Playing away

The village of Mamoiada sits in the mountainous interior of Sardinia, a place of around 2,500 people that you're probably hearing about for the first time in this entry. I certainly knew nothing of it before being invited, with a group of over 20 others from Viana, to take part in what's a hugely important cultural event for them, which in recent years they've hash-tagged #mamumask.

Getting a crew of half a dozen boteiros, eight drummers and assorted aixada players from Galicia to Sardinia is not a cheap or simple affair - two enormous wooden containers were required for the drums and equipment. But their own Carnival is as important to our Sardinian hosts as our flour frenzy is to us, so with the help of a dedicated set of volunteers and partly funded by grants for cross-cultural initiatives, all the gear was safely packed and sent, and flights and accommodation provided.

We happy few. This pic mainly notable for the extraordinarily
rare occurrence of me posing willingly for a photo that
is not being taken at a wedding. Pic: Canillo

The village features a renowned mask museum, and masks play a central role in the culture of the area. A guide took us round, showing us costumes and masks from carnivals and cultural events all over Europe. We were startled to find an entire boteiro costume from Vilariño de Conso, just 10km from Viana, standing to attention within. Other costumes from Greece, Germany, Russia and others displayed many similarities in terms of the materials used, their common features (carved wooden masks, animal horns, charcoal, long staffs etc), despite these costumes coming from very different cultures and being used in festivals with very different origins.

The big day (for us at least) was Sunday. We'd been wined and dined handsomely on Saturday, and we'd given the locals who were out on Saturday night a bit of a preview, without boteiros in full kit etc. On the Sunday we were taken up to a nearby vineyard and took our fill of local wines, cheeses, cold meats and chutneys, only to then be told that this was an 'aperitif' before a four-course lunch. There was time to enjoy that lunch and relax for a couple of hours before we had to get ready. The boteiros had to dress thus: a white shirt, black tie* under a thick sweatshirt onto which several thousand feet of ribbon has been sewn. This is not an exaggeration - just look at any of the photos. Long, red satin trousers under high black boots. A belt studded with bells. White gloves and a two-metre pole, called a monca, complete the set. Oh - almost forgot. A wooden mask and headgear, weighing anything up to 15 kilos, goes on the head, strapped on tightly.

Their task, to run up and down alongside the fulion, keeping the crowds back and entertaining them. In 32ªC. The start of the parade was delayed a couple of hours for the temperature to drop a bit, but I was carrying just an aixada - a shovel head - and hammer, and wearing a white cotton shirt and jeans, and I sweated like a Palace fan in a spelling test. The boteiros were all, of course, young'uns, but we were followed all the way by water-toting volunteers, hydrating the lads with straws poked through the mouth parts of the mask. Bottles for the rest of us, thanks.

If you don't bloody your hands and the drum skin,
you're not playing hard enough. Pic: Pedro Garcia Losada

We followed the locals' own traditional figures, themselves wearing thick furs with 30kg of bells on their backs. There's a long video here, which will show much better what I'm going on about. You can hear us long before you see us, but we come in around the fifteen minute mark. There is, as you'll see, a 'piccolo incidente' when one local got too close and was dragged to the ground when she got something caught on the boteiro's shirt. No serious harm done but if you don't heed the warning about why the boteiros are there, this can happen.

Heavy, sweaty work. Pic: Pedro Garcia Losada

We were at this for about three hours. I've stripped the skin off my right little finger, index finger and thumb, with unpleasant looking blisters growing nicely. I have no feeling on the fingerprint bit of my left middle finger. My shoulder ligament keeps popping up and down uncomfortably. But bloody hell, it was great. I had no idea there were quite so many people watching because I was so intently concentrating on the lead drummer/aixada players, desperate not to be the one to fuck up any fulion beat.

We ended up drumming in the courtyard of our own hotel at the end of it all, before spending a night on the town during which it was all but impossible to pay for a drink. 'The Spaniards don't pay', we were told repeatedly. This led, as you can imagine, to long nights and sore heads among some of our number. I'm told the boteiros, stars of the show and already called upon to pose for countless photographs, did their bit for Italo-Spanish relations over the course of the evening. They certainly looked like they'd had a tough night when we were taken to a nearby beach for the following day.

Jorge, the man who sells the aixadas we were playing and who was the driving force behind organising things from our end, was presented with one of the Sardinians' masks as a mark of thanks, in what was an emotional send-off at the end of it. He said that Galicia is known widely as being hugely hospitable but, compared to the extraordinary generosity and kindness we were shown by the good people of Mamoiada, he held us only as high as his own shin in that respect. Even the apparently infinite pizza (again provided free, again with free beer) served at the farewell dinner was possibly the best pizza I've ever eaten. And it's not a small sample size, let me tell you.

An invitation to reciprocate at next year's Mascarada has already been extended to them. We hope to be as hospitable, friendly and generous as they were to us, but to be honest we've got our work cut out.

*The fact that the tie is entirely invisible when the boteiro is fully dressed is irrelevant. It must be so and that's that.