La máscara de la cordura

Carnival, sword dances and their metaphors

In the Basque Country folk traditions are very similar to those in the rest of Europe, but the Basque language is pre-Indoeuropean which is of great importance to the study of this folklore. In our area the Carnival period makes references to some specific terms which give it a meaning which pre-dates the Lenten explanation. There are two especiallyimportant words: Iñauteri and Aratuste, both meaning ‘the time of pruning’, as corresponds to the tasks carried out in the month of February before the arrival of spring which brings with it the risk of insects. These activities which possibly date from the Neolithic period clean the trees and fields of insect larvae. Let us see the relation between this pruning and Carnival.

During theCarnival the most important traditional element to be found is in the clothes that people wear. In the Basque Country, as in other parts of Europe, there are numerous people in fancy dress processions, as we shall see. But the most striking thing is that in Basque the words for ‘disguise’: zomorro, mozorro, koko, ñañarro, mumua etc., also mean ‘insect’. That is why the Basque language paints a verydifferent picture of the Carnival. If the same word is used for ‘disguise’ and ‘insect’ it means that all the fancy dress costumes turn people into ‘insects, they ‘insect-isize’ people. In the month of February, Carnival time, there are no insects. They are still in a larval state. This is why everyone ‘becomes an insect’ by means of a costume. The disguises replace the spring insects which have beenwarded off.

The exorcising of the insects is seen when disguised callers go from house to house and are given offerings of money, wine or bacon. This means that the insects have received their payment, and will not be able to come begging a second time. Some Carnival characters such as the Ioaldunas from the villages of Ituren and Zubieta in Navarra are used to protect against these insects.Their weapons are a horsetail used as an aspergillum (holy water sprinkler) and great cowbells of 30 litre capacity.

It is well known that the horse uses its tail to drive off flies and horseflies, but perhaps it is less well known that the cowbell has the same function. The Greek cowbells made of cast bronze engraved with horseflies, in our opinion offers a clear explanation of the function ofthe cowbell, which is to scare off the flies so as to protect the face of the cow or horse grazing in the field. For this reason the costumes are a clear expression of a power intended to exorcise the insects.

There are two insects that, in our opinion, have this great primitive power: the mosquito and the locust. In the Basque Country we also have the horsefly. Because of their diabolicalnature, these insects are hidden in several metaphors. Thus, the fox is a metaphor for the mosquito; the hobby horse for the locust; the sword for the horsefly.

First I’ll speak about the hobby horse. This animal figure is made from cardboard and cloth and appears in many places in Europe. Here we will analyse, briefly, its presence and meaning in the Carnival celebrations of the village ofLantz. We mentioned that the hobby horse is a metaphor for the locust. we support this idea with evidence from the Old Testament: the book of Joel, the book of Nahum, and in the Apocalypse of Saint John where it appears as a terrifying animal referred to as ‘a horse’. Also the common name for the locust, in many European languages is ‘horse’, or perhaps ‘mare’. The skirts of many hobby horses do notindicate clearly their female gender, and, so we ask, are they mares? In Spanish as well as in Italian and Sicilian it is caballeta (“caballeta” is the feminine of horse, but not ‘mare’ which is ‘yegua’). In Italian it is also saltacavaglia; in Rumanian it is calus; in Russian and Czech kobylka; in French sauto-pou chinchin, pouchinchin; in Basque larraputinga, etc.

In the village of Lantz...