Carnival is a pagan native party which started in contrast with the privations and abstinences made in the Quaresma days. The catalan name for Carnival is: “Carnestoltes”. In the beginning Carnestoltes was only for one day, on Carnestoltes Tuesday, but now it refers to the whole period.
Important characters and celebrations:
The masks: essential to hide the face.
The costume: it makes the anonymity easier, in groups of friends it’s common that they all dress up with the same costume or theme, also, costume competitions are usual during dance parties.
His Majesty Carnestoltes: character born in the Middle Age, in the beginning it was only a straw dummy which was hanged up and burned in the end of the parties. As time went by he became the king of the party with a lot of ceremonies: arrival, speech, activities and his will and death,
Carnival march: party which goes through various streets animated with music. In Carnestoltes everybody wears a costume. The classical day for the Carnival march is normally Sunday.
Calendar:
“Fatty” Thursday: is the starting of the parties. There used to be big banquets to compensate for the future abstinence during Quaresma.
Carnestoltes Friday: his Magesty Carnestoltes arrives, he reads an ironic speech about the town or country problems, it also laughs about authorities. Everybody puts on a costume and there are several marchs.
From Saturday to Tuesday: parties, mask balls and marchs. In the last years “the women ball” has became very popular. It’s made normally in sports centres o big pavilions. Men are all suited up and women wear costumes, the woman asks the man she wants for a dance and the man doesn’t know about the woman’s identity.
Ashy Wednesday: the party ends. His Majesty Carnestoltes reads his will and invites everybody to end with the parties. That’s how the Quaresma can be started. There’s the tradition to bury a sardine, a lot of years ago people used to go to the countryside to have lunch the last day and end ith the parties, nowadays it has become another party.
L’Estartit is a little village and that’s why the party is also “little” but in the next video you can see how it is:
