The Carnival, which every year, as it has happened century after century, arrives and transforms for a few days the essence and the face of the city, of its inhabitants, who, for a few days, with their feelings on the surface, live a party very own, converted into an authentic vital passion, it has not been able to stop being a source of inspiration for very diverse writers and chroniclers throughout the history of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Some references that, in this very atypical year for this celebration, since it must be lived almost in privacy, can reinforce the hope of new editions, as or brighter than those that already populate five centuries of Carnival history in Gran Canaria.
Thus, the writer and journalist Orlando Hernández Martín, in his extensive book ‘El Carnaval de Gran Canaria’, places the local origins of this celebration in the last decades of the 16th century, when neighbors from Italy, such as the family of the first great poet Islander, Bartolomé Cairasco de Figueroa, had already imported the taste for celebrating ‘masked balls’, which attracted much attention, including that of the Holy Office, always so zealous in its surveillance work, of which he tells us: «Dance of masks, disguises, with a brawl included, in which one of the contestants flees to nothing less than the paternal estate of Teror, as for more mystery and magic of our Carnival. (…) It was the first night (1574) of a Carnival with memory forever, while in the monastic Vegueta, the snakes in the costumes looked like scraps of stars, getting lost in the glorious brine of the alleys. Carnival was born forever in Gran Canaria ».
Domingo J. Navarro, in the pages of his ‘Memories of a ninth’, at his already long ninety-two years, recalled, with reference to times that went back to the eighteenth century and perhaps earlier, as “Our parents always anxiously awaited the carnival season, and they prolonged it as long as they could. These diversions began the night of the day of Concepción and began with groups of chosen costumes that visited the gatherings, where jokes reigned and danced with the gathering In spite of the mask. (…) Such a laudable custom of general fraternity, it was necessary to relieve a population that lacked theaters, casinos, public dances, lighted streets, walks, etc., where to spread their spirits. (…) At twelve o’clock on Tuesday night, the entire population was in deathly silence. The Inquisition was watching.
Orlando Hernández places the local origins of this celebration in the last decades of the 16th
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For centuries the Carnival celebrations were in the sights of the Court of the Inquisition, as rigorous guardians of public and State morality, but which, in any case, were a counterpoint prior to the days and celebrations of Lent. For this reason, in the book ‘Chronicles and Stamps of Las Palmeña Holy Week, when speaking of’ Carnival and Lent, yesterday and today ‘, I stand out as’ The manners literature, and also others that, without wanting to, or even realizing it, were influenced by the most traditional scenes of Spanish public life over the centuries, they have contributed to spreading a stereotypical image, an environment that, as much as we delight to remember it, no longer corresponds to the reality of current events , where carnival and Lent, unlike in previous centuries, walk unrelated, without taking into account that their existence resided and was explained in their antagonism … »
The first newspapers of the city did not hesitate to record in their pages the carnival celebrations, as was the case of the unforgettable ‘El Ómnibus’ that, in a chronicle signed by José de Villasante, and published on February 2, 1856, indicated to these festivals as an “authentic need” of the island society. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, the press – such as the magazine ‘Canarias Turista’ – reported on the children’s costume contest organized by the Society for Development and Tourism, and in which the girl Lolita Martín Fernández de the Tower, who dressed as an “Egyptian queen”, and the boy Luisito García Díaz, who was dressed as a “canon.” The reports in the local press that Eduardo Benítez Inglott published under the pseudonym of ‘Gil Tellez’ were also very juicy and followed, in which he referred to the city’s Carnival in other times, as if looking for the roots of the celebrations that they had reached his days. On February 18, 1935, the newspaper ‘Hoy’, in an editorial-article highlighted that the “… advantages of the organization of festivals by the City Council are highlighted by the results obtained with the Carnival. What a difference between the carnestolendas of 1935 and those of previous years in which no official program was drawn up! Hogaño mask competitions, rondallas and student women, outdoor and indoor dances, children’s festival, battles of streamers, confetti and snowballs, brilliant parade of many artistic floats, overflowing animation along the main urban roads, which also reached to the areas of the popular neighborhoods. This is the work, the miracle of the organization of the festivities.
For centuries the celebrations were in the sights of the Court of the Inquisition
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Of the most intimate and typical atmosphere of Carnival in those first decades of the 20th century, a beautiful and funny testimony can be found in the pages of the book ‘Verses y Estampas’, published by Josefina de la Torre in 1927, which collects as «When the Carnival was approaching, we all lived in a continuous review of the days: one, two, three, four, until the appointed day. We spoke to each other in silence, mysteriously. Already on the eve, we looked at each other trembling, wanting to scream, jump, but gathered in desire. They put us to bed very early, after preparing the costume on a chair, and we slept very late, with an agitated sleep, full of carnival jumps ».
The former official chronicler of the city, Luis García de Vegueta, also recalls some juicy anecdote from the olden days, who in his book ‘Our city’, refers as «In a place in Vegueta whose name we do want to remember, the street de los Reyes, at the edge of the cathedral, arose a lyrical group that was perhaps unprecedented – or even postcedent – in the history of the country. The idea was born from the caletre of maestro Antonino, a kind of brassier with albeador rims who had returned from Cuba with less money than on the march (5 pesos against 80 duros and an English rooster). Maestro Antonino had a secret vocation, music, and to exercise it it occurred to him to found an orchestra or rondalla that would be presented to the public in the next carnivals ».
It would be impossible to collect each and every one of the island writers, chroniclers, poets, historians or journalists who had Carnival as a source of inspiration or curiosity for its various and different pages, but it is worthwhile to conclude by mentioning again the book that today constitutes the most complete and comprehensive tour through the history and character of these festivals in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, without forgetting references to other towns on the island, the book ‘El Carnaval de Gran Canaria, 1574-1988’, by the journalist and playwright Orlando Hernández, who also wrote, and presented at the Pérez Galdós Theater, an amusing piece entitled ‘Comedia del Carnaval y la Buena Fortuna’, a book that its foreword, the teacher and writer Antonio de la Nuez Caballero, describes as “a irreplaceable contribution to our most popular and authentic cultural heritage ”; or the one referring to the current Carnival, ‘Four decades of Carnival in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria’, by José Febles Felipe, one of its most privileged witnesses, which collects the history, anecdotes and memories of the most popular and participatory festival since its restart in 1976, declared of national tourist interest. In this time of Carnival let us also return to him through books.
Juan José Laforet. Official Chronicler of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
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