fiesta.

Of course, not every saint who intervened in similar fashion to Roc ended up with grand fiestas. Even Sant Crist, Christ the Saint, can only stretch to an hour or so of procession every three years for having rid Alcudia of drought and famine. But Roc with his plague-healing ways was to secure for himself 364 years (and counting) of Porreres summer fiestas.

Much Ado About Everything: Weird Fiestas

The word fiesta is said to have first entered English (American) usage in 1844, though an almost identical word - "feste" - cropped up in Middle English from around the second half of the twelfth century. Some two hundred years later, Geoffrey Chaucer used "feste" in the context of Troilus's love for Criseyde. A hundred or so years before Chaucer, the Italian Dante Alighieri had used "festa". Both had connotations of earthly joy and heavenly happiness and both, naturally enough, were rooted in Latin.

The word was thus common to various languages, but in English it took a specific route and was to become "feast", as in saints' feast days. Chaucer's notion endured but only up to a point. There was joy and happiness on account of the celebration of a saint but any raucous element of such celebration was to die out. In Spain and Spain's colonies, however, the linguistic modification of "fiesta" was to take Chaucer and Dante's usages to whole new levels: heavenly happiness for the saint but a hell of a lot more joy for those still on Earth.

While American English was apparently infiltrated by "fiesta" 172 years ago, it is probably fair to say that for most British English speakers it wasn't a word to gain a great deal of currency until the Ford Motor Company offered one and the British headed for sunny Spain. Now well embedded in British English, a translation, as in party, doesn't do "fiesta" justification. It has its specific connotations that transcend a mere party.

Just as culture can reinvent meanings for words or give them additional nuance, so the things the words refer to can undergo transformation. The fiesta is very much a case in point, and "much" is even more to the point.

Time was that fiesta traditions in Mallorca determined that these traditions should not be tampered with. Demons are a prime example. Long ago they were allowed out only once a year and only in one place - Sa Pobla for its January fiestas for Sant Antoni. Despite traditionalists frowning on the spread of demons, fearing the tradition would be diluted, they did of course spread. Much later, when demons in Catalonia started brandishing tridents that whirled, made a heck of a racket and spat copious amounts of fire, the Sa Pobla demons swiftly followed suit. As did numerous other demons' gangs. The current "correfoc", an invention of the late 1970s, was thus born. Everyone was very joyful that it was and remain very joyful.

Fiestas in Mallorca haven't stagnated. Their developments do owe something to tourism in that they were decades ago looked upon as a means of attracting ever more tourists, but that touristic aspect has been superseded by the recognition that, above all else, fiestas are for local communities and are expressions of these communities. In line with this, there has been a process of reinvigoration and further transformation that is something of a social phenomenon.

Behind this are the young of Mallorca. Tempting it might be to suggest that new "fiestas" within fiestas are designed principally as excuses for drinking, but such temptation does no justice to the reclaiming of fiestas and indeed to a contemporary adaptation of traditional ways and customs. Accordingly, you have, among others, the almond-shell altercation of Petra, the grape battle of Binissalem or the melon mess of Vilafranca. And then you also have Sineu's Much.

Linguistically it might be nice to think that they'd dropped the "o" from "mucho" and adopted the English "much". Nice this might be, but it would be completely wrong to think this. Much (or "Muc") is a reference to a mythical bull which appears in the Mallorcan folk tales which the Manacor-born folkloricist Antoni Maria Alcover collected and began publishing some 130 years ago.

The tale of the Muc is characteristic of stories of giants, treasure and odd beasties and characters that Alcover compiled. Its setting is the "Puig de Reig" between Sineu and Sant Joan. There is treasure, the sipping of olive oil that has to be kept in the mouth while walking round the hill three times and a bull with candles on its horns who will guide whoever manages not to swallow the oil to the treasure. That's it in its basic form. There's a great deal more.

The Muc/Much fiesta started in 2004. Since then, it has grafted on all manner of elements in acquiring the status as, to use local parlance, the most "friki" of all summer fiesta events. It starts at 10am and goes on all day (this Sunday), and it is legitimate to say that it is freaky or downright weird. It also attracts people in their thousands.

Fiestas take on new meanings but at the same time they can invoke the spirits of long ago and the superstitions and tales of folklore about which Chaucer knew a thing or two.

Star Of The Sea: Virgen del Carmen

Mount Carmel and the Spanish Navy would, on the face of it, have little in common. One is a mountain range in northern Israel and the other isn't. But such are the ways of religious developments that Carmel and the navy have a great deal in common: Our Lady of Carmel, the Virgen del Carmen, whose day was yesterday and for whom today there will be fireworks and flotillas transporting her image.

The Carmelite Order was founded some time in the twelfth century. No one knows for sure by whom or when exactly. What is generally accepted is that this founding was on Mount Carmel. (If it weren't, then explaining the name of the order becomes rather tricky.) Given the uncertainties surrounding the order's background, it is somewhat surprising that 16 July can so definitively be identified as the day when the Carmelite Simon Stock had his vision of the Virgin and the brown scapular and was thus to be responsible for a summer fiesta. There again, dates for feast days are rarely hard and fast: take Christmas as just one example.

Making the leap from Mount Carmel to the navy is equally uncertain. How did she become patron of the sea and also the patron of the navy? Well, Mount Carmel is a coastal mountain range, but then so is the Tramuntana, which has its own version of the Virgin, the one of Lluc. Mere proximity to the sea doesn't necessarily seem to have anything to do with the choice of patron. Maybe it all stems from the prayer to the Blessed Mother of Mount Carmel. One line goes: "O star of the sea, help me and show me you are my mother." As the Virgin is also patron of protecting people from harm and from dangerous situations, including those at sea, perhaps here are further reasons why the navy co-opted her as patron.

But how did she come to be looked upon as a protector from danger for those at sea? That line in the prayer unlocks the clue, as also in fact does the proximity of the sea. For the Carmelites, she was, among other things, their Stella Maris. "Ave Maris Stella" are Latin words in the hymn for fiestas devoted to seafaring. In the Old Testament, the title of Star of the Sea (or Estrella del Mar in Spanish) and its application to the Virgin stems from the prophet Elijah, conveniently on Mount Carmel, conjuring up a small cloud over the sea. As you might guess, it rained and drought came to an end. From such biblical legends are saints made, patronage created and fiestas organised.

This all helps to explain why the dedication is made to Our Lady of Carmel by the Spanish Navy every 16 July, though it has only officially been made since 1901. This was a time when the navy and the whole Spanish military apparatus were still reeling from the losses at the hands of the Americans three years before. The navy probably needed all the protection it could get.

The hymn that will be sung at naval ceremonies is not the same as the one quoted above. The naval version comes from a work written and composed in 1870. "Hail, the star of the seas. Of the iris seas, of eternal bliss. Hail, O Phoenix of beauty. Mother of Divine love."

Coming to the fiesta flotillas bearing the image of the Virgin, they are in a way the most important of the flotillas, given the Latin words of the hymn for such events: more so than those for Sant Pere (Saint Peter), even with his patronage of fishermen. In Puerto Pollensa, though, the two are combined - Peter and Our Lady. Both will appear this evening, as the resort's fiestas reach their climax of procession, flotilla, demons on the loose and fireworks.

Most of the flotillas took place yesterday - the day of Virgen del Carmen - but Puerto Pollensa opts for the Sunday of the fiestas to have its flotilla, as also does Sa Rapita.

What's The Left's Problem With Fiestas?

Mancor de la Vall, as noted here on 2 July, is not the only village or town where issues have arisen with the organisation of fairs and fiestas because of the actions of left-wing town halls. Mancor's had to do with the lack of a licence for music concerts at the rooms used by the cultural association Arrels. Before a last-minute agreement was reached, it had looked as though last November's Esclata-sang mushroom fair would not go ahead, the Més-led administration having refused to give permission for the concerts.

There are now two further cases. In Calvia village they celebrate Sant Jaume each year (25 July). The residents' association has long organised the fiestas, the agreement dating back to the days of PSOE mayor Margarita Nájera (in office from 1991 to 2003). This agreement was subsequently ratified by the two PP mayors who succeeded her: Carlos Delgado and Manu Onieva.

Responsibility for fiestas at Calvia currently lies with one of the deputy mayors, Israel Molina. He is from Si Se Puede Calvia, a version of Podemos in the municipality, which is part of the administration headed by PSOE mayor Alfonso Rodríguez. Molina has decided to break the agreement, one by which the residents' association had been receiving 28,000 euros each year to organise the Sant Jaume fiestas and others, such as the Christmas market.

Molina's argument is that there needs to be an open tender to decide who organises the fiestas. The residents' association says it won't enter the tender contest because it fears there won't be the same level of budget as previously. It notes that other associations in Calvia have said that they won't enter the contest either because they accept that the residents' association is the organiser. The consequence - unless some other solution is reached - is that the town hall will have to assume responsibility for organisation; otherwise there won't be any Sant Jaume fiestas.

In Port Soller, the cultural association has expressed its annoyance with the town hall over arrangements for Sant Pere (now finished). It says that it won't be organising the fiestas in future, citing lack of support from the town hall: the association has identified an absence of financial assistance and failure to grant permissions. The councillor in charge of fiestas, Laura Celià of Més, says that fiesta organisation has to meet with demands under law. One of these demands may well explain the fact that the fireworks were missing this year.

This is not the first time that Celià has been at the centre of a rumpus over fiesta arrangements. It was she who insisted to changes for the May Moors and Christians (Es Firó). These entailed the closing of bars in the main square during the climax to the battle - the bars had to open stalls in another square - and limits to numbers in the square (identified by wristbands).

Do these examples all point to anti-fiesta policies by some left-wing administrations? The first thing to say is that PSOE doesn't appear to have any issues. It is the further left that does. A second point to make is that, as the Arrels association in Mancor had believed, it might be thought that a grouping like Més with its Mallorcan nationalist identity would be all in favour of fiestas and their traditions.

The fact is that they may indeed be all in favour, but the four cases - Mancor, Calvia and the two in Soller - indicate a rigorous application of rules. For Més and Podemos offshoots there can't be any even hint of flouting rules, of favouritism, of not going by the book: that's the sort of thing that the PP (and PSOE) have been doing for years. These rules relate to the fastidious insistence on tenders and to health and safety, the latter being something that has rarely been diligently observed in the past.

The Calvia case has echoes of a different reason for a tender: licences to operate a business activity. It therefore is not dissimilar to the Gelats Valls ice-cream kiosk issue in Puerto Pollensa. A left-wing administration has gone by the book in saying that permission cannot just be simply rubber-stamped and extended year by year, as has been happening. The left wants to be seen to be working to the letter of the law, even if it angers the locals.

Might there be other examples of fiestas being affected? Quite probably. There are numerous local associations who essentially run fiestas, or parts of them, for town halls. There are also the health and safety and indeed animal welfare issues. If the regional government ever gets round to definitively approving its reform of the 1992 animal protection legislation, might fiestas such as Pollensa's Sant Antoni be jeopardised? The use of the cockerel at the top of the pine is currently permitted because it is a tradition that is over one hundred years old (the definition for use of live animals during fiestas under regional law). But if it is deemed to suffer under the reform, then what?

Demons And Mushrooms: Mancor de la Vall

Mancor de la Vall is a small village which nestles in the lower region of the Tramuntana mountains (note: villages always nestle; it is obligatory). It has a population of something over 1,300 and is one of those Mallorcan villages which offers little of any great note. It is there, it is quite pretty and that's about it. But for a small village it does manage to generate its fair share of disputes. This isn't smalltown controversy of rival business or political interests, it is small village controversy and it all has to do with traditions: specifically, mushrooms and demons.

Last November, there was a row about the staging of the annual fair: Esclata-sang, the blood-bursting mushroom fair. One should explain that no blood is spilled and nor has it been in arguments surrounding the fair; the name of the mushroom describes its reddish juice. In autumn, these mushrooms grow in abundance in the area. They are prized delicacies and central to a local cuisine. So they are important, but are they important enough for there to be rows?

Well they are if the organisers arrive at loggerheads with the town hall over the holding of the fair, which is precisely what happened last year. The organisation responsible is Arrels, a local cultural association. Because of "discrepancies" involving the town hall, Arrels said they wouldn't go ahead with the fair. In the end they did. Residents and village restaurants were desperate that they should.

These discrepancies surrounded the association's property, i.e. a sort of culture room. The town hall, now ruled by Més, had decided that Arrels could not hold concerts for the fair at the room. Paid for by the town hall, it had no actual licence for such an activity. Arrels, which had experienced an at times difficult relationship with the town hall, thought that with Més in charge, things would get easier. The opposite happened.

Finally, there was a "sorting-out" that allowed the fair to proceed. In the meantime, the mayor, Guillem Villalonga, had been placed in an awkward position. He was and is a member of Arrels. It might have been thought that this would smooth out any issues regarding the concerts, but these are new times in village politics. Member or not a member, the licensing arrangements couldn't just be granted a "favour".

Villalonga's involvement with Arrels is such that he was once the "grand demon" of the association's demons' gang. Which brings us to events (or rather the lack of them) last week. The patron of the village's parish church is Sant Joan, John the Baptist. Naturally, therefore, the village's summer fiestas are based around Sant Joan, and one of the most anticipated events is the demons' fire-run, the "correfoc", organised and staged by Arrels.

The correfoc didn't take place. Unlike with the mushrooms, there was no "sorting-out". Partly, this was because the mayor couldn't intervene. It was all an issue between the demons and the church. The rector said they couldn't mount a pyrotechnic display on the belltower, as they have in the past. New tiles had been placed. It was costing the church money because of the pyrotechnics. Nevertheless, Arrels went ahead and started having their fire display mounted. The rector was furious and insisted that Arrels leave the belltower out of the correfoc show.

The role of the church building itself is central to other correfoc displays. In Muro, also with a John the Baptist church, the Sant Antoni correfoc wouldn't be the same without the fire cascading down the church and belltower as part of its climax. So, one could understand Arrels wish to include the belltower. But because the rector was so insistent, rather than leave it out, they decided to cancel the whole thing. The locals were far from happy. The mayor said it was nothing to do with the town hall.

Local reaction was not what Arrels might have hoped for. They were accused of believing that the world revolves around them. There was a degree of arrogance with their stance. Nevertheless, it was suggested that the town hall might be rather more proactive and get involved in the future by issuing clear guidelines. Once more, the mayor was in an awkward position.

What do these stories tell us? A great deal about how small village traditions, intertwined with bureaucracy and the roles of institutions (the church and town hall), take on lives way beyond their relative lack of importance. They are elevated to matters of great import and become so because, in small villages, they are all that matter.

The Spirit Of Soller: Es Firó

It's one of Mallorca big fiesta days out tomorrow: one of the biggest in fact. Es Firó is how it's known in Soller. Many will just refer to it as the Moors and Christians, the grandest battle simulation between the two sides that Mallorca has to offer: grander than Pollensa in August because of its scope and length.

An aspect of both these battle re-creations is that neither of the original battles, in the overall scheme of things, was particularly special or important. Pollensa was in 1550, Soller 1561, and in the sixteenth century there were any number of attacks on Mallorca from different sources - north African saracens and eastern Mediterranean Turks among them. They can be classified as attacks by corsairs (or pirates), though such a classification can downplay any military and strategic element.

Why, given that there were repeated assaults, have the battles of Pollensa and Soller assumed such significance? In the case of Soller, and to a lesser extent Pollensa, a reason lies with the amount of documentary evidence. While there is some legend attached to the story (not least the role of the "Valents Dones" - the brave women), much of the re-creation is fairly true to what happened, even if the time of the day when the assault was launched has been altered (the landing was around four in the morning).

The events were written down. There was one report by the town hall's scribe, a second by the notary, Antoni Morell, and a third which was sent to King Felipe II. The commemoration of what took place on 11 May, 1561 was first established in 1615, but it wasn't to be until 1855 that a mock battle was staged. In the meantime, there was - in the eighteenth century - a "reinterpretation" of events by the community at Sant Bartomeu church and then, in 1833, a further embellishment by Franciscan monks. Through a process of redaction, therefore, the basis for the simulation was arrived at.

In isolation, the attack on Soller has gone down in history as a story of defiant bravery by the people of Soller, aided by units from other villages, against the invaders. And in isolation is how it tends to be considered, as is also the case with Pollensa. Missing is the back story.

Mallorca and the Balearics were of strategic importance. For the Ottomans, some control (never established) would have assisted in disrupting Spain's trade routes, while Spain was on their wider agenda of war against Christianity. Ottoman expansion and so the "Turkish menace" was to reach its limits in the later sixteenth century, but at the time of the attacks on both Pollensa and Soller, that menace remained real enough.

Some days before Soller was attacked in 1561, the Viceroy of Mallorca, Guillem de Rocafull, had sent two ships to launch attacks on the Algerian coast against pirates. This didn't achieve a great deal. By 10 May, there were 23 Turkish ships by Ibiza under the command of Uluj Ali, a one-time Italian galley slave who had converted to Islam and had risen through the ranks to join Turgut Reis (Dragut), the supreme commander of the Ottoman navy and the Moorish protagonist in the attack on Pollensa.

The viceroy knew they were coming to Mallorca but he was unsure where. The captains of the local villages were put on alert: those of Alaro and Bunyola were to come to Soller's aid. There would have obviously been great anxiety. Though Mallorca suffered its attacks, it had experienced nothing like the siege of Ciutadella in Menorca in 1558. The town was eventually sacked and well over 3,000 people were taken and sold into slavery in Istanbul.

Above the documentary evidence and the historical facts and legends of the attack, there is a further reason for the Soller battle having assumed the significance that it has, and that is the role of the people of Soller down the years. 1561 has remained a strong part of Soller identity, the Valents Dones having been described as characterising more than ever the spirit of Soller - a most authentic love for the homeland (that of the town).

Like Pollensa, the battle celebration went through its years of decline and was revived in the 1970s. In 1977, in an act of the fraternal bonding of two towns whose pasts are so associated with the heroic deeds of the sixteenth century, the Pollensa writer, Miquel Bota Totxo, closely linked with that town's cultural revival, gave the opening address for Es Firó. "It has a sense of immeasurable brotherhood ... rooted in the depths of the soul." It is more than just a fiesta.

The Changing Traditions Of Fiestas

The Mallorcan fiesta is an all-year-round occurrence. Arguably, it is never more spectacular than in January, a month when comparatively few visitors witness the demonic happenings on behalf of the saints Antony and Sebastian, breathe in the smoke of the bonfires and listen to the music - contemporary and ancient - in squares across the island. But it is summer that is most closely associated with fiesta. The word has an almost onomatopoeic quality: its sound is one of summer suffused with vibrant colours, embraced by the heat of the night and the literalism of its meaning - party.

The fiesta is of course more than its contemporary manifestations of DJs, Zumba sessions and children's entertainment gangs. It is tradition, rooted in religious ceremonies and in the idiosyncrasies of island culture. In the recent past - since the late 1970s at least - it has also been the heartbeat of revivalism. The soul of Mallorca was rediscovered. From the ashes of industrial upheaval that caused migration from the fields to the tourist empires of the coasts came the Phoenix of the return of traditional symbols - the instruments (such as the xeremia pipes), the curious and the bizarre (demons, big heads), the folk dances in their various guises. None of this had died out, but much of it had become sidelined in the rush towards a new age of touristic gold in the (some anyway) manufactured resorts.

This process of rediscovery over the past four decades or so has to be considered in the context of current-day developments. They are ones which seek to amend tradition or even eliminate it. And they all come with degrees of argument or controversy attached.

In the town of Alaro, for example, the town hall wants women to be part of the cossier folk dance troupe. Heaven forfend! The townsfolk are said to be divided on the matter, though there appear to be more in favour than against. In an age of equality, the majority view is likely to prevail, and who is to say that it should not. The Alaro case, however, and when set against other arguments, can seem minor, for there are more controversial matters at stake.

Take Soller and its Firó fiesta in May. The showpiece is the Moors and Christians battle, the grandest of all the island battles between invaders and defenders. Bar owners in the Plaça Constitució, the setting for the climax, are unhappy at proposals that they close for a time. Theirs is a commercial controversy, not one to do with tradition. There is another: the simulation of the hanging of peasants by the invading Moors. There have been calls for this to be stopped. They have been made not on the grounds of any political correctness but because of the sensitivities of some: psychological effects or sad reminders of a suicide. The town hall has listened. The hangings will continue.

And then there are fiestas with animals. The controversy is being played out in the Balearic parliament. An amendment to the animal protection act would see the end to any fiesta display that might entail animal suffering. Principally and most obviously this refers to bulls; indeed, bulls are the reason why the amendment is to come before parliament and will surely be approved.

Bullfighting will cease to be. Some will lament its passing. Many more will not. But the ban raises a question about tradition. Is tradition finite? Can it be said to be outdated and to have run its course? There is almost certainly a majority view that it can and should be consigned to the past when it involves bulls. But the people of Fornalutx, with its bull-run the centrepiece of the summer fiesta, are less inclined to this view. While outsiders look on and see barbarism, the villagers see tradition. It will be banned.

But the amendment may affect all manner of other fiesta traditions. Will the live cockerel at the summit of Pollensa's greasy pine of Sant Antoni become history? There are those who have made the case in the past for it being so. They have invoked the ban (now some ten years old) regarding the release of live ducks for the Can Picafort swim of high summer. Yet there is a rule that applies. More than one hundred years of tradition, and the animal tradition is permitted. This is the case in Pollensa but is not in Can Picafort.

There is no rule which says that tradition has to be for all time. No rule which says that tradition cannot be amended. There are traditions worth fighting for and maintaining. There are others which are not.

Is It Safe To Go Back To Work Yet?

If you don't already know, you may be interested to learn that the day of Immaculate Conception, 8 December, marks the traditional start of the nativity scene-making season. It's not official, as you can get cracking on the manger and the animals whenever you fancy, but tradition - and don't we know it - has its place in Mallorcan and Spanish society and also in the calendar. Hence, 8 December is really when the nativity figurines need to be dragged out of the attic and dusted down for another festive season, one which lasts until ... . Well, when does it really stop? It may not be the same across the rest of the country but in Mallorca, no sooner have the Kings been and delivered their presents, than the natives are building bonfires and preparing to roar around the streets, setting fire to the place. The saints Anthony and Sebastian have a great deal to commend them but they do rather get in the way.

It does of course depend upon your perspective and also has something to do with where you live. Not everywhere downs tools because of Tony and Seb's feast days, but even where they don't, there are still fiestas to be had. And what's more, it's only a couple of weeks before everyone's out on the streets again, this time shunning their demons' outfits in favour of lavish costumes for Carnival.

The Christmas festivities, let's call them winter festivities in order to get to their lengthy essence, straddle some two months - longer if Carnival is later - and then, once the final sardine has been buried at Carnival, it's a case of soon be Easter.

It is tempting to conclude that no one is, therefore, working over all this time. It is an erroneous conclusion. There are, after all, the short-contract shop employees who are brought in for the Christmas season and then winter sales. Others are hard at it, such as the legal profession, charged with overseeing the future of the King's sister. Footballers are footballing, except when they have their week off and can catch a cheeky Christmas mince pie and glass of ginger wine.

Stereotyping is a trap that is easily fallen into, and apparent idleness is one that Mallorca and Spain shares with other parts of the Mediterranean. As the German newspaper "Bild" once demanded of the Greeks: "get up early and work all day", just like the Germans. But the winter festivities highlight not so much a reluctance to work as a mentality issue that surrounds the "puente" bridge weekend, of which there are potentially various ones throughout the year.

"The Wall Street Journal", in looking at the bridge-weekend phenomenon, made an assessment which led it to suggest that it is possible, what with paid time off as well, to have fifty days off a year. It also discovered that, apparently, employees needed bridge weekends as these were escape valves from the pressures of work. It has been said that the Spanish do in fact, and in general, work longer hours than most other Europeans. By the same token, however, there have been surveys to suggest that they don't. You pays your money ... .

At the heart of all this are concerns regarding productivity and competitiveness. If there is a stereotyping, then it is one that the Spanish government (currently acting government) shares. The move to alter public holidays so that if they fall on, for example, a Tuesday, they are taken instead on a Monday was a deliberate attempt to put an end to the extended bridge weekend. If the Tuesday is a holiday, then so is the Monday (and possibly the rest of the week), and there has long been a temptation, so it has been said, to indeed consider this to be a week off.

The government doesn't seem to have gone ahead with this. Immaculate Conception will fall on a Thursday this year, two days after Constitution Day. There goes a week for you, and a whole bridge week not assisted by the apparent daftness of having two national holidays within the space of three days. In truth, most of these public holidays don't lend themselves to be being moved. They are so much part of the calendar, whether for religious or secular reasons.

Might a change in government be more insistent on moving these days? If it turns out to be one influenced by anti-religious sentiment, then perhaps so, but any politician needs to be wary with tampering with the holiday love affair and so therefore upsetting the citizens.

The bridges and the extended winter festivities seem unlikely to disappear any time soon, and the tourism/travel industry will hope to goodness that they don't: bridge weekends are good business. Still, there are always those for whom these holidays are all but irrelevant. Like those who work for newspapers. Day off? What's that?

Oddities Of 2015

Some examples of the varied and sometimes unusual past and present in Mallorca that appeared in my Enjoying Majorca column in the Bulletin.

The alternative fiesta of Sant Canut that competes with Palma's Sant Sebastià in January. "Being a saint, sort of, Sant Canut comes in the form of an image to be carried by the faithful. Dressed in a white, druidic gown with very long black hair, he holds an oversized joint; a very oversized joint."

The Portol (Marratxi) sardine tradition for the end of Carnival. "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."

The "picadors". Not the lancing horsemen of the bullfight, but ... "The picador was the sleazy, smarmy, greasy Latin lover, the tourist gigolo of legend. He wasn't a myth. He genuinely did exist. And there were few places where he existed in greater number than in Mallorca (of the 1960s)."

Mallorca's bulldog spirit: its bulldog. "This canine, which came from guard dogs that were on King Jaume I's ships, is considered to be the only dog that is native to Mallorca. Its name is the Ca de Bou: bulldog. It has another name, and that is the Dogo Mallorquín."

The Duke of Swing. "A waiter in the San Pedro (Puig de Sant Pere) area of Palma. His name was Pedro (or Pere) Bonet." He was born in 1917 and at the start of the 1930s he began to be exposed to the music and entertainment of Fred Astaire, Django Reinhardt and the King of Swing, Benny Goodman. "Bonet de San Pedro was to eventually join this unofficial royalty: he became the 'Duke of Swing'."

The weirdness of Hairy John. "Sant Joan Pelós, Saint John the Hairy. He has been around for centuries and on the feast day of Saint John (the Baptist), he prances around in Felanitx once more, wearing his strange mask and then handing out carnations to the spectators. His whole demeanour, his whole idiot-dancing style, plus the flowers make him a dead ringer for a flower power hippy of the late 1960s."

Moscari's bachelor boys and girls. The day of Santa Anna (26 July) is also the day of the "Fadrí" in Moscari: bachelor boys and bachelor girls, aka "fadrins" and "fadrines". No one seems to know why this day is as it is, but whatever the origins, at ten in the morning the "Fadrí Major" appears: the chief bachelor boy. He carries a reed adorned with ribbons and flowers and is joined by "fadrins" and "fadrines" in traditional dress. 

The Embala't of Sencelles. "There is little about it which makes much sense. What have mobylette motor cycles got to do with anything? Who knows, but there they are from some time after midday, hurtling around the streets while their riders are fired at with water pistols. The streets and roads get semi-flooded and will later on have more water deposited on them when the bales of packed hay arrive in town. And these come thanks to two teams - a male and female one. The two bales are then wheeled into the town's centre and unwrapped. This is when the battle kicks off. What does it entail? Nothing, other than chucking hay and smothering someone in it."

The Esporles sweet fair. "A giant sweet shop and a magician's bakery. Sugar, cream, chocolate, custards, this is a wonderland conjured up by some candy wizard. This is Esporles on the first Sunday in October: Mallorca's tribute to all our yesterdays of the pick 'n' mix and the corner shop with its penny-costing flying saucers and pink shrimps."

Jimi Hendrix in 1968. "The story of the Sgt. Pepper's gig has it that Hendrix cracked the walls with the volume that came out of his Marshall and Sound City speakers. Those attending were mostly British tourists. Hendrix was all but unknown in Mallorca, save for the likes of various locally based musicians, among whom were a couple of members of Los Bravos. After the performance - legend has it - Hendrix was involved in a night of decadence with four Swedish young ladies."

What's On?: Who knows?

Among other things, the day job (mine) currently involves being keeper of the Bulletin's What's On. Pretty simple job, you might think. Up to a point it is, but there is a great deal that makes it anything but simple.

I wouldn't claim that this coverage is comprehensive. Selectivity is applied. For example, does anyone want or need to know that the local indie band is playing at a bar no one's ever heard of in Ariany or Lloret de Vistalegre? Perhaps they do. In which case, do let me know. On balance, however, listing every gig, dance night or whatever may not be called for. So, comprehensive it is not, but it is reasonable to say that the coverage is far more complete and coherent than other sources, and that's because gathering all this stuff isn't straightforward and requires a fair amount of digging in order to find it in the first place and then to confirm exactly what it is and when it is taking place.

Much of what happens on the island can be placed in a calendar because it is always the same. This applies to fiestas or fairs. However, the dates aren't always the same. It is necessary to know that, for instance, the La Beata processions in Santa Margalida and Palma are, respectively, held on the first Sunday of September and the third Saturday of October. So long as you know this, then things are simple enough, except of course when they suddenly go and completely change the date. Local elections are one reason why this can happen, and a fiesta/fair that is normally pencilled in for around 20 May ends up taking place some time in June.

Inconvenient though this is, one is at least aware of the fair/fiesta looming on the what's on calendar, and so off one trots - not physically but via the internet - to whatever source for further information seems most appropriate, and more often than not, this will be the town hall.  

There are, it must be said, certain town halls which are rubbish when it comes to imparting information about their events. Eventually you might find it, buried within all the town hall website junk about recycling, tax payments and courses for teaching Catalan. Others are much better and no more so than the ones which, on going to their websites, have a pop-up announcing the fiesta/fair/whatever it is. Here is where life should be very simple, Generally it is, but not always.

As an example, Campos has its sobrassada thing going on next week. The town hall has produced a nice-looking PDF with all the information you might want except for the fact that it tells you about restaurants participating in its gastronomy do without actually saying when this is. Attempting to put two and two together, off one goes to Mr. Google for some assistance, and you seemingly find it, only to discover that you are looking at something from 2012.

Not giving precise times and dates is just one trial that one has to endure. A further one is that what might look to be a fairly accurate source of information turns out not to be. The regional government, for example, has a calendar of what it calls fairs and markets. This, by the way, isn't produced by the tourism ministry but by the ministry of employment, commerce and industry. Issued each year, it has a couple of iterations before being declared "definitive", which it might be if it didn't miss out ones or say that some are "sense determinar" (undetermined), as in when they take place.

Then you might come across an event which gives barely any information. No location, or no time, or no price (if there is one). Or there can be conflicting information as to all these. It's at this point that one begins to lose the will to live. Why should it be so difficult to include something as basic as a venue or a time? But, ever diligent, one investigates further. Facebook might help, and it often does. If a particular artist/performer/band has a date to play somewhere, they generally speaking know, and know rather better than the originator of the incomplete information.

These are just some indications as to why putting what's on information together isn't always a straightforward task and why one has the feeling at times that, despite all the talk about cultural promotion and what have you, there are too many town halls, regional bodies and others who are failing in a mission to inform. Do they really want people to know? You do sometimes wonder. 

Amidst this incoherence, there are mercifully some shining beacons of informativeness. Hats off, therefore, to the likes of Valldemossa and Felanitx town halls and their comprehensiveness in issuing summer information. If only they were all like them.

The Dancing Horses Of Llucmajor

They like wearing things around the waist in Mallorca, such as inanimate objects depicting animals. In Pollensa they wear eagles, but they also wear horses. There are other towns where they do likewise when it comes to the horse, and once they've strapped the horse on, they do their dances. Strictly speaking it's the horse which is the "cavallet", but the groups which do the horse-wearing and dancing are also cavallets.

The traditional players of a Mallorcan fiesta or fair are common to most towns and villages. The pipers - the xeremiers - are probably the most common, as nowhere seems not to have pipers. Giants, big heads (the "caparrots") are likewise familiar, as are the demons and the bands of music, though by no means everywhere has these: there are fiestas where they have to be shipped in from other towns or villages. And then there are the traditional players who are more obscure, who are remnants from many years past or who have been revived, but who are traditional to very few places. The cavallets, rather like the cossier dancers, are one such tradition. Arta, Felanitx, Palma, Pollensa, Santa Ponsa, here are where the cavallets have been maintained or recently invented.

These horse figures come from Catalan culture. The first reference to them was in 1424. In Barcelona there was a document entitled the Book of Solemnities, of religious rituals, if you like, in solemn honour of saints. The Barcelona horses, though, were not things of the church. They belonged to the Council of Barcelona, which deemed, six years later, that there should be eight of them in all and never more than twelve. Seven more years went by, and in 1437 the council ceded ownership to the Guild of Cottonmakers - the Gremi de Cotoners.

The cottonmakers are important to the contemporary story of the cavallets in Mallorca and none more so in a town not listed above - Llucmajor. Fifteen years ago, the tradition having been dormant in the town for decades, the cavallets reappeared and they were and are specifically referred to as the "cavallets cotoners".

It wasn't so long after Barcelona's horse figures first appeared that the tradition was exported to Mallorca, and this export, so it is believed, was to Arta and to Llucmajor. There was a link between the two towns in as much as both had Franciscan communities. In Mallorca the cavallets were essentially religious, as opposed to having been more secular in Barcelona, and in Llucmajor it was the convent of Sant Bonaventura where they became established. Documentary evidence of this was provided by a drawing made by the local notary and a reference to the dance of the cavallets in 1458. It is said that Palma introduced its cavallets in the same year.

But what did they represent? Though owned by the council in Barcelona, those first cavallets apparently took part in the ceremony to celebrate the martyrdom of Sant Sebastià (Saint Sebastian) and, so one version has it, they portrayed knights fighting against Turkish troops. This seems plausible, even if the enemy may be wrongly explained. The Ottomans weren't to be a factor for some years. More likely is that they were representative of the battles of the re-conquest of Spain from the Muslim occupiers: in Palma, the confrontation with the Muslims does pretty much explain the city's cavallets.

There again, why during the ceremony for Sant Sebastià, as he had been the victim of the Roman emperor Diocletian? There was perhaps some blurring of history or an invoking of Sebastian for his deliverance. In Palma he became the city's saint because of the miracle that ended the plague. Likewise, he could have been instrumental in deliverance from the occupiers.

In Llucmajor, though, there was a further blurring, as it is reckoned that the dances of the cavallets owed less to Catalan tradition and more to Italian. Whatever the precise origins though, the cavallets of the town became an embedded tradition which was certainly still very much evident some eighty or so years ago. There is a photo which shows them at a celebration in 1930. But as with other traditions the cavallets faded away, before being revived for the fiestas of Santa Candida in August, 2000.

The cavallets cotoners now dance on two occasions each year, and so on Tuesday they will be the focal point of the Llucmajor celebrations for Sant Miquel. Not all cavallets are children or adolescents. In Llucmajor they are, and the dances they perform have a feel of the fairground in the way in which the dancers dance round each other. It's appropriate. A cavallet is also a carousel, the fairground attraction of horses on a merry-go-round.

Photo: Wikipedia; there are other larger images available from the likes of Ultima Hora and Diario de Mallorca.

Selling Weirdness: Giants and tall tales

A tour guide of my acquaintance told me about an American couple he was showing around Palma. By chance the tour coincided with the gathering of giants for the Virgin Mary's birthday fiestas. The Americans were suitably impressed. You don't stumble across giants in the US as a rule. Not when history is as short as it is there.

Back in late June, a German friend, visiting with her partner and small children, asked about a what's-on event she had seen mentioned in a local German newspaper. It was the annual walk from Alcúdia town to the hermitage at La Victoria. Would the giants, who take part in the walk, be something the children would like to see? Why not, I suggested. They did see and they enjoyed.

On Monday they were dragging large boxes out of Alcúdia's council chamber and lugging them on to the steps of the town hall building. There were four boxes, just a sample, as there are other boxes which house the heads of the characters who make up the gang that follows the conquering king of Mallorca, Jaume I of Aragon. S'Estol Rei en Jaume is a motley crew of the historically factual and legendary invented. For the presentation of the annual fair's poster, four of the heads were on display - those of the king himself, that of his Moorish opponent, and then two who are inventions: the mad miller and the girl who tries to be nice but who is in fact utterly gross.

Impressed though the Americans were by the history parading through the streets of Palma, this is history of recent invention. The giants of Mallorca are invariably quite new, but the giants' tradition, and also that of big heads, is long: at least back to the sixteenth century. But something which Mallorca does very well is to make recent creations seem very old, and the giants and big heads are representative of this inventiveness.

These are creations which clearly impress both the young and the older, be it the small German children or the adult Americans, and I can include myself in the latter category. On one particular occasion, I happened to go into the town hall in Muro and was confronted by Toni and Joan, who, as far as I am aware, are the only all-male giants' pairing in Mallorca. There they were, in the reception of the town hall with their bagpipe, drum and whistle. They were shocking, given that I hadn't expected them to be there and because they were and are so enormous and so downright odd.

There is a strain of tourism potential lurking in Mallorca's culture that I'm not sure is entirely appreciated. It is tourism of the weird, and Mallorca has a great deal of weirdness. Odd, peculiar, strange, unusual, however you describe phenomena such as giants, big heads, dragons, demons and all the rest, they all contribute to a collective weirdness and difference. Yes, there are such characters elsewhere, especially Catalonia, but when there is talk of alternative tourism, there seems too little recognition of the fact that staring everyone in the face are manifestations of alternativism.

These are characters who put in appearances at fiestas and fairs and are then more or less forgotten, but it is here where I think a trick is being missed, not just in promotional terms but also in a wider marketing sense to include products and merchandise.

To come back to the Alcúdia figures, these have their own back stories. Characters like the mad miller come from folk tales, yet these stories remain locked in the Catalan language. This isn't a plea for translation but the suggestion of the possibility of making up stories related to these odd creations. S'Estol Rei en Jaume is like a mini-Canterbury Tale. The miller's tale, the gross girl's tale, the tale of the stupid boy who has grown donkey's ears, the water woman who stops children looking down wells and falling into them and drowning. Children's stories and so storybooks or audio books.

As for the figures and characters themselves, has it ever been considered that these might become dolls or figurines? Maybe it has been, but if so, I can't say that I've ever seen any. When it comes to souvenirs, and to a revitalisation of a part of the tourist retail market that has been in the doldrums for some considerable time, then might the characters of fairs and fiestas not provide an opportunity? The point being, of course, that everywhere in Mallorca has them - the giants, the big heads and what have you.

Mallorca, or some involved in tourism promotion, talks a good story about its history, but it ignores the stories themselves. Dates, facts, battles, they're all very interesting, but behind them are the stories, the legends, the oddities. Weird Mallorca - the stories and the souvenirs. They should do it.