Sant Antoni: Pigs And The French Connection

This evening in Manacor's parish church they'll be singing the "goigs" of Sant Antoni. The goigs are, roughly speaking, songs of joy or praise. They are sung elsewhere in Mallorca in celebration of the ancient saint, there are even practices for them in other villages, but Manacor specialises in the number of its rehearsals and the sheer emphasis placed on when the good folk of the town eventually gather for the real thing. While the likes of Alcudia and Muro are being bedevilled by demons with fire, Manacor is in the church and having a good old sing song.

Given Antoni's history, you will be unsurprised to learn that the goigs aren't entirely joyous in terms of content. Here was an ascetic saint who did after all live in the desert and was pestered by the devil on a regular basis. Hence, there are references to Lucifer (and the saint's triumph over him) and to the "perverse Demon". But thanks to the saint having not succumbed to the devil, the chorus for Sant Antoni - "glorious Sant Antoni" - calls on him to "guard us from all peril".

There is one possibly confusing reference to be found in the goigs. It is to Sant Antoni himself. We know him as Sant Antoni Abat, but the glorious Sant Antoni is in fact Sant Antoni de Viana. So, have we been getting it wrong with Sant Antoni Abat?

The Abat is a reference to an abbot. Antoni never was an abbot. Nor did he found a monastery or an abbey. It would have been difficult for him to have, given that he spent so much time by himself, living in caves or an abandoned fort in the Egyptian desert. The abbot part of his name would seem to have been given to him several centuries after he died (supposedly in 356 at the age of 105) and in a place a fair old distance from Egypt.

It is said that Antoni's preference was to have been buried in a secret place. As it turned out, the place wasn't so secret. His remains were taken to Alexandria and eventually to Constantinople, but they didn't stay there. In the eleventh century, concerned about what the Arabs were up to, Antoni (what was left of him) was transported to a region of France - Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, as it now is. A grand church was built in order to house him. The place became known as Saint Antoine-l'Abbaye. It was near to a village called Vienne which, to give it its Catalan name, is Viena del Delfinat. In Mallorquí, Viena was transformed into Viana.

Antoni does, depending where he's celebrated, have a number of names - Sant Antoni de Viana, Sant Antoni Abat, Sant Antoni d’Egipte, Sant Antoni l’Ermità, Sant Antoni del Foc, Sant Antoni del Desert, Sant Antoni dels Ases, Sant Antoni del Porquet and Sant Antoni el Gran. He is the patron saint of domestic animals; hence the blessings that take place tomorrow. Two of his names reflect this - ases (donkeys) and porquet (little pig or piglet).

The pig angle does, however, require a little more explanation. In 1095, a monastic order was founded in Sant Antoni's name in Saint Antoine-l'Abbaye. This was by a nobleman who was said to have been healed by the saint's relics. At the time there was a serious illness - ergotism, caused by the ergot fungus on cereals. This order went on to establish hospitals and to treat ergotism. One of them was in Palma.

A point about the pigs was that the monks from the order used pig fat in the treatment of patients - they would be smeared with it. Another point was that the pigs that belonged to the order were very much free range. They went more or less where they liked and were fed by the local people, who also gave food to the monks. This was despite the fact that in 1719 pigs were forbidden from wandering around the streets and squares of old Palma. The monks fought against the prohibition and retained their pig privileges.

The pigs were well looked after until it came to the day of Saint Martin, 11 November, which remains the traditional start to the "matances" season, the slaughter of pigs in order to make products such as sobrassada.

The order was dissolved in the late eighteenth century. It was the one which had in the seventeenth century tried to get the image of Sant Antoni moved from Sa Pobla to Palma. A lawsuit put an end to this, and the victory of Sa Pobla still inspires the cry of "Visca Sant Antoni", which will bellow out of the church this evening at the end of the Compline service. That victory does rather sum up the place of Sant Antoni in Mallorca's culture. He is very much the saint of Mallorca away from Palma, but when it is said that Antoni is the saint of Mallorca's peasant class, it is always Sant Antoni de Viana who is named.

* Re the image, "goigs" also written as "gois".

Sant Antoni 2018

Something of a harking back to the days when I did the Wotzupnorth blog, below is a listing for Sant Antoni.

Tonight (Saturday) there are demons correfocs in Pollensa and Sa Pobla. On Tuesday night it's the turn of Alcudia and Muro. The animals' blessings are as they always are on 17 January (Wednesday, the day of Sant Antoni), which is also the day for all the palaver with getting the pine trees from Formentor and the Ternelles finca. The pine climbs are at the same times as ever, but there's one big difference in Pollensa - there's no actual cockerel. It's been banned.

Choice of image - the Alcudia poster. Seems the most demonic of all.

Wherever and however you choose to celebrate Sant Antoni, enjoy. I know you will. They're the greatest fiestas of the year and, although they are celebrated across Mallorca, we really have the very best of them in the northern area.


Saturday, 13 January
Muro
19.30: Procession of pipers followed by lighting of the bonfire.
20.00: Concert by pipers - Xeremiers de Muro Es Reguinyol and Xafigà de Muro (Alicante). Municipal theatre, C. Joan Carles I.
21.15: Barbecue. In front of the town hall.

Pollensa
20.00: Correfoc with Dimonis Ca de Bou children's gang. Joan March Gardens. 20.30: Barbecue.
22.30: Correfoc - Dimonis Ca de Bou, Dimonis Hiachat de Santa Margalida, Fills de Lucifer de Búger. Joan March Gardens.

Sa Pobla
11.00: Procession of children's caparrot (bighead) workshop, plus pipers. C. Rosari to Plaça Major.
20.15: Sa Pobla Choir and the Sant Antoni Choir and the goigs for Sant Antoni. At the church.
24.00: "Redempció" - demons correfoc. Dimonis i Tamborers d'Albopàs and Dimonis de sa Pedrera de Muro. Followed by barbecue. Plaça Major.


Sunday, 14 January
Pollensa
19.30: Glosadors, pipers and others. Club Pollença, Plaça Major. Pay as you wish.

Sa Pobla
17.30: Sant Antoni folk dance, with the group Abenlara. Plaça Alexandre Ballester.


Tuesday, 16 January
Alcudia
16.30: Sant Antoni and the demons (plus pipers) leave the town hall. Procession and the occasional "kidnapping" of a child.
20.00: Bonfire, botifarró, llonganissa, bread and drink (one euro). Plaça Constitució. Bonfire and folk dance in Plaça Carles V.
22.30: Correfoc - Dimonis de sa Cova des Fossar. From the town hall to Plaça Carles V.

Muro
19.45: Procession of the demons, Sant Antoni and the Unió Artística Murera Band of Music. From Plaça Convent to Plaça Comte d'Empúries.
20.15: Dance of the demons and Sant Antoni. Plaça Comte d'Empúries.
20.30: Lighting of the bonfires with Dimonis de sa Pedrera, Bruixes de Mallorca, Dimonis Trabukats. Correfoc fire-run and spectacular. Plaça Comte d'Empúries.
23.00: Traditional music - Revetla d'Algebelí and Germans Martorell. Plaça Comte d'Empúries.
24.00: Islanders plus DJ. Plaça Sant Martí.

Pollensa / Puerto Pollensa
21.00: Lighting of the bonfires.

Sa Pobla
14.30: Departure of the demons and Sant Antoni and procession through the streets and squares of the town.
18.45: Ceremony of the historical sanctioning for the start of Sant Antoni Eve. In front of the town hall.
19.45: Departure of the paralympic demons of Grif, the demons d'Albopàs, the demons of the Obreria (Sant Antoni) and of the town hall, plus giants, bigheads, junior bigheads and the Sa Pobla band of music. From the town hall to the church.
20.00: Compline and acclamation of Sant Antoni.
21.15: Dance of the demons and of the gangs of bigheads and junior bigheads, accompanied by the Sa Pobla band of music.
21.30: Pyromusical spectacular. Plaça Major.
22.15: Gathering of singers and ximbomba players. Plaça Major.
00.30: Grand ximbombada and glosada - ximbomba playing and reciting of folk/satirical tales, verses and poems. Plaça Major.


Wednesday, 17 January
Alcudia
16.00: Traditional blessings of the animals, plus performance by Sarau Alcudienc (folk dance). From Passeig Pere Ventayol.

Muro
10.30: Firing of rockets and planting of giants in front of the town hall.
11.00: Mass in honour of Sant Antoni with the Miquel Tortell Muro Choir.
15.00: Ringing of bells.
15.30: Traditional blessings and parade of floats.

Pollensa
10.15: Traditional procession and animal blessings.
11.30: Setting off from Plaça Almoina to the Ternelles finca.
12.30: Lunch at Ternelles.
14.00: Departure of the pine.
19.00: Raising of the pine. Plaça Vella.

Puerto Pollensa
09.00: Bus leaves from behind the church to go to Formentor.
11.30: Procession and animal blessings.
12.00: The pine arrives in the port.
13.30: Planting of the pine in Plaça Miquel Capllonch.

Sa Pobla
10.00: Procession with the pipers Germans Aloy.
11.00: Solemn mass plus offering of farm produce and dance with Marjal en Festa.
12.30: Dance of the caparrot bigheads and young caparrots. Plaça Major.
15.30: Blessing of the animals in the church square with the pipers Germans Aloy and Xerebiols and the giants Antoni and Margalida.
16.00: Parade of floats, accompanied by the band of cornets of the Sant Antoni brotherhood and the demons of the Obreria de Sant Antoni.


Friday, 19 January
Sa Pobla (Sant Sebastià)
19.30: Gathering in C. Tresorer Cladera of Dimonis d'Albopàs and departure for Plaça Major and the lighting of the bonfires for Sant Sebastià.


Saturday, 20 January
Pollensa (Sant Sebastià)
19.30: Procession with the image of Saint Sebastian, of the Standard and of the cavallet horse dancers.
21.00: Dance of the cavallets at the bonfire in Plaça Major.

Sa Pobla
18.30: Line and ballroom dance, followed by barbecue (six euros). Plaça Mercat.

The Nine (Ten) Days Of Sant Antoni

So, that's Kings done and dusted for another year. Same as it ever was: the procession from Puerto Alcudia to the old town creates havoc with the traffic. The day after, Epiphany, and perhaps the municipal services agencies are out in force dusting away any sweets lurking behind municipal planters and other street furniture. Or they are gathering what remains and are either taking the sweets home or flogging them at the car-boot sale (not that it's on today). At least there isn't the same clean-up operation as in Palma. Did you know that there were more than five tons of sweets for the Kings in the capital? Five tons! It's as well that they aren't all thrown at once.

Today is in fact a public holiday, but then, when isn't it? Five in the space of a month; Boxing Day not included. In case you're confused, and you have every reason to be, Boxing Day will be a public holiday this year, even if it wasn't last year. The holidays' list has been published for 2018. Fifteen in all, one of which is the municipality's day-off of choice. One of which? Is it just me or does Alcudia, for example, manage to sneak in two saints' days holidays per annum - Pere and Jaume?

Kings done, and attention now turns to Antoni. Quiet in January? Whoever has suggested that? There's no rest for the wicked, least of all the demonic sorts that are about to take to the streets. Sant Antoni - what a time of the year, what a fiesta, what a diabolic carry-on.

Sa Pobla, being the centre of Mallorca's Antoni universe, has already issued its programme. Nothing like being early, but then there is good reason. Tomorrow is the procession of the "Novenari de Sant Antoni". And this is? Nine days before the main day. Sort of. The day of Sant Antoni is in fact 17 January, so I make that ten. Still, nine days before a fiesta is what the novenari is all about. They used to have a procession for it in former times. In more present times they forgot about it. The procession was revived five years ago. Demons will parade, as will good Saint Anthony himself. Then it's time for "novena" prayers before the "Prohomenia" gather and select the "Clamater". Goodness, what rituals surround Sant Antoni, especially in Sa Pobla.

The Prohomenia, if you are unfamiliar with them, and you probably are, is the committee of wise men who talk over matters Sant Antoni and then move on to choosing the Clamater. This committee comprises the rector of the church, members of the "obreria", the mayor and some councillors. It's just possible therefore that there are some wise women as well nowadays. And while you're asking, the "obreria" is the organisation that looks after works at the church, but in Sant Antoni terms also has a fundamental role. It in effect supplies the manual, the rule book for the fiestas. The demons have in the past fallen foul of the obreria for breaching regulations. Too demonic perhaps.

And the Clamater, I hear you also ask? This is the person (typically, and once more, it is a male) who issues the proclamation of Visca Sant Antoni on Sant Antoni Eve. It's a pretty big deal to be able to show on your CV that you have been a Clamater. Securing the role is a bit like being a Wisden Cricketer of the Year; I believe you can only do it once. Well, it wouldn't be fair for someone to keep doing it; not when you have a total municipal population of getting on for 13,000 to keep happy. I suppose that works out at something like 5,000 men of Clamater age, or 10,000 if you include the women. In fact, the short list is somewhat shorter. The Clamater age does seem to presuppose relatively advanced years and so therefore a personal history of having acclaimed Sant Antoni and wishing him long life, albeit that he died 1,662 years ago. Allegedly.

The "clam" of the Clamater first came about as a response to a bit of a barney involving the Antonian Order in the seventeenth century. There was a risk that Palma would usurp the Sa Pobla Sant Antoni ritual by taking the saint's image away. Sa Pobla won a legal battle and all was well until, that is, 1920. It was thought that the "clam" was somewhat unseemly for a religious service - the Compline of Sant Antoni Eve - so it was dropped. It took them 82 years to get around to restoring it, and tomorrow the latest Clamater will be acclaimed.

Meanwhile, there has been intense effort in coming up with the Sant Antoni posters. As of time of writing, only Muro and Sa Pobla had made their choices. So, reproduced here are the winners - Maria Torrents i Sandberg in Sa Pobla and Jaime Ballester in Muro. The latter, one feels, is more demonic.

Branding Mallorca's Interior

Sa Pobla has a new tourism brand, though new isn't accurate. Nor is brand for that matter. Sa Pobla has a tourism logo; it's first, as far as I'm aware. A brand is quite another thing.

The logo was unveiled at the third conference on Sa Pobla tourism. Three and a half hours, with coffee break, to enjoy the unveiling of the logo and to consider, inter alia, the application of the holiday rentals law and "synergies" between Sa Pobla and the tourism in Alcudia Bay.

In keeping with the vogue for citizen participation, the citizens had been invited to help with the logo design. Well, they were given colours to choose at any rate. And which is the predominant colour? Red. As ever, there was a marketing company on hand to explain the logo. Red denotes fire and also passion, dynamism and strength. Let's stick with the fire, shall we? Sa Pobla's fires of January form a strong association, though fires, it has to be said, tend not to be red.

The common denominator to the logo is symbolised by roots dropping from the base of Sa Pobla's b. These roots are the roots of tradition, of agriculture and of the potato in particular. There are also multicoloured brushstrokes to denote fireworks of fiesta time. There was no explanation as to why the tail on Sa makes the word look as if it is Sax. This would be appropriate. Sa Pobla has a fine international jazz festival. This festival doesn't seem to have featured high, if at all, in the citizens' participatory eyes.

It's fair enough to ask for the input of the citizens. It's fine to find out what they believe is most representative of where they live. But what does this do for tourism? Perceptions of local people and of tourists, such as they are or might be, will be different.

There is an example of this. Asked about the January fiestas for Sant Antoni, 67% of adults identified the figure of Sant Antoni himself as being most representative of the fiestas. While the demons attracted 19%, the demons correfoc fire-run got only two per cent. Sant Antoni exists in the soul of the Sa Pobla folk, but despite all the publicity the likes of myself give to the saint, I would have to question how meaningful he is to visitors. Demons on the rampage are, I would suggest, more meaningful.

Has this branding exercise been undertaken the wrong way round? Should it not be tourists who are pinpointing what's meaningful? Maybe they could in the resorts, but in a town like Sa Pobla, with little tourism and few tourists, there would be no meaningful data. Residents it is, then.

The problem lies with building a brand. A logo is fine, but a brand is way much more. Sa Pobla has a long way to go in even beginning to establish a brand concept. It can look across the Albufera wetland to Alcudia and know that there is a brand, albeit a somewhat schizophrenic one of differing reputations and very different types of tourist.

Sa Pobla has its ambitions for tourism. Hence it stages the annual tourism conferences. Key to these ambitions are holiday rentals. They heard about the ins and outs of the legislation from the now new tourism director-general, Antoni Sansó, but he is not at liberty to give any idea how the rentals' lottery will work out. He may not know, though one suspects he has more than an inkling.

These ambitions for tourism are ones shared with other municipalities in Mallorca's interior. How realistic are they for Sa Pobla and for these other towns and villages? The rentals' decisions may well prove to be an attempt at engineering tourism development in the interior, but for any of these municipalities there have to be incentives for tourists to choose to go there in the first place and then to stay there when they arrive. The "synergies" with the bay of Alcudia form mostly one-way traffic - out of Sa Pobla and to the beaches, to the nightlife, to the much greater choice of restaurants. As for good old Sant Antoni in January, it's a lovely thought that tourists might come in any great number. But for those tourists who are in Mallorca in January, Sant Antoni can be enjoyed mostly anywhere. And then there is of course, you know what. Flights.

Grabbing hold of fiesta traditions and gastronomy are all well and good, but which village can't lay claim to these? Yes, the traditions in Sa Pobla are unmatched in their historical terms, but do these count for a great deal? Enough to form a firm brand in the minds of tourists? Is it not really the case that villages on the Mallorcan plain are in fact just reflections of Mallorca and its traditions and its brand? But does that brand owe much (anything) to the island's interior?

* Photo from Ajuntament de Sa Pobla Facebook.

The Story Of A Church Organ

A special concert was held at the Sant Antoni parish church in Sa Pobla on Saturday. It was to mark the 300th anniversary of the construction of the church organ. The concert, an organ recital (naturally enough), accompanied by a brass quintet, was a mark of the esteem with which church organs in Mallorca are held: just as much as the churches themselves. By coincidence, there was another event for a church organ on the same evening. A book about the organ of Santa Maria la Major church in Inca was presented; a recital followed.

The parish of Sant Antoni Abat in Sa Pobla dates back to 1357. Building of the current church was started in 1696, work on the bell tower having been started one hundred years previously (that alone took some sixty years to finish).

There was already an organ, for which documentary evidence is available from the start of the seventeenth century. We learn, for instance, that on 4 January 1609 it was decided to pay 30 pounds to the organ carpenter Comes (no Christian name) to give the organ a new varnish. In 1634, there was a visit to the parish by the Bishop of Mallorca, the Catholic Church's "Visitor General" (like a chief inspector) and an advisor to the crown: quite some set of dignitaries therefore. The record of this visit was in the "ordinances" of "La Pobla", as opposed to Sa Pobla, and it was presumably made in order to consider more than just the organ. Anyway, it was agreed that four pounds should be paid for work on the keys and that the work should be completed within two months.

Thirteen years later, there was another visit. This time it seems as if the Visitor General was unaccompanied. The ordinances book was to note that Don Diego Escolano was none too impressed with the organ: it was "badly out of tune". In the intervening thirty-four years, things clearly improved. The bishop (a different one) paid a visit in 1679. The organ, he concluded, was in good condition.

Better condition or not, there was a question as to whether the existing organ was going to be good enough for the new church. Well, if there is to be a new church, it really could do with a brand spanking new organ as well. Which of course is what was eventually agreed.

The new organ was finished in 1717. How long it took to build it isn't certain. The best reckoning is that work took place between 1700 and 1717. What is certain is that the master organ craftsman was Damià Caymari, who had been responsible for a previous organ - that of Nostra Senyora dels Socors in Palma. Damià, it would appear, could well have been the brother of another craftsman (and organist), Jaume Caymari, who in 1700 was paid eighteen pounds for work on the organ - the old one. Although there was a question mark over whether Damià and Jaume were brothers, it is now said that there was a "dynasty" of organ builders called Caymari.

It wasn't to be for more than 250 years that there was real confirmation that Damià had been responsible for both the Sa Pobla and the Palma organs. This was to come from Gerhard Grenzing, who entered the story of the Sa Pobla organ at a time when it was all but dead. The Sa Pobla chronicler Alexandre Ballester wrote that in 1960 the organ sounded awful. The registers were all wrong, the bellows didn't move properly. The grand organ, he said, was destined to a "slow death".

The death seemed to have come when in 1967 the parish acquired an electronic organ. Romanticism as well as the organ were being consigned to the dump of history. However, as with many other things of a traditional nature that were to find rebirth in the aftermath of Franco's death, the organ became the subject of restoration. In 1976, talks started with the master restorer, Grenzing. Two years later, with the support of the Obra Cultural Balear, there were more talks. A budget proposal was made. The rector called for donations, a restoration committee was set up. The town hall was to give money, so were banks, the local farmers cooperative and individuals. It took until 1986 for a definitive contract to be made with Grenzing. The cost was three million pesetas (around 18,000 euros).

On the "Opuslist" for the Gerhard Grenzing company, it says that "an historical organ is like a defenceless living being asking us to respect it as we try to preserve it". In Sa Pobla they did preserve it. This Opuslist of numerous restoration projects still being undertaken has a note which says modestly and simply: Sa Pobla (Mallorca), Spain - Parróquia de Sa Pobla, 1987. Thirty years ago they completed the restoration of the now 300-year-old organ.

Debating Sant Antoni

They like their debates in Sa Pobla. The citizens have, for example, been invited to debate the town's touristic future. As it has no obvious touristic past, they have been debating from a more or less blank sheet of paper. Yet there is one aspect of the town's past - from a very long time ago - that has entered into this all but non-existent touristic past: the legendary Sant Antoni.

They were debating the Egyptian ancient himself the other evening. A group of youths - a mistranslation if there ever was one, given that "jóvenes" (aka "joves") can be applied to anyone up to roughly the age of thirty or even older - had organised a gathering during which one of the hottest topics for discussion was what type of dress should be worn for the Sant Antoni fiestas. It wasn't what they had in mind, but dress code advice might be said to be very simple - something warm.

The debate was otherwise under the broad title of "where's the fiesta going". In order to answer this, it was important to know where it had been, which of course takes one way back when - to the fourteenth century way back when. Following an explanation of this, there was a roundtable debate (another one) featuring eminent figures such as the mayor.

And what did they conclude? Well, nothing really, and it was unlikely that they would have arrived at anything dramatically different, given that the Obreria de Sant Antoni (represented at the roundtable) pretty much dictates what goes on. If the demons don't watch their demonic protocols, for example, they can find themselves on the wrong end of an obreria ticking-off. Which they have in the past.

Sant Antoni, in a Sa Pobla style - and it is the most important of the Antoni styles - starts as soon as the Kings are done and dusted. On Saturday, they drag the old boy out of storage for another year and hit the Antoni trail, one of the most significant rituals being the election of the "clamater" by the group of notables known as "La Prohomenia". The clamater is the one charged with leading the cry of "Visca Sant Antoni" during the Compline. The "jóvenes" would be well advised to not consider any tampering with this ritual, given that it was only restored in 2002 after a hiatus of some eighty years because someone had decreed that this shouting was all rather unseemly for a church service.

Mayor Ferragut reflects that the Sant Antoni fiesta has withstood revolutions, wars and periods of famine. Despite all of these, it has always gone ahead, albeit it is hard to know how he can say this with absolute certainty. But the roots of the fiesta are strong and profound. All the ancestry provides a form of substrate, the environment in which the organism of the people lives. Or something like that.

The mayor is therefore not for any change; not radical anyway. The fiesta has remained largely intact since time immemorial and will doubtless remain intact until hell freezes over and the demons are no more. Nevertheless, there is (and was) some sense in having a debate as to the fiesta's future. Partly that is because fiestas don't stand still. There is plenty of evidence which demonstrates how the "jóvenes" of other towns have shown a way forward and breathed new life into the same procedure as every year. They have created traditions for contemporary times, such as with the Much of Sineu, itself based on a traditional folk tale.

A further reason is tourism. The two debates thus collide, if there is a genuine wish that they should. One of the strange things about Sant Antoni - and there is a great deal which is strange - is that it has been a fiesta in the national touristic interest since the mid-1960s, a declaration which had virtually no impact and hasn't had. It's as if nowadays they've forgotten that the declaration was made. Perhaps it needs reviving, rather like the clamater was.

Or is there something lurking in the mayoral substrate which would prefer that the declaration hadn't been made? After all, it is from a time when you know who was in charge, and the Francoists did make something of a habit of attaching themselves to certain traditions and attempting to pass them off as being "Spanish". Where Sant Antoni is concerned, that would never do. His existence in Sa Pobla and Mallorca owes everything to his cult having been shipped across the sea by the various Jaumes.

But if this town is to ever be serious about its tourism debate - and they do wish to place an emphasis on the local culture - then it has this great fiesta advantage, one stronger and more profound than any largesse which might be bestowed on it courtesy of holiday rentals' legislation. Visca Sant Antoni. Visca turisme?

The Masses Turn To Mallorca's Interior

One of my favourite Sa Pobla stories is to do with events 62 years ago, when the town hall managed to lose a beach. Commanded by Madrid to sort out municipal boundaries, Sa Pobla engaged in some horse-trading with Muro. The result was that it swapped that part of Albufera which went to the sea (and the beach) in exchange for extending its interior boundary eastwards. It thought it had a deal. It did only insofar as more agricultural possibilities were obtained. Muro, perhaps by luck or possibly by foresight, obtained what is now the main part of Playa de Muro. The ultimate result was to be that Muro's economy, courtesy of its upmarket resort, diversified massively into tourism. Sa Pobla's economy didn't.

The missed opportunity condemned Sa Pobla to rely more or less solely on its agriculture, which has undoubtedly brought it wealth - thanks mainly to potatoes and rice - but which could have been significantly greater. Perhaps in recognition of its historical error in having failed to climb aboard the tourism train, the town - once democracy was established - retrenched. It came to be the island's centre of cultural revivalism. As an example, last Saturday afternoon the town was resonating with the blasts of hundreds of bagpipes: decades of piping revivalism were being celebrated.

A year ago, the town hall held a first series of seminars to consider its tourism future. Or even present. Without a tourism past, notwithstanding the fact that its January Sant Antoni fiestas have officially been in the national touristic interest for fifty years, the citizens who turned up were operating from pretty much a blank canvass. What they started to paint onto this canvass was accommodation, which in Sa Pobla's case means mostly only private properties.

During the second series of seminars, held last week, it was reported that the number of tourist places had virtually doubled in the space of twelve months. The increase was totally due to holiday rentals - all legitimate and all charging the tourist tax. Significant though this rise is, it needs to be placed in context. Compared with another neighbour - Alcudia - the number of places is 3.5% of what Alcudia has in hotel places, with no account taken of holiday rentals, legitimate or not.

Strategically, Sa Pobla is opting for alternative tourism. This inevitably means culture, heritage and gastronomy. Alternative it may be, if not exactly innovative. The alternative tourism seeker can thus be housed in a house (or similar) and enjoy this alternativism. Alternatively, this tourism seeker may well appreciate that the beach isn't so far away, and that the beach (or beaches) in question are considered to be among Mallorca's finest. One of these is Es Comú, part of the beach that had been Muro's before Sa Pobla obliged by handing over the rest and now one subjected to - so we are told - "massification".

Selva is a town further inland. Almost three years ago now, it did something similar to Sa Pobla: invited the locals to talk tourism. At the time, it could muster around 600 places. It will be more now because of an increase to the ninety or so holiday homes it was said to have. The town hall's tourism plan, interestingly enough, made a virtue of the fact that beaches in Alcudia and Pollensa weren't a million miles away. Promoting alternative tourism was going to get it only so far.

Also three years ago, Vilafranca's town hall was keen to find ways of attracting more tourists. There was a problem because it was being bypassed. A further one, the town hall accepted, was that in general terms it was way behind the tourism eight ball. Yet last month, the environmentalists GOB were backing Vilafranca's demands for the regional government to restore "sanity" to tourism. From having been nowhere touristically, the town hall had discovered that tourists were occupying holiday homes in the municipality. It was suffering "massification".

The three cases - Sa Pobla, Selva, Vilafranca - highlight ways in which all Mallorca's municipalities were obliged by the last Partido Popular government to come up with tourism plans. They also show how attitudes to tourism differ. Selva saw itself as being a centre for all types - sun-and-beach included; Sa Pobla would prefer its tourists don't head off to the beach.

Something else which is highlighted is the reform under the 2012 tourism law which made it easier to make rural properties available as holiday homes. While Sa Pobla has embraced this, Vilafranca wants obstacles to be raised.

What is happening is that properties in the island's interior, both rural and urban, are increasingly being devoted to tourism. It's a story which mirrors the experiences on the coasts and so contributes to a distortion in the accommodation market. Sa Pobla has doubled the number of places in a year. Will it double them again next year?

The Lost Beach Of The Small Huts

Have you ever heard the story about the town which used to have a beach but no longer does? There is one such town and it lost its beach 62 years ago. This wasn't through some freakish intervention of nature. It had to do with what is nowadays the National Geographic Institute but which in 1954 was referred to as the Geographic and Cadastral Institute. That name gives a clue as to what happened in 1954. Cadastral, when used for public administration purposes, determines boundaries, ownership and tax raising. A county, for instance, is a cadastral division. In the case of Mallorca and Spain it also had to do with defining municipalities.

Curiously enough, there wasn't a complete and detailed national topographic map, i.e. one which showed precisely what constituted different places, e.g. municipalities. Under orders from the Geographic and Cadastral Institute, three municipalities had to sit down and figure out exactly where their boundaries were and who owned what. These municipalities were Alcudia, Muro and Sa Pobla. It was the latter of these which lost its beach.

Anyone familiar with the current-day geography of Mallorca will know that Sa Pobla is firmly a municipality in Mallorca's interior. So how did it ever come to have a beach? Well, it all had to do with Albufera. A great part of this wetland used to be within Sa Pobla. Nowadays only a relatively small part, well back from the sea, is in the municipality. And as a consequence of this one-time municipal "ownership", Sa Pobla in essence reached as far as the bay of Alcudia.

What happened in 1954 is hard to accurately pin down, but it has been said that Sa Pobla did not negotiate well and also failed to have any vision of the future. Beach tourism had yet to come to the bay of Alcudia (except for the original Club Med tents in 1950), so the town hall could possibly have been excused its lack of foresight. There was horse-trading mainly between Sa Pobla and Muro, and Sa Pobla believed it had got a good deal by grabbing interior land that had been Muro's. But by way of compensation, it lost what was effectively its beach.

The arrangement that now exists on the bay of Alcudia is that the boundary limit of Muro (and so Playa de Muro) is at the Camí Can Blau. This is a road that cuts inland from the main beach road. From this boundary line going eastwards is the first "sector" of Playa de Muro. This sector ends where the grand canal of Albufera enters the sea. This sector is what used to be Sa Pobla's beach.

The agreement of 1954 did in fact bring to an end a squabble that had existed between Alcudia, Sa Pobla and Muro for at least three centuries. Muro had always been the one to lose out when it came to its ownership of Albufera. The irony will now not be lost on the people of Sa Pobla: that Muro has become wealthy because of what is generally a high quality beach tourism. While Sa Pobla has had to rely on its traditional agriculture, Muro was able to diversify economically, thanks to the decision of 1954 which gave it a couple of kilometres of beach that it wouldn't have otherwise had.

One can find evidence of nostalgia for that old beach. The writer Miquel López Crespí, born in Sa Pobla in 1946, recalls the summer of 1954. The agreement had been signed in May of that year but had yet to take effect. It was the last summer that the people of Sa Pobla would go to their beach and put up what were makeshift small huts for the summer. They called it "Ses Casetes". This was unlike the Ses Casetes further along the bay where Playa de Muro meets Can Picafort, which is still very much there and consists of (mostly) one-time church-owned cottages.

The Sa Pobla Ses Casetes was like a shanty town, but it had its own bar, Figuera. Some fifty families used to go and take over the beach each summer. After 1954 they could of course still go to the beach but they couldn't install their temporary huts.

Miquel López Crespí, reflecting on the loss of the beach and then of the great changes that occurred because of tourism, has written: "Nothing now remains of that full moon in August at Bar Figuera when the owner, Jaume, would sing some of the old songs, accompanying himself with his peasant ximbomba."

* Photo of the canal where it enters the sea in Playa de Muro. To the left, from the Esperanza, is what was once the Sa Pobla beach.

The Year Of The Demon

Anyone unfamiliar with Mallorca who were to arrive on 16 January might wonder if the whole island has been gripped by horror. Few parts of the island are unaffected. Fire, demons, beasties. For its ubiquitousness and especially for its symbolism, there is no other fiesta day like 16 January. Not Kings, not New Year, not Easter. Sant Antoni Eve is Mallorca's fiesta. There is another night of fire - the one of midsummer - but Sant Joan does not have the same all-island grip of Sant Antoni and nor is it something which is essentially of Mallorcan origin. It is small wonder that the day of Sant Antoni has been suggested as the new Mallorca Day.

In recognition of the association of demons with Sant Antoni, the Council of Mallorca has hit upon an idea for a "year". 2016 is a year of one thousand demons. Its purpose? To contribute to the discovery, the promotion and shared enjoyment of the demonic universe of Mallorca. The vice-president of the Council and also its councillor for culture, Francesc Miralles, has spoken of wanting to use 2016 as a year to present the demons of Mallorca so as to promote the cultural richness of the island via symbols that form an essential part of island identity. Bravo, though it's not as though demonic promotion hasn't been suggested before, especially in connection with Sant Antoni.

Still, better late than never, and as an introduction to this year of demons, there is an explanation as to different types of Mallorcan demon. They are certainly not all of the fire variety. These are the new demons. Their tradition is much more recent, their whirling, fire-spitting tridents only some thirty or so years old. At Sant Antoni, the new and old demon traditions collide, as there are demons which are identifiable as those of Sant Antoni. They are a class in their own right. They dance, they chase, but they don't threaten to set you on fire.

There is a further category, the demons who are integral to other manifestations of Mallorcan fiesta traditions. These ones include the pitcher-smashing demons of La Beata in Santa Margalida or those who are the demon in the folk dances of the Cossiers. They play a specific part and, as with the Sant Antoni demons, appear only when tradition demands. The fire demons, on the other hand, can engage in more frequent presentations, and there are a few gangs who hire themselves out to towns without a fire-running gang. Nevertheless, they are still very much associated with specific fiestas, such as Sant Antoni, an occasion when they - as the new demon tradition - share the stage with the old, dancing variety.

There is a further part to the demons' story: their accessories. The pitchers of Santa Margalida are one example. The masks are obviously another. But there are also other traditional elements which have become part of the wider demons' picture: bonfires, the xeremier pipes, the weird ximbomba and, very much more recently, the batucada drums.

As a means of promoting the year of demons, a card game has been adapted to feature images of the differing types of demon. Hence, there are, for example, the grand demon of Arta and the Sant Antoni demons of Muro to represent the old Sant Antoni tradition. Or the Filloxera de l'Infern demons of Binissalem who come from the modern fire line of the demons' world. The card game is one promotional device. Others will be a roadshow, conferences and educational activities. But all these raise a question. Who's the promotion for?

It is easy to overlook the fact that the whole demon tradition in Mallorca had more or less died out by the end of the 1960s. There was one town where it was kept alive. Sa Pobla. This town, more than any other in Mallorca, was responsible for maintaining old traditions and for reviving them. The xeremia pipe had all but disappeared before Sa Pobla made a concerted effort to bring it back. So it is only right that so much attention is devoted to Sa Pobla on Sant Antoni Eve. The rest of the island owes the town an enormous debt.

But it is the fact that the tradition did once hover close to extinction which probably goes to the heart of why there is the year of the demon. There is no one in Mallorca who isn't now familiar with the demons, so it might be asked why they need reminding of them. The year is, therefore, reinforcement. A reminder of the roots. A celebration of the demonic varieties. Will the year, however, cast its net wider? Lord knows, it's been suggested often enough that the demons, especially those for the winter fiestas, are ideal for foreign promotion. One fears, however, that the year may pass the rest of the world by.

A Short History Of The Potato

There has long been debate as to who actually was responsible for introducing the potato to England. But regardless of the competing claims of Sir Francis Drake or Thomas Harriot, the potato was to prove to be a grand agricultural success. But before it turned up in England, it had appeared in Spain, which is only logical given that the Spaniards had been all over southern America like a rash from the moment that Columbus didn't discover America but rather the Caribbean. By the second half of the sixteenth century, the potato was being cultivated in Spain, such as in the Basque Country, but its migration to other parts of the country was slow. And right at the back of the potato revolution queue was Mallorca.

They held the annual potato fair in Sa Pobla at the weekend. The spud is to Sa Pobla as the orange is to Sóller, yet remarkably enough it was Sóller where it was once cultivated in some abundance, possibly equally as much as in Sa Pobla. But  this cultivation wasn't to occur, with anything like intensity, until roughly 300 years after the Spaniards of empire had first introduced the potato to Spain.

It was the Menorcans who were responsible, and they in turn had the British to thank. Wherever the Briton roamed in occupation, he took the potato with him, and so Menorca became the nursery for what was, many years later, to become a primary source of Sa Pobla's agricultural economy.

It was, it would seem, one Alexandre de Cauterac who was the chief initial advocate of the potato. In 1799, he recognised that the potato could become an important crop as part of the recovery of parts of the Albufera wetlands next to Sa Pobla. While the reclaiming of the wetlands through the drainage by the British engineers in the second half of the nineteenth century is rightly recognised as having created greater agricultural possibilities, there had already been some small-scale reclaiming. The land was deemed suitable for vegetable growing. Up until then, Sa Pobla's economy had been based on vines, cereals, hemp and flax. Despite the water of the wetlands, the town's agriculture, and indeed the town itself, was relatively poor. In the sixteenth century, for example, it had been observed that "the village which is poorest in water ... is that of Sa Pobla, where the number of wells does not even reach ten".

But even once the potato was revealed to the island, the cultivation was slow to take off. Mallorca's Captain General offered a prize in 1816 for the best potatoes to be grown in Alcudia and Sa Pobla. Twenty years later the Mallorcan Economic Society of Friends of the Land were issuing reports commending cultivation, but though the potato was being grown, the volume was such that it was almost a luxury. The Sóller growers of the mid-1860s were able to command high prices for this new and delicious food. Nevertheless, the potato's popularity among Sa Pobla's farming community was on the rise. Though he didn't specifically identify the potato, the Archduke Louis Salvador, whose "Die Balearen" was as much a census of economic production on Majorca as a work of cultural observation, was able to say in 1872 that 477 hectares of production on marshy farmland included vegetables, by which he mainly meant the potato.

Initially, the potatoes were grown as animal feed. There was a reluctance to eat something that was grown in soil, as there was an assumption that it might not be good for the health. But elsewhere, such as in France, the potato was gaining a reputation as the "bread of the poor", so by around the mid-nineteenth century cultivation started to take off, albeit it was to remain mostly for personal consumption rather than to be on a grand scale. The Archduke could see that there was development, but it wasn't until the British engineers got to work that there was the land for more intensive production.

Different varieties of potato were introduced but it was to be the Royal Kidney variety which was to truly turn Sa Pobla into the potato economy it became, and this didn't appear until 1924. By then, the town's potatoes were being exported to the UK, but with the Royal Kidney, production grew massively and so did the export trade. Sa Pobla was to become a part of British eating habits: the town was exporting a variety of new potato. As the town had also benefited from the introduction of rice in Albufera around the turn of the twentieth century, this once poor agricultural town ceased to be poor.

So, the potato fair - a celebration of the gastronomy, very much removed from the days when there was a reluctance to eat potatoes - symbolises Sa Pobla's potato agricultural tradition: a tradition which is more recent than one might have thought.

The Sofa Of All Elections

It was an image of the elections. Not all the pre-voting barbecues, not the landscape littered with posters for parties no one had ever heard of, not José Ramón and fellow PP sorts off for family days out on the "day of reflection", traipsing through the cultural heritage countryside of Mallorca, vice-president "Nipper" Gomez with a man-of-the-people rucksack strapped to his back. Not these. The image was the sofa, the inflatable one belonging to Madrid's mayoral aspirant Esperanza Aguirre. Esperanza - hope, expectation. She went in hope and expectation, blowing up her sofa with a foot pump in the neighbourhoods of the capital. She packed it into a Ryanair hold and transported it to Mallorca. Once more inflated, it was to come to the aid of José Ramón. It didn't. She came, she inflated, he lost. Deflated.

Esperanza will need to try harder. A whole inflatable three-piece with foot rests and coffee table might now be required. She is battling against a new-age Podemos-style sofa, an Ahora Madrid one, not decorated with motifs of Real or Atlético but discreet hammers and sickles (supposedly). You see, the elections may be over but the real election has since begun. The unseemly scramble for coalitions, for retention of or gaining of power - municipal and regional.

Why was Esperanza dragging an inflatable around with her? It was all an attempt to get up close to the people (though in typically Spanish style, the people are rarely referred to; they are the more impersonal "citizens"). Closeness, listening: these were keywords of the elections as much as "stability" was. But things can, if you are not careful, become unstable. If the sofa gets the puncture of electorate rejection, the air is evacuated. Buoyant politics in a PP manner become the sinking feeling of defeat.

The sofa was a late-in-the-day attempt to demonstrate closeness. For years, closeness was of no consequence. But then along came the new lot, with their mantras of participation, their Twitter accounts and online citizen (people) decision-making. Suddenly, the old lot were reminded that there were citizens (people). Blimey, maybe we ought to talk to them. Get up close and personal. Unfortunately, inflatable sofas have been proven not to be the answer, unless the question was -how does a politician make herself appear rather ridiculous? Answer: get an inflatable. What next? Accompanying bouncy castles to keep the kiddies happy while mum and dad are being listened to, close up on the sofa?

But in an act of probably sofa satire, the left have discovered furniture as well. Or they have in Sa Pobla at any rate. Més per Sa Pobla became Sofa per Sa Pobla for a brief time at the weekend. Not that this was an inflatable. Oh no, it was an altogether more rigid affair, an expression of permanence: their hope, their expectation. Where had the sofa come from? Newly acquired from Ikea or maybe hauled out of a nearby skip? Recycled. That will be it. Més are not eco-nationalists for nothing.

The sofa was introduced to the market square on Sunday. As it wasn't right in the market, it probably didn't contravene any licensing regulations regarding market stalls. Not that Més should worry, if they become part of the ruling administration. Everyone will be getting new sofas. The town hall will provide. Perhaps. The sofa's appearance was part of the Més post-election election campaign for government. Improbable though it had seemed, Més wants to ally with PSOE and the Independents and El Pi to form the administration. Anyone but the PP, basically, even if it means an unholy alliance of unlikely bed or rather sofa fellows.

Going to market would mean that the Més message would reach a wide audience - one that includes foreign residents who make habitual trips to the Sa Pobla Sunday market. Not that they matter; they don't vote in any event. No, this was a message for the "poblers". Or might the sofa have been mistaken for an item for sale? Might its occupants have been taken for traders? There, after all, was Antonio Simón Tomás, the Més mayoral candidate, holding up a notice which read 1,141. A bit overpriced, the market visitors would have thought. For a recycled sofa.

This was of course the number of votes that Més had received. "Thank you", the notice also read. 1,141 - 997 fewer than the PP, which received the most votes. 18.7% of the share of the vote - 16.4% lower than the PP's share. How strange it can seem that the system of proportional representation can discount the wishes of 35% of those who bothered to vote. But then, the PP's closeness had only been air - some of it hot. It had been temporary. The Més closeness was more substantial and it was placed in the corner of the people's market.

A Nice Day For A Picnic

A Mallorcan Easter, like a Mallorcan Christmas, is a lengthy affair. Holy Week is something of a misnomer. It is a Holy at least ten days or getting on for a fortnight. Its starting-point of white palm fronds in procession and being blessed on Palm Sunday is a fixed feast. It's the end-point which is the movable one. It all depends where you are, and even then it can seem to have come to an end, only for something else to crop up a few days later. Alcúdia is a good example.

Easter in Mallorca doesn't come to a sudden halt like a British bank holiday when the brakes are slammed on in order to avoid ploughing into the back of the massive tail back caused by the faithful departing the temples of out-of-town shopping centres. It carries on in gentle cruise control, the traffic that of pilgrims on foot or those less holy ones who prefer to carry their leftover empanadas in the boot of a car or even in a shuttle bus. Welcome to the Mallorcan post-Easter picnic.

Once upon a time, Holy Fortnight was indeed Holy Fortnight, and credit for this has to go to the Guardian Angel, in whose honour the citysfolk of Palma established an Easter of ever-longer extension by having a picnic two weeks after Palm Sunday. (In strictly numerical terms of days, this would really make it the Holy Fifteen Days.) By picnic, one doesn't mean it was an occasion for hauling large wicker hampers and cool boxes off to a shady spot in the countryside, it was a day when the poor were given bread that had been blessed. This custom changed markedly over the centuries, so much so that by the nineteenth century it was an excuse for yet another round of merry-making, but the name survived. The pancaritat.

At some point in time, most of the villages of Mallorca realised that what was good for Palma was good for them too. As best as I can make out, 43 pancaritat picnics take place, certain municipalities having more than one, e.g. Alcúdia. Given the Guardian Angel origins, there is a religious element, one that involves trooping off to the nearest hermitage and holding mass before organising the tables and chairs and whipping up some paella. And while 22 of the 43 have kept faith with the Day of the Angel, i.e. a week today, 21 have not. Monday or Tuesday are the preferred alternative days, unless you happen to live in Lloseta, where it is Wednesday.

In the northern area of Mallorca there are six pancaritats; seven if one includes Colonia Sant Pere. The six are in Campanet, Muro, Pollensa and Sa Pobla plus Alcúdia with its two, the first of which - at the hermitage of La Victoria - is on Tuesday, with the second at Sant Martí next Sunday. This is the cave of Sant Martí and not, you'll be relieved to learn, Red Electrica's much-hyped Sant Martí substation. The cave, with its icon of Christ, is within microphoned vocal range of Bellevue's Show Garden, though it is probably as well that the outer limits of Bellevue in closest proximity to the cave are uninhabited at this time of the year. Otherwise, curious bearers of wristbands might head off in hot pursuit of the pilgrims, the lager of plastic glasses slowly being warmed by the spring sunshine, and anticipate that the picnic forms part of the all-inclusive offer. 

The pancaritats of La Victoria and of the Puig Maria in Pollensa (Monday) are ones for the committed pilgrims, involving, as they do, hacking up the side of a mountain with the picnic goodies in tow. The others are mercifully far less strenuous, even if Campanet's requires the climbing of the soapy pine tree. Not that everyone is obliged to climb the pine. I mean, the Bishop of Mallorca is turning up for mass, and I fancy his devotion doesn't extend to such frivolity.

Of the different picnics in the north, those of Campanet, Muro and Sa Pobla are the grandest; they are like mini-fiestas. In Muro, it all kicks of with rockets being let off in the town at 10am on Monday, the signal for the picnic-goers to gather items from the fridge and larder and trek to the hermitage of Sant Vicenç Ferrer. The hermitage, being as hermitages generally are, is not the location for events later in the day. The clubs of Muro go into overdrive from four in the afternoon, offering an alternative type of dance to the ball de bot folk dance at the hermitage and so an alternative pilgrimage: to offer thanks for the DJ deck and USB stick.

But Sa Pobla's is probably the best-known of all the picnics. It is the one that takes place at Crestatx every Tuesday after Easter, when seemingly the whole of the town takes itself off to the hermitage, some say oratory, of Crestatx with the image of Santa Margalida, one of Sa Pobla's patron saints: indeed, the original patron, as Santa Margalida was associated with the tiny populace of Crestatx before it was relocated in 1300 to the new town of what was to become known simply as Sa Pobla.

A big thing of the Crestatx day out is the wearing, by men, of the barretina hat which, though it is not unique to Catalan culture, is most closely identified with it. The red hat was commonly worn in rural areas, such as Sa Pobla, until the nineteenth century. It is now more symbolic than fashionable, and the Crestatx picnic is when it gets taken out of the wardrobe and dusted down for the day. A further important element is the t-shirt. The town hall organises an annual Crestatx t-shirt competition (first prize one hundred and twenty euros), so far from it being a case of been there, got the t-shirt, it is one of going there each year with a different t-shirt in the hope of securing the prize.

A common element of all these picnics is the hermitage. The history of the various ones in the north is something I shall delve into on another occasion. But for now, I shall just mention that the oldest of them, by some considerable distance, is Alcúdia's Sant Martí. This cave-shrine was a catacomb for early Christians during the time of the Roman occupation. Strange that, of all the hermitages therefore, its neighbours should be Bellevue and an industrial estate with a new substation named after it.

The Proclaimer Of Sant Antoni

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What's On Around Alcúdia and Pollensa - Sant Antoni Fiestas

Are they the best fiestas of the whole year? Some would say they are. They are in midwinter, they are not for tourists (there aren't many at this time of the year), they are very much an expression of centuries-old Mallorcan tradition, which goes back to the fourteenth century and the origins of the fiestas in Sa Pobla, the town which stages the most extravagant and maddest of the nights of fire, witches and demons (Sant Antoni Eve, 16 January).

Sa Pobla's celebrations are the really crazy ones, but they are crazy elsewhere too - Alcúdia, Muro, Pollensa, Puerto Pollensa. And in Pollensa (and Puerto Pollensa), on the day of Sant Antoni itself, there is the rather mad climbing of the pine tree, an event unique to the town and one with no clearly defined origin.

Here are programmes in English for Sa Pobla and Pollensa; others will be added when they become available, but Sa Pobla's fiestas are already underway and on Saturday night (10 January) the town has a demons' fire-run, as also does Pollensa.

http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/2015/01/sa-pobla-sant-antoni-2015.html

http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/2015/01/pollensa-sant-antoni-2015.html

http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/2015/01/muro-sant-antoni-2015.html

http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/2015/01/alcudia-sant-antoni-sant-sebastia-2015.html

The Revival Of The Xeremía

Maybe it's the name. It can be confused with "poble". The village. The people. It doesn't mean that, and indeed there isn't a truly satisfactory translation. Sa Pobla: the colony, the settlement, the inhabitation, the populace. Perhaps the last of these is the most satisfactory, a derivation from the passive verb - to people - while there is the assertiveness of the Mallorquín definite article, "sa", a powerful linguistic symbol of distinction with Catalan that is rooted in ancient Latin. Maybe it is because of the name that Sa Pobla became the spiritual heartland of a cultural hybridism that followed the conquest of centuries ago and which nowadays might be termed Mallorcaness, a place on which was conferred the Catalan-Aragonese cult of Sant Antoni and which has thus become the location for the annual gathering of the tribes of Mallorca for the fearful night of witches, demons and fire.

In some ways it is an unlovely town. Anonymous ring-road and low-rise factory and showroom units are the external non-descript artifacts typical of many Majorcan towns. The interior is a confusion of equally anonymous roads and streets criss-crossing in a Romanesque grid formation. Yet within this town beat the hearts of Mallorcaness, of tradition and of revivalism.

As with so much of the island's tradition and culture, the intervention of war and political dogma and then the industrial revolution of tourism, allied to the migration to the coasts and to employment in the new industry, undermined the long history of the xeremía, the Mallorcan bagpipe. Among traditional instruments, it wasn't alone in falling into disuse and silence. Its fellow x-instrument, the ximbomba, underwent a similar decline. This, the xeremía, is a bellow from the past that fades way back into the antiquities of Mesopotamia and Egypt, of pre-Middle Ages France and of the conquering King of Aragon. Jaume I and his successors brought more than just language and the cult of Sant Antoni, they also brought a bagpipe, and it moulded its sack into the Mallorcan xeremía, the word itself having been handed down from the French, "charamie".

It was, perhaps inevitably, Sa Pobla which led the revival of the xeremía, and to the fore was the cultural association known as Albopas. Where does it get its name from? Think about it for a moment, or if not ... Sapobla backwards; going backwards in time in revivalist terms. The association covers much of the traditional life of Sa Pobla; demons and what have you are all Albopas. It was not so very long in the past - twenty or so years ago - that the number of bagpipe players, the "xeremiers", numbered only around fifty in all across Mallorca. The number is now over 500. And whereas xeremier troupes were not so long ago confined to a limited number of towns and villages, now every village has its xeremiers.

The Albopas association is this weekend celebrating the twentieth meeting of xeremiers in Sa Pobla, an occasion which has, since the mid-1990s, contributed greatly to the revival of the local bagpipe and its accompanying flute-whistle and drum. The meeting has also been central to broadening the appeal of the xeremía to a more youthful age group. Twenty or so years ago, those few recognised xeremiers were getting on, thus endangering the tradition's future even more.

The success of the revival, demonstrated by the formation of xeremier troupes across the island, has also been recognised internationally. Seven years ago, Albopas went to New York for the World Fair of Mediterranean Music. Demons, xeremiers, they all flew off, and the pipers played Central Park along with other troupes from Palma, Sencelles and Sineu.

At midday today there is a procession in which different elements of the Albopas association will take part. In addition to the pipers, there will be the "caparrot" big heads as well as the Sa Pobla "Grif", dragon and, somewhat strangely perhaps, eel (though this is not strange as far as Sa Pobla is concerned; eels, farmed in Albufera, form a key part of the local cuisine).

It is odd to realise that many Mallorcan folk traditions which are nowadays firmly established and all but taken for granted are the result of revivals which have their origins only some thirty or so years ago. And they are with us thanks largely to the efforts of local cultural associations like Albopas, which have ensured that rather than die out and allow centuries of culture to be discarded, they are alive and, in the case of the bagpipes, making one hell of a welcome racket.

A Tree For Mister Waring

Mallorca loves its anniversaries of births and deaths. The island can celebrate these anniversaries in grand or at least grandish fashion, as with Father Junipero Serra last year (there were many who reckoned that not nearly enough was actually made of the old boy's 300th birthday) and as it will doubtless do when it comes to the 700th anniversary of the death of Ramon Llull next year (albeit this anniversary will straddle two years as there is some legitimate debate as to when he did die). Most of these anniversaries commemorate, as you might expect, Mallorcans, but the island's history is also littered with prominent non-Mallorcans whose anniversaries are acknowledged or all but ignored. And one who has fallen into this latter category is Henry Robert Waring, a British engineer who can claim to have actually had his body littered on the island; he was buried in Palma.

Waring died a hundred years ago earlier this month: 5 October to be precise. A researcher from Sa Pobla, Pere Perelló Payeras, has noted that there is little which honours Waring's memory, and yet he played a significant role in Mallorcan economic life from 1863 until his death in 1914. Waring was one of the engineers who was involved in the draining of Albufera. Typically when this project is referred to, it is John Frederick Bateman who is cited as having been the most important of the British engineers, but there were others - Waring, William Hope and William Green, who is remembered in Sa Pobla because of the road and restaurant named after him - Mister Green; there is also a Bateman street and an Enginyer Waring street in the town.

Bateman and Hope founded the New Majorca Land Company in 1863, having obtained the concession for the drainage of Albufera. But though Bateman was, if you like, the chief engineer, he wasn't always around to check on the work owing to the fact that he had other projects on the go elsewhere. The project was in fact placed in the hands of Green and Waring; they were the principal engineers on the ground.

Of Waring's background it is difficult to be certain. There was a Henry Waring who was one of three brothers who formed Waring Brothers, which was to become one of the most important railway-building companies in Britain and in parts of the globe. As this company was based in York and as Bateman was originally from Halifax, it is possible that he was the same Waring. But whatever the background, it would seem that Henry became something of an honorary Mallorcan and that he chose to live permanently on the island, unlike Bateman.

In 1876 the New Majorca Land Company, having been granted permission to establish a farming colony, founded the Gatamoix settlement, which was hidden away under the Sant Martí mountain in Alcúdia, was populated primarily by poor workers from Pollensa and was to provide labour for both drainage work and cultivation of what was reclaimed land. Bateman is normally attributed with the founding of the colony, but in fact it was Waring who was in charge and who was the one who formally founded the colony on behalf of the company.

His relationship with the company clearly took a turn for the worse. Bateman had become the sole owner and he introduced his son Lee to the company. History has not been kind to Lee. He can be described as a hopeless romantic, a narcissist and as someone who went native. He changed his name to Luis and converted to Catholicism, his father and Mister Green having been the ones who had introduced Anglican Protestantism to Mallorca. Lee was also a pretty useless businessman, though to be fair the New Majorca Land Company had been experiencing financial problems for some time before he appeared on the scene. And it was this appearance that led to Waring leaving the company around 1886 and cutting all ties with it.

What he did next was to buy the "possessió" (estate if you like) of Peguera and to move to Palma from Sa Pobla, where he had owned a house. He underwent a career change and got involved with the export of capers and carobs and he was to buy further estates - Xorrigo and Moranta on the northeastern outskirts of Palma.  

So, Waring was as intimately involved with the Albufera project and with the Gatamoix colony as Bateman; more so in some respects. He was also more intimately involved with Mallorca, and it is for these reasons that Pere Perelló Payeras believes that he deserves some greater recognition than he has had, even if he has only a simple tribute in mind, the planting of a tree in Albufera in memory of a time in Mallorca's history and Waring's contribution to it.

Photo: Waring's grave in the cemetery in Palma - from http://sapoblaradio.com

Built For Tourism: Mallorca's roads

They like their anniversaries in Sa Pobla, even if the anniversary isn't what typically might be thought to have special significance. One hundred years of electricity in 2012 were significant, 135 years of the train in 2013 were less so, as also are 90 years of the first bus this year. But, significant or not, centenary or not, they're all an excuse to look back to times when infrastructure was shaky and partial.

The first bus rolled into Sa Pobla from Palma ninety years ago. It was a further step, one separated by 46 years, in connecting the town and capital, the north and the south. The arrival of the bus was a welcome addition to a public passenger transport system that otherwise relied on the train. Yet, for all that 1924 marked an important development in public transport and 2014 marks ninety years of the Sa Pobla service, buses don't carry the same weight of history as the stories of Mallorca's trains, trams and indeed ships. Buses are less romantic. They are the neglected part of the island's transport history.

There was, however, an "omnibus" service in late nineteenth-century Palma some years before motor buses, those powered by an internal combustion engine, might have been available. The omnibus was a mule-drawn tram, and the service connected city with port. It wasn't until 1958 that Palma actually got a bus service; this was the year when trams were withdrawn.

But to go back further - to the 1830s - it was then that Mallorca began to have anything like regular road-based public transport; the first stagecoach service between Palma and Inca was established in 1837. In order to get anywhere by stagecoach, though, there had to be roads, and in the first half of the nineteenth century, those visitors which Mallorca used to get then were particularly critical of its transport network; roads were poor, very poor or non-existent. New roads did start to appear from 1845, but the road system was never more than rudimentary. It was the realisation at the turn of the twentieth century that tourism offered Mallorca an economic future which helped to bring about some improvement, the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board), founded in 1905, being instrumental in persuading whoever it could of the need for such improvement.

It was, in no small part, the "excursion" which was the impulse behind the development of new or better roads. The tourist board invested in this infrastructure, as did town halls and private individuals, and they all augmented funds made available by the provincial administration. As an example, the road between Andratx and Estellencs was built with the help of one thousand pesetas from the tourist board and 1350 pesetas from the town halls of Andratx, Estellencs, Esporles and Banyalbufar.

Getting public money for infrastructure projects was far from straightforward. The state generally didn't pay for railways, other than through discretional grants, such as one which helped with the construction of the otherwise privately-funded Sóller train. The state did pay for roads, but getting authorisation could be a tortuous process and was not made any easier by constant political upheaval. One such upheaval led to the first dictatorship, that of Primo de Rivera, but this government proved to be heavy investors in infrastructure. In the year that the Sa Pobla bus service started, the government, noting the representations made to it by the tourist board, gave the go-ahead for a number of road-building projects on Mallorca. They were all projects with tourism in mind and so with tourist excursions in mind. Public transport was secondary. Or at least this is the impression one has.

There doubtless is information about early bus services out there, but if so it's not immediately apparent. What is clear is that by the 1930s bus services and road transport in general were genuine rivals to rail services. But where the bus services went and when they commenced operations is hard to say. 1924, therefore, may have been more significant than simply being ninety years ago. The service to Sa Pobla may well have been, at that time, the furthest by distance.

The projects that Primo de Rivera's government authorised certainly gave Mallorca a more coherent road network than had been the case. One road was that between Fornalutx and Lluc, which was the final part of the mountain road that started in Andratx and ended in Alcúdia. The road from Palma to Manacor and then to Portocristo received special funding for being a "national tourism circuit". And by the end of the 1920s, with the road system in some sort of usable state, the tourist board offered financial support to operators so that they could acquire large-capacity buses. The day of the "excursionista" had truly arrived. On roads built, not for public transport, but for tourists.

Fun And Games In Mallorca

In Sa Pobla, the Museum of Old Toys, which shares the Can Planes building with the Museum of Contemporary Art, houses more than 3,000 toys and objects which make it one of the most complete museums in Europe dedicated to toys. It comprises pieces which were mostly handmade between the years 1880 and 1965. The collection was given to the town by Tom Boig Clar in 1998 on the understanding that the town hall would pay 14,000 euros per annum. This has had to be modified. Economic crisis affected the toy museum market as much as any other, and economic crisis hit Sa Pobla harder than most town halls in Mallorca. The museum was closed for a time but now it seems to be operating as normal. Or at least I think it is.

The collection helps to explain why Sa Pobla, with no particular connection to toys, came to have the museum. It still seems a bit odd that it would have such a museum, but there being no obvious rhyme nor reason for something doesn't prevent towns or villages inventing some form of connection. And Biniali is another example.

Biniali is one of those tiny villages stuck in the middle of Mallorca which would normally attract very little attention to itself. I know it only because I used to have friends who lived there. I doubt that I would know it otherwise and to be honest there isn't an awful lot to know. Which explains why Biniali wanted to put itself more on the map and get to be better known.

The seventh Traditional Games Fair is being held in Biniali this weekend. These traditional games are, rather like Sa Pobla's toy museum, a reminder of childhoods past. Unlike Sa Pobla, where the toys come from different places, the games are traditionally Mallorcan, yet one of the main attractions is a game which involves a toy which isn't unique to Mallorca. It is the "baldufa", the spinning top, the local variety being only small and being so linked to Catalan culture that there is an association of friends of the baldufa based in Barcelona.

There are various traditional games in Catalan culture which are of a more sporting nature. One of them is "el mocador". Meaning scarf or handkerchief, it involves two teams of ten players scrapping over the scarf and getting players eliminated until one team no longer has anyone available, thus making the other team the winner. And there is also sport which is very much part of Mallorcan and Balearics culture. So much a part is it that, quite probably, its origins led the Balearics to be called the Balearics.

Though there is some argument as to the name, the Balearics is thought to come from the Greek to describe the skill of the local people with a sling. The "foner balear", Balearics slinger, was that adept that the Carthaginians and the Romans brought foner mercenary troops on board to help in battles. The "fona" is the sling itself, and in Biniali, starting at 11.30 this morning, there is a "tir de fona" championship. A sling shot tournament.

With the advent of firearms, the foner became largely redundant for military purposes, but the fona was still used for hunting. Nowadays, it is really only a sport, and a popular one at that. The first Balearics championship was held in Lluc in 1997, inspiring other towns to stage tournaments. There is now a Balearics federation for "tir de fona" and there are set rules for the playing of its two versions, one of these being to see who can hurl a stone (it's normally a stone, though it can also be a tennis ball) the furthest and the other being a target contest. And of the targets, there are five separate competitions, depending on distances which range from 15 steps to 90 steps (a step equating to 65 centimetres).

The sport is more than just something that gets played at local fairs. There is a Balearics league, and you might well find some "tir de fona" highlights on the local television for what, in 2013, was won by Menorca. It has been transformed into a modern sport, but its roots are truly ancient. If you want to see the skills of the foner, then Biniali is the place to see them today.

The Giants Of Mallorca

Anniversaries are occasions to be celebrated by some advance sprucing-up, some improvements, some restoration. Everything has to be right on the night or the day, including ensuring that a piece of ear that has gone missing is returned to where it should be, next to the face.

On 20 July this year, Sa Pobla will, as is customary, be honouring the feast day of its patron, Santa Margalida. One of the main attractions on the day will be Margalida. Not the saint Margalida, but the giant Margalida. She is one of a male and female gigantic couple. She takes her name, unsurprisingly, from the saint. Her partner, Toni, is named after Sant Antoni, ancient Egyptian monk, hallucinator of devils and inspiration behind the January night of fire.

The Sa Pobla giants first appeared in 1984 at the Santa Margalida fiestas. Thirty years on, they are being given a touch-up, a clean-up and a replacement. The piece of Margalida's missing ear will no longer be missing. Toni and Margalida will be able to perform their "dance", safe in the knowledge that they are once more fully intact, have been lovingly re-glossed with paint and have had bumps and scratches, accumulated over three decades, de-bumped and de-scratched. Local artist Andreu Company will have seen to it that they have been restored to their original painted papier-maché and wooden glory.

The origins of Toni and Margalida were not in Sa Pobla. They weren't made there and nor were giants invented there. They were assembled at a workshop for fiestas in Zaragoza (yes, there really is a workshop for fiestas) and shipped across to Mallorca, a pair of giants to tread a similar path and dance a similar dance to that which giants had performed well before them. The first Mallorcan giant was that of Sóller way back in 1630.

But Sóller cannot claim to have been where giants first turned up at fiesta time. Over two hundred years before, in 1424, Barcelona had arranged for a giant to appear at the celebration of Corpus Christi. Or rather, the church had arranged the giant's participation. It was all a way of providing some additional entertainment and so attracting greater numbers of the faithful. The tradition of the giant was, therefore, linked to Corpus Christi, but the giant wasn't the only entertainment. Other objects appeared as well, one of them having been the eagles of Pollensa. No one is quite sure when that tradition started. It is said to date from mediaeval times, in which case it was centuries before Pollensa first acquired a giant - at the end of the eighteenth century.

Sóller's 1630 Corpus Christi celebration was not confined to the adoption of a giant. The town also introduced "capgrossos" (aka "caparrots" aka big heads). Once Sóller had got in on the giant act, momentum was such that it took a further 23 years before Sineu got one. But, by 1734, Palma could boast four pairs of giants, and in 1763, Sant Llorenç took the revolutionary step of giving a giant a name - Puput (after the bird presumably).

Giants come in different styles. There are five main groups of Mallorcan giant. Perhaps the most traditional is the farmer's husband and wife, and it was Inca which first had a peasant pair - Abdó and María. (Abdó or Abdón is one of the town's patron saints.) Sa Pobla's Toni and Margalida are part of this farming wing of giant traditionalism. Of other groups, there are giants who have been inspired by legend and tales and those who reflect local trades or crafts. Capdepera has a fisherman and a "llatadora", a female worker of palm fronds to make wicker products. A further group is made up of historical figures, such as Calvia's King Jaume I and his wife, Violant d'Hongria (Hungary). The fifth group is a sort of miscellany, examples of which are Manacor's Vicenç, who is a Moorish soldier (he has a farmer's wife as a companion or perhaps she is his wife), and Muro's two pipers, Toni and Joan.

The giants are gigantic enough to stand, in the cases of Sa Pobla's Toni and Margalida, 3.9 metres tall, which is, for those still not entirely up to speed with metric measurements, 12 feet, nine and a half inches. They are, therefore, slightly less tall than if two Steven Finn cricketers were to be joined together. Their measurements appear, as do those of other giants, in their "ficha técnica". They both weigh 50 to 52 kilograms, which seems rather imprecise. Or do they put on weight occasionally?

Still, it is just as well that they don't weigh an awful lot as they do have to get moved around a fair bit, which probably explains why a bit of ear can go missing. They travel over land and sea as well across Mallorca to gather and dance together. The wonderfully weird giants of Mallorca.

* Photo of Margalida and Toni is from http://ladarrerahorageganterademallorca.blogspot.com.es