The Almonds Of Son Servera

Between 1846 and 1850, Pascual Madoz compiled the extraordinary "Geographical-Statistical-Historical Dictionary of Spain and its Foreign Possessions". This dictionary (or rather, encyclopaedia) stretched to numerous volumes, and in one of them there was an entry for Son Servera. Madoz noted that it would take twelve hours to get to Son Servera from Palma, that it had a population of 399, that its roads were in poor condition and that its production included wheat, barley, legumes, olives, carobs, wine and almonds.

At the time that Madoz was putting together his encyclopaedia, almonds were acquiring a status in agricultural production that they hadn't previously enjoyed. They had, so it is generally understood, been introduced to Mallorca by the Arabs, but their cultivation had never been vast, until the reorganisation of farm land in the first half of the nineteenth century paved the way for greater exploitation of crops rather than the staples such as cereals and grapes. They were to get a further boost when the vines were devastated by phylloxera in the early 1890s and alternatives were therefore sought.

As far as Son Servera is concerned, almond production is hardly unique to it. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that towns such as Bunyola and Santa Maria are more associated with almonds. But almonds there most certainly are on the eastern part of the island, and at this time of the year the trees are in or coming into blossom and are thus contributing to one of Mallorca's most familiar and prettiest sights.

Son Servera has the almond in common with much of the island, but this hasn't stopped the town staging an almond fair. This in itself is also not unique; Santa Margalida has one as well, but in September at almond harvesting time. Tomorrow, therefore, the town is staging its sixth fair dedicated specifically to the flower of the almond, "flor d'ametler", i.e. the blossom. This is the name of the fair but almonds and almond products of different sorts also feature at the fair. The fair's name is the same as one of Mallorca's better-known products, the Flor d'Ametler perfume, made from almond blossom, that has a history going back to the 1930s and which is still produced along with other products by the family business, Rover S.L. in Marratxi.

The fair, as with several others on the island, was created as a means, it was hoped, of tackling the effects of tourism seasonality. Whether it has succeeded in doing so is doubtful, but Cala Millor, part of which is in Son Servera, lends its name to the fair along with the town hall. As a celebration of the Mallorcan landscape at this time of the year, its success would be deserved, but we are all too well aware of the issues that conspire to limit its potential success.

The story of the fair and of the almond is in fact a story within another story, and one that is of some significance to Son Servera, as it involves how the town came to acquire this name. The fair is held at the estate of Ca s'Hereu, which is now a finca for agrotourism that offers seven bedrooms, but which has a history that stretches back to the thirteenth century and to the aftermath of the conquest by King Jaume I.

One of those who came on the conquest was a Jaume Cervera, and his family became one of two landowners of what, at the time of the conquest, was known as Binicanella but which, through marriages, evolved into two estates divided up between two brothers who, by the mid-fifteenth century, had the surname Servera. One of the estates was Son Frai Gari, the other was Ca s' Hereu, where the original tower had been built at the instruction of Jaume Cervera.  

The estate of Ca s'Hereu was, until the 1970s, a working farm that employed around a hundred people and where livestock were raised and various crops were grown. One of them was of course the almond, and given the historical importance of both the estate and the almond to the town, where better to hold the fair than on what had been a farm that had gone a long way to making the almond a crop significant enough for Pascual Madoz to have highlighted it.

So, in 2010 the Son Servera tourism councillor in collaboration with the regional government's ministries for tourism and agriculture organised the first fair, and among the various dignitaries who were on hand to celebrate the occasion was the then mayor, Antoni Servera, and he was following a further tradition. Servera is, for obvious reasons, a very common surname in the town, and its first mayor, in 1837, was also a Servera.


Index for January 2015

Balearics' politicians and New Year messages - 3 January 2015
Cala d'Or improvements and positioning - 19 January 2015
Canaries' own airline - 23 January 2015
Dog poisoning Puerto Pollensa - 24 January 2015
Education struggle in Balearics - 26 January 2015
Election year in Spain - 6 January 2015
Exceltur on tourism spend - 22 January 2015
Holiday lets regulation in Balearics - 11 January 2015
Intellectual property - 21 January 2015
Javier Pierotti - 4 January 2015
Luis Bárcenas released - 25 January 2015
Mallorca's airport - 9 January 2015
Most popular stories of 2014 - 1 January 2015
Noise and tourism - 7 January 2015
Opening hours and zones of large tourist influx - 20 January 2015
Palma airport fees and AENA privatisation - 16 January 2015
Palma police corruption allegations - 17 January 2015
Podemos and Syriza - 27 January 2015
Political parties' illegal funding - 13 January 2015
Sant Antoni clamater - 10 January 2015
Sant Canut - 18 January 2015
Sineu King Jaume II statue - 29 January 2015
Son Servera almond blossom fair - 31 January 2015
Spanish Cabinet and perceptions in the Balearics - 14 January 2015
Syriza: all-inclusives - 28 January 2015
Technological developments and Mallorca's tourism - 8 January 2015
Tourism growth and electioneering - 30 January 2015
Tourism promotion and strategy - 15 January 2015
Uber in Spain - 5 January 2015
Week of the bearded ones - 12 January 2015
Year of the Archduke Louis Salvador - 2 January 2015

Digging Up The Past: Civil War

They started digging for bodies on Monday. In an old part of the municipal cemetery in Sant Joan, an area of grey earth with a couple of palms and some shrubbery, partially enclosed by a low cloister with chipped pillars, they began the careful process of exhumation. DNA samples will be taken. They will confirm the discovery of the bodies of Miquel Salom, Joan Gual and Jaume Gual, three middle-aged farmers.

Puntiró in Palma has a golf course. It was designed by Jack Nicklaus. It lies next to the old road to Sineu. If you carry on from Sineu, the next town you come to is Maria de la Salut. In October 1936, the three farmers and three others walked from Maria to Palma. They didn't make it to their destination. They were shot in Puntiró. Victims of the Falange, they were Republicans who had been turned in by neighbours. Their bodies were buried in the cemetery in Sant Joan.

The three others who had been made to walk to Palma that night in October managed to escape. One of them was to later testify that it was a Llorenç "Llebro" who shot the three men. One victim had shouted out, "do not kill me". The bodies were left in a well in Son Fred in Sencelles. They were found and taken to Sant Joan, where the local justice of the peace registered them as "unknown". They were placed in what was a communal grave in Sant Joan, the one which now has an unremarkable collection of plants growing on it. Some weeks later, on 28 December, relatives of the dead men claimed their identification but the bodies were not disinterred in order that confirmation could be made. Seventy-eight years later, following pressure from the association Memòria de Mallorca, the digging began on Monday. It is the first exhumation of its kind in Mallorca.

Six years ago, Judge Baltasar Garzón ordered the exhumation of mass graves. He was searching for evidence of slaughter by Franco's Nationalists. Three of these graves were in Mallorca - one in Calvia and two in Porreres. For his trouble, Garzón ended up being disqualified as a judge. He had exceeded his powers and had broken the principle of the amnesty, the legal forgetfulness that prevents Spain from truly coming to terms with the truth of its past. Work on exhumation started but was then paralysed by court order. It still is paralysed. Despite this legal obstacle, the Sant Joan grave, because of the association's insistence, the wishes of the families and the support of the town hall, is being exhumed.

There are reckoned to be 44 mass graves in Mallorca which contain perhaps as many as 2,000 bodies. 24 of them are in cemeteries, such as those of Calvia, Porreres and Sant Joan. Twelve others are in ditches by the sides of main roads. Four are in wells. And four more are under beaches, one of them being in Sa Coma, near to one of the two landing places used by Captain Bayo for his ultimately doomed expedition to wrest Mallorca from the Nationalists.

Sa Coma is in the municipality of Sant Llorenç. Just a bit north of Sa Coma is the resort of Cala Millor, part of which is in Sant Llorenç as well but with the other part in Son Servera. In Son Servera, at the last elections before the coup of July 1936, a Republican Left candidate had been voted in. It is thought that this was the reason why cruelty which occurred in Son Servera was as it was to later be. It is also said that in municipalities on Mallorca's Llevant coast there had been traditions of leftism and Republicanism, a product of discontent with landowners and the "cacique" political bosses that had been evident for many years.

The story of what happened in Son Servera in the lead-up to the coup and between it and the Bayo landings and the consequences of those landings has been detailed by the Memòria de Mallorca association. In one particularly chilling passage, it speaks of the events of the night of 16 August when the Nationalist colonel Unamuno said that he wanted the "jails emptied". These were the jails of Manacor to which Republicans had been taken. Two hundred were shot that night. "In the morning heat, there was an unbearable smell of burnt human flesh." The bodies are supposedly in the Manacor cemetery of Son Coletes.

The number of men from Son Servera who were shot during the Civil War was 52. Others lost their lives in different ways, while many more were placed in concentration camps. The occupations of the 52 have been noted. A doctor, a teacher, a shoemaker, a carpenter. But most were simple farmers. Just like the three men from Maria de la Salut whose bodies are being exhumed in Sant Joan.

In Memory Of The Son Servera Plague

Each year, to coincide with the feast of Sant Ignasi (of Antioch), the town hall in Son Servera makes an award of 1,000 euros. It is named the Premi Metge Joan Lliteras, after a doctor who was active some 200 years ago. In 2006 the prize was given to Dr. Alfonso Ballesteros, the president of the Royal Academy of Medicine in the Balearic Islands. Dr. Ballesteros, in turn, gave the mayor of Son Servera a facsimile of a document held by the academy. It was the copy of a document from what is an archive which contains all the documentation related to the last great outbreak of the plague in Europe and in Mallorca.

In the document in question, dated 4 August 1820, Dr. Lliteras, who had the unenviable task of trying to treat the plague and stop its spreading, noted the number of people who had not by then been affected by the plague. 1,040 out of a total population of 1,808 inhabitants of the village eventually fell victim. In neighbouring Artà 1,267 people died, while Capdepera got off more lightly; there were a mere 112 deaths.

The reason for making the award on Sant Ignasi's day is that it was 1 February (the feast) in 1821 when a military cordon that had been put in place around Son Servera in June was finally lifted. The cordon did help to limit the spread of the disease. By the time that Dr. Lliteras wrote out his inventory of the still healthy (and alive) the worst of the plague was over, though it was still to be six months before the all-clear could be given and the cordon lifted.

The history of Mallorca's plagues is replete with stories and tall tales as to how the plagues took hold and how they were remedied. The most outlandish is the Sant Sebastià bone remedy that brought an end to the great plague of Palma in 1523. Less outlandish, probably because it was true, was the story of another Sebastià, the abbott of the hermitage in Betlem, who, on learning that the people of Artà were struck down by the 1820 plague, headed off to Artà in order to help (quite how he planned on helping isn't entirely clear), but succeeded only in being affected by the plague himself, returning to the hermitage, dying and managing to spread it a tad more in the process.

As far as the cause of the outbreak of the 1820 plague is concerned, there are two versions of events. One has it that the body of a plague victim on a boat from Tangiers was buried on the Port Vell beach in Son Servera and that a cloak belonging to the victim was picked up by a passing shepherd who became the first carrier of the disease. This is the legend version. The more scientific one, on account of scientists at the time having said so, was that there had been a small rodent among bags of grain that had been on board a vessel of the type which occasionally anchored in the bay off Son Servera and that it had been this rodent which had started the plague off. The legend version is, though, a rather more dramatic version, and helps to explain why there is a sculpture of a shepherd in the town's Plaça Abeurador, one that was done by one-time mayor, Eduardo Servera (appropriately enough).

By the time of the last plague in 1820, medical science hadn't advanced enormously. Dr. Lliteras, and it is remarkable that he seemingly survived, had potions and lotions involving quinine and vinegar to dispense. When these failed, and they probably did, the dead were buried in quicklime and their bodies were cremated. But measures to prevent the spread of disease were taken seriously across Spain. There was, for example, an order of 16 June 1820 by the authorities in Extremadura, about as far from Mallorca as it is possible to get in Spain, which dealt with the scare.

Though the plague did not return to Mallorca or Spain, there were other health scares. Yellow fever affected Mallorca in 1821 and again in 1870. But one of the the biggest health problems became cholera; there were three epidemics between 1832 and 1865. It was poor sanitary conditions in general, along with regular wars, which contributed to the fact that in Mallorca, in keeping with the rest of Spain, life expectancy, even as late as 1887, was only 29. It was vastly lower than mostly anywhere else in Europe.

How times do of course change. Though Chopin had in the first half of the nineteenth century come to Mallorca in the misguided belief that this would help his tuberculosis, the island wouldn't have typically been high on the list of destinations for the health tourist. Now, though, health tourism is looked upon as a growth sector by the regional government.

She's Just A Devil Woman: Demons' traditions

There isn't, or doesn't appear to be, much good rhyme or reason as to why certain towns in Mallorca - apart, quite obviously from Sa Pobla - go big on the Sant Antoni fiesta and others don't. One town which does is Son Servera, the municipality to which Cala Millor (part of it) belongs, and so seriously does Son Servera take Sant Antoni that it has an "obreria" devoted to the fiesta; an obreria, in this instance, being an association which is a sort of guardian of tradition. And very traditional it is in Son Servera. Its obreria was founded in 1775, principally to oversee the maintenance of the chapel of Sant Antoni Abad, which had been ceded to Son Servera in 1698 by the parish of Artà. There's your rhyme and reason then.

Other towns have their Sant Antoni obrerias as well - Sa Pobla, for instance - and the different obrerias of the Llevant and Pla (plain) regions of Mallorca have an annual get-together to discuss matters of a Sant Antoni style. They all gathered in Son Servera's Bar Nou last November for their Antoni-in. Sa Pobla's obreria, one of those at the meeting, gives a flavour of what it does on Sa Pobla town hall's website. The most recent development in its own long history was in 2006 when it was agreed by the town's council that the demons' gang (the "colla") would be dependent upon the obreria for present and future "management". In other words, it is the obreria which has the say as to what is traditionally correct when it comes to demon activity during Sant Antoni, because it, the obreria, is the master of the whole Sant Antoni tradition.

A similar arrangement exists in Son Servera. However, not all is well on account of a controversy which is said to have divided the town. It centres on interpretations of tradition, the two sides in this argument being represented by the town's principal demon of many years standing and the obreria, which was given something of an overhaul last year when new blood was brought in to its membership. Guidelines by the new, improved obreria have sought to get back to traditions which the demon, Joan Llull, appears, over the years, to have broken with. There may not be that many local people truly that bothered, but there are sufficient for some to have taken to daubing graffiti, expressing both sides of the argument, and to engaging in rants on social media.

Clearly, when it comes to tradition, someone has to have the final say as to what actually constitutes tradition and what doesn't. Though the rumpus in Son Servera all sounds a bit silly, it probably isn't. If traditions can't be argued over, then what can be? Mallorca lives by its traditions, and in its small towns they are matters of importance, to the point at which people get worked up into a rare old lather, grab a can of spray paint and find the nearest wall.

The world of demons is not always an harmonious one, but as they are demons, who, tradition itself suggests, aren't always trustworthy and are prone to acts that are less than goodly or even Godly, then total harmony would be surprising. There again, we are talking earthly, dressed-up demons here. But, human nature being as it is, even the earthly demon can feel compelled to strike disharmony.

A few years ago, 2010 to be precise, there was a different fallout and one which had a potentially far more wide-reaching impact on the demons' world. A rival demons' organisation had reared its ugly head, following an outbreak of internecine strife at the Balearics Federation of Demons. There had been an emergency general meeting of the federation in May, and by October, the rival organisation was behind a night of fire in Pollensa that featured various demons' gangs. It was all a little like the world of professional darts, which suddenly found it had two controlling bodies and two separate world championships. Quite whatever happened after this I can't honestly say, but if one takes a look at the federation's blog website, its register of demons' gangs numbers only 26. I fancy that there are others.

A federation of demons might in itself seem odd, but there is, in addition to tradition, a fair bit to being a demon. Not everyone can do the stalky-walky thing they do without having been instructed as to the correct way to stalk. Not everyone can whirl a trident with flames spitting out of it. And the flames are a pretty important aspect of being a demon which needs control. Hence, it is a requirement for all demons, including mini-demons (from age eight), to have a certificate for being an expert in pyrotechnics.

Modernity requires, therefore, that tradition is certificated, but whether it is tradition tampered with by bureaucracy or by disagreements, there is one demon tradition which prevails. One day, concedes the Grand Demon of Manacor, his role could be taken by a woman. Whatever next? "She's just a devil woman ..."

The Famous Five Go Consorting

It must be consortium week. There we were, waiting an age for a consortium to turn up, and two of them appear on successive days; yesterday the consortium for building tourism things and knocking others down and today a consortium for a group of towns. This consortium is the first such consortium in Mallorca, and what it involves is five town halls getting together in order to make cost savings and to try and avoid losing responsibilities envisaged under national reform of local government. The famous for now five are Artà, Manacor, Sant Llorenç, Santa Margalida and Son Servera; famous for now in being the first such consortium, but there could be more consortiums while the five could grow its number. 

While cost savings and rationalisation of resources and services are the efficiencies to be gained from this consortium, there is also an element of municipal self-interest. The five towns together will constitute an entity of some 80,000 inhabitants. Under the government's reforms, towns with fewer than 20,000 people will lose some of its responsibilities. They will be assumed by a higher authority: the Council of Mallorca in Mallorca's case. But, and one presumes this to be so, lump towns together and their combined populations take them well over the responsibility-losing threshold.

Four of the towns in this consortium would face this prospect, but one, Manacor, wouldn't. It is by far the largest of the five towns, representing over half that 80,000. Which begs a question as to what benefit it might derive from the arrangement and a further one as to whether it might not just dominate the other four. Manacor may be able to extract some savings of its own, but when one analyses these five towns, there are some political similarities. One is that none of them are run by the Partido Popular. Manacor was before its mayor Antoni Pastor had his big falling-out with President Bauzá, but it is now a town hall of a coalition, independents, liberals and what have you.

Manacor has become one of the island's awkward-squad town halls. Another is Santa Margalida. It and Manacor share one thing very much in common: a dislike of Bauzá. Of the three other towns, they also share a thing in common: the train that won't now be running between Manacor and Artà because the PP regional government won't facilitate its funding. So politically as well as geographically, there is some connection between the five.

This, though, raises a further question. There may exist some political harmony between the towns at present, but what about the future? There is a fair bit of the unknown about this consortium venture, not just because political complexions could change in any of the towns at the next elections in 2015 but also because the number of councillors will be radically reduced at those elections (another aspect of the local government reforms).

While responsibilities might be shared, the towns would still have their own mayors and whatever number of councillors they will be permitted to have from 2015. The potential for disagreements would seem to be great, and there must be the possibility that Manacor, because it is so much bigger than the others, pushes the other towns around. To make this consortium work is going to demand considerable diplomacy and probable compromise, neither of which is usually to be found in great abundance in Mallorcan local government and especially not at town levels where inter-town rivalries, the old-boys and family networks and pure parochialism create obstacles to harmonious relationships. Town halls can descend into dysfunctional chaos as it is because no one can get on with each other (one only has to think of Pollensa); put them together in the form of a consortium and God knows what trouble might be in store.

Of course, it might work but it might also become like the European Union - adding ever more members until it becomes unworkable. This particular consortium will surely attract the interest of Capdepera at some stage. It would in fact be interesting to know why it isn't in from the outset, given that it is hemmed in by two of the towns and that it also isn't PP-run. And if Capdepera, which other towns? Petra? Maria de la Salut? Muro? Felanitx?

Ultimately, won't such a consortium need to have one body to run it? Would this not be a logical outcome and so bring about an actual merger of towns? There certainly are unknowns about this venture, but it might just represent the beginning of a process of truly radical reform of Mallorcan local government.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Fires in Cala Ratjada, Son Servera and Génova

Another day, another three forest fires to add to the spate of fires that have broken out on Mallorca this summer. The three today have been near to Costa d'en Blanes in the Génova area of Calvia, in forest in Son Servera and close to the resort of Cala Ratjada.

Cala Ratjada fire update 20.30. The fire broke out around 17.00 and is still threatening homes in the area. The Son Servera fire is under control, though that in Costa d'en Blanes is still also unstable.

Images from the Cala Ratjada fire from "Diario de Mallorca": http://comunidad.diariodemallorca.es/galeria-multimedia/Incendio-Capdepera/Incendio-Capdepera/31224/6.html