Performing

the folk: festivals of Moors and Christians in Portugal, Spain and Brazil.
Paper presented at the international congress
We are the Folk. Folklore in the 21st century
Lisbon, October 22 24 2014
SLIDE 1 trommelaar
Introduction: Authenticity, emotion, and identity politics

I am going to discuss the relation between authenticity, emotion, and identity politics in three
folk festivals of Moors and Christians held in Portugal, Spain and Brazil, respectively.
I will give a short contextualization of each festival, and then I will look at two aspects:
1. The emotional commitment of participants and how this contributes to the either perceived
or felt authenticity of the festival.
2. The role authenticity plays in local identity politics.
SLIDE 2 - parade Cavalhdromo Piri; entradas Beneixama; critique Sobrado
During each of the three festivals a variety of ritual and religious acts take place, such as the
celebration of holy masses and religious processions. These more solemn moments are
combined with a variety of other acts. These vary from carnival-like parades and the
performance of regional dances, to theatrical skits that parody and criticize the social and
political status quo. The highlight in each festival, however, is the performance of a staged
dispute between Christians and Moors. These vary in form and duration, but follow a
comparable, predefined script divided in three phases.
SLIDE 3 Map Piri
Lets first look at the Festa do Divino. This is celebrated each year, 40 days after Easter, in
the city of Pirenpolis, in the state of Gois, Brazil. It incorporates a performance called the
Cavalhadas, in which twenty-four horsemen dressed as Christian and Moorish knights, enact
a medieval like tournament based on the story of the exploits of Charlemagne and his twelve
peers and their battles against the Saracens.
SLIDE 4 - cavaleiro and mscarado

The tournament consists of various sequences of choreographed military exercises on

horseback, the so-called carreiras. Over the course of three afternoons, these carreiras depict
first the initial confrontation between the Christians and the Moors, from which the Moors
emerge as winners; followed on the next afternoon by the counter-attack and victory of the
Christians; and ending, on the last day, with the surrender and conversion of the Moors.
During the intervals in the tournament, groups of masked figures on horseback, wearing
brightly colored disguises enter the arena to entertain the public. These mscarados, as they
are called, are mostly men and boys, but nowadays women can also perform, as long as they
are not recognized. The mscarados also perform on the streets on the Saturday afternoon
leading up to the performance of the Cavalhadas.
SLIDE 5 Map Sobrado
The second festival is the Festa da Bugiada. This celebration takes place on the Dia de So
Joo, the 24th of June, in the town of Sobrado, in Northern Portugal. The main event of this
one-day celebration is a battle between two contending parties, the Christians and the Moors,
respectively called Bugios and Mourisqueiros. Local lore attributes this performance to a
legend that tells the story of a company of Moors digging for gold in the nearby mountains.
SLIDE 6 Bugios and Mourisqueiros
One day the Moors go to the Christian village to ask the inhabitants for the miraculous
healing powers of S. Joo, to cure the gravely ill daughter of the King of the Moors. The
Christians refuse and the Moors attack. They try to steal the statue of St. John, and a battle
ensues. The Christians are victorious, scaring off the superstitious Moors with the help of a
enormous serpent.
SLIDE 7 Map Beneixama
Lastly, we have the Festes de Moros i Cristians. This takes place in September in the village
of Beneixama, in the province of Alicante, Spain. This festival is celebrated over the course
of five days, in honor of the local patron saint, the Divina Aurora. Here the performance is
based on a text about the Christian Reconquista, written by a local 19th century author.
SLIDE 8 - Comparsas

The main protagonists in the performance are two so-called comparsas, or companies, of
Moros and Cristians. The battle between the Moors and the Christians is performed on three
consecutive days, starting with the attack of the Moors on the Christian castle, the retaliation
of the Christians on the following day, and the final victory and conversion of the Moors on
the final day of the battle. On the last day of the festival, a third company, the Comparsa de
Estudiants, performs a parody on the saga of Moors and Christians.
Authenticity and emotion
SLIDE 9 familia capitn
Outsiders (e.g. spectators, the media) perceive the festivals of Moors and Christians as
spontaneous and genuine expressions of (local) folk culture.
Participants and people involved in their organization stress the authenticity of the
performances, emphasizing that these are an expression of local identity. Despite their
apparent spontaneity, however, these performances are, in fact, organized by professionally
operating local cultural associations. But does that mean that they are fake? Lets take a look
at what the participants themselves say.
SLIDE 10 - participants
The people I talked to over the course of my fieldwork named a wide variety of
motives when asked why they participate in the performances. Many said they do so because
their father, or other relatives, from the time they were very young, infused them with a
passion for the festival.
Others mentioned that the excitement of performing and the experience of being on stage
attracts them, and permits them to express sides of their personality which they find difficult
to do in their day-to-day life.
Some also referred to the physical and emotional elation brought on by the strenuousness of
performing.
Others yet commented on the atmosphere of camaraderie between fellow participants, and on
the pleasure of being part of something shared, or they said they participate because it is an
enjoyable occasion for socializing, or for reconnecting with their local tradition.

Regularly, a combination of these motives was given. And often, when the motive mentioned
was an emotional one, it was named in combination with references to sensorial experiences,
such as getting goose pimples when hearing the festival music, or breaking out in tears at
moments of great intensity.
Whatever the motives given, they were invariably the basis for a deeply felt personal
commitment, often sustained over a long period of time.
The air of spontaneity and liveliness of the performances, in my view, is in great part due to
the participants investment in terms of energy and time, and their emotional commitment.
And I would like to argue that this emotional commitment is what shines through in the
performances; this is what lends them their feeling of authenticity; and this is also what
sways the spectators, what convinces them that what they are watching is, in fact the real
thing, to paraphrase Bendix (.).
2.

Authenticity and Identity politics

SLIDE 11: Poster Piri

The data I collected during three years of fieldwork, indicate that, in each case,
individual participants and members of the organizing associations currently come from a
wide variety of social and economic backgrounds.
It also became clear that members of the local middle class and cultural elites play an
important role in the organization and promotion of the festivals, and that, in two cases Beneixama and Pirenpolis - they also habitually perform in leading roles. This means that
they exert a considerable influence on how the festivals are promoted and what uses they are
put to. And the argument of authenticity plays an important part in this promotion.
Lets go back and take another look at the three cases.
SLIDE 12 entrance dance bugiada ,Sobrado
Until quite recently, the Festa da Bugiada was relatively unknown outside of Sobrado
and its immediate surroundings, even though participants dressed as Bugios and
Mourisqueiros performed in theatre festivals in the nearby city of Porto, and appeared on

national television, from as early as the 1960s.1 However, the famous St. John celebrations in
Porto, on the night of June the 23rd, kept many potential visitors away.
But, over the past years, due to the diligent work of the current administration of the festival,
things have changed rapidly.
One of the changes is that more and more people from outside Sobrado buy a daypermit and hire a costume to participate in the Bugios opening dance on the morning of the
festival. This influx of outsiders has led some of the towns inhabitants to express concerns
about the loss of authenticity of their festival. To allay their concerns, the Casa do Bugio
elaborated a code of conduct for participants, informing them about the meaning of the
festival and giving them instructions on how to behave when in costume.
The festivals growing popularity has also substantially increased the number of
spectators, which poses logistical problems because the towns infrastructure is not equipped
for receiving so many people at one time.
The association, therefore, has produced a leaflet for visitors, which is distributed on the day
of the festival. It contains a timetable and a lay-out of the sites where the various acts take
place, as well as information on the background and meaning of the festival. This information
is also published on the associations weblog, and in the media.
SLIDE 13 Newspaper clip Bugiada
Although the associations official policy is to safeguard the genuine character of
the celebration, the festivals increasing popularity at times clashes with this policy.
Growing interest from politicians and policy makers has increased the pressure to elevate the
festival to a different level. Alerted to the value of the celebration, the municipality of
Valongo, to which Sobrado pertains, recently increased its annual subsidy for the festival.
The council of Valongo and the Casa do Bugio have also joined the Iberian Network of
Traditional Masks. This network is promoted by Progestur, an enterprise dedicated to the
merchandising of the most genuine and authentic of Portuguese cultural identity2.
Finally, preparations were started for the candidacy of the festival to the UNESCO
Immaterial Heritage list. These preparations are accompanied by an external mediator
(anthropologist).

1
2

Source: bugiosemourisqueiros.blogspot.com
Source: Progestur website

SLIDE 14 Cavalhadas
The history of the Festa do Divino can be traced back to the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, and the Cavalhadas as part of the festival are mentioned as early as 1893 (Martins,
2001:78). However, the Cavalhadas occurred sporadically during the nineteenth and the first
half of the twentieth century. Only in the 1960s, according to Martins, (2001:52) they became
a recurring element in the celebration of the Festa do Divino.
In the following decades, Goiastur, the state-run organization for tourism, together
with one of the citys more influential families, were a major contributing factor in the
promotion of the Cavalhadas.
In 2004, the Instituto Cultural Cavalhadas, was created with the knights of the Cavalhadas
as its members (Lima e Alves, 2005:120). Their aim was to guarantee the continuation of the
Cavalhadas tradition, and to provide the group of knights with a legal status so that they
could apply for funding from the Gois state government.
SLIDE 15 Knight in telenovela
The Festa do Divino, including the Cavalhadas, was inventoried and documented, in
2008, by a team of researchers under the guidance of the IPHAN, Brazils national heritage
institution. IPHANs meticulous visual and written documentation resulted, in 2010, in the
proclamation of the festival as Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Brazil.
The performance of the Cavalhadas has become the calling card of the citys identity
politics. It has helped put Pirenpolis on the map of tourist destinations by having the knights
pose for photographs sold as postcards; by performing a mock version of the Cavalhadas
during the shooting of a popular telenovela, and by performing some of the Cavalhadas
equestrian choreographies during a Brazilian Week in France.
SLIDE 16 Protest mascarados
The mscarados, who perform their daredevil antics, on foot and on horseback,
during the intervals of the Cavalhadas, form an interesting contrast in this scenario. The
performance of the mscarados is a more spontaneous and improvised affair, which stands in
stark contrast to the rather formal and ordered performance of the knights.
Many families have relatives participating as mscarados, and the inhabitants of
Pirenpolis in general consider the mscarados to be an indispensable element in the festival.

Which is why the 2011 edition of the Cavalhadas threatened to turn into a failure when the
mscarados announced that they would not to perform that year. They took this decision after
the public prosecutor had issued an edict obliging each mscarado to register with the city
council, and to wear their registration number in big letters on the back of their costume. The
edict further restricted their performance space to a much smaller area of the town than was
habitual. The reason given for issuing the edict was the alleged misbehavior and perpetration
of crimes by people dressed as mscarados in a previous year.
Seeing their spontaneous intervention in the festival curbed, and having no organized
social base that they could mobilize in the defense of their cause, the mscarados turned to
the streets, managing to mount public protest, which was supported by a large part of the
local population.
The first afternoon, because of the absence of the mscarados, the knights performed the
Cavalhadas in an arena that had an eerie, lackluster feeling to it. The second afternoon the
mscarados forced an entry into the arena, and were enthusiastically cheered on by the
spectators. At the end of the afternoon came the announcement that the mscarados protest
had borne fruit: the edict was revoked. The atmosphere on the final afternoon was completely
different. The excitement and joy provoked by the return of the mscarados was palpable.
When asked about their opinion on the situation, members of the local population
declared: the essence of the mscarados is that they are anonymous, how else are they to
make fun of local dignitaries without fearing reprisals. Without the mscarados a nossa
tradio deixa de ser, in other words, without the mscarados there could be no Cavalhadas.
SLIDE 17 castle Banyeres
There is a certain amount of rivalry between the hundreds of towns and cities that
hold festivals of Moors and Christians in Alicante, concerning the level of authenticity, but
this happens in a relatively relaxed atmosphere.
Compared to surrounding locations, Beneixama has little to offer in terms of scenery and
accommodation. Celebrations in nearby towns and cities, such as Banyeres, Biar, and
Ontinyent, take place in an architectonically more appealing scenario, while those of Alcoi
and Villena with their numerous comparsas offer their visitors a much more sumptuous
spectacle. Until now, therefore, the festival in Beneixama has not attracted many visitors
from outside, apart from relatives visiting from Valencia, Alicante, or Madrid, and it has
maintained a relaxed and intimate atmosphere.

SLIDE 18 Streetview Beneixama

The festival in Beneixama currently counts four comparsas, the Moros, the Cristians,
the Llauradors and the Estudiants. Some inhabitants of Beneixama, however, consider only
the comparsas of the Moros and the Cristians as historically authentic, with regard to the
purported raison dtre of the festival: the re-enactment of the Christian Reconquista.
Members of these comparsas boast that their history can be traced back to the last decades of
the 19th century.
Analysis of how these festivals have developed since the Middle Ages makes clear
that over time they have undergone tremendous changes, not only in form but also in
significance.
In the Middle Ages, they started as training exercises for members of the nobility, and
demonstrations of military prowess performed in honor of the monarchy.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the performance had taken on the form of a mock
battle between Moors and Christians, and had been incorporated in the local patron saints
celebration. In those days, the local authorities maneuvered their political followers in
strategic positions in the organization of the festival, infiltrating the comparsas in order to
influence popular opinion.
Following the Civil War, the right-wing political regime that came into power revived the
spirit of the crusade, inherent in the story of the reconquista depicted in the festivals, to
reinforce its moral and political values. Only at the end of the Franco era, and the following
transition to democracy, influence of the local political spectrum diminished in the Festas de
Moros I Cristians, and the comparsas became the autonomous entities that are today (Capel
Sanchez, .: 184).
SLIDE 19 Christian comparsa
The hold of the church on the celebration in Beneixama is still very strong. The
veneration of the patron saint, the Divina Aurora, is an integral part of the festival. This
creates tension, for instance, with regard to the start time of the opening parade of the festival,
in the afternoon. In particular the younger participants would like to start at a later hour,
because the heavy costumes make the heat of the afternoon difficult to bear. The church,
however, opposes this, because this would interfere with the timing of the procession of the
Divina Aurora, later that evening.

Another point of contention is the tenor of the dialogues recited at the end of each battle,
based on the 19th century text, which again the younger participants consider antiquated and
discriminatory. In this case, it is the more traditionalist members of the comparsas who
oppose any change.
Conclusion
Change is inevitable. As we have seen, each of these festivals has changed over the course of
its existence, and continues to do so.
The argument often used in politics of identity, however, is that the festival has always been
celebrated in this particular way, and the claim of the festivals authenticity is based on its
longstanding tradition. As Bendix () has pointed out, to deploy identity politics
successfully you have to have a tradition of your own, which can be claimed as authentic.
And authenticity sells!
The claim of authenticity also stands at the base of the proclamation, or the candidacy, of the
festival as immaterial cultural heritage of a particular social group or community.
However, in practice not all elements are valued equally under the heritage banner. Popular
imagination has always associated the knights of the Cavalhadas with literary culture of
European origin. The mscarados, on the other hand, are associated with a folk origin, that
is to say, with an originally rural population of lower class and non-european descent. The
knights are subsidized by the state, whereas the mscarados are not, even though, officially,
they are considered equally important to the festival.
In Beneixama, the traditionalist members of the local population value the Moros and
Cristians more than the other two comparsas, while many younger inhabitants have a
preference for the Comparsa de Estudiants, which have a more contemporary approach to the
festival.
In Sobrado the tensions with regard to the authenticity of the festival are related to the great
influx of outside participants.
Richard Bauman, in 1992, stated that Folk culture is variously counter posed against
elite, mass, or official culture as embodying values and social relations that are a necessary,
natural, and valuable part of human existence, worthy of preservation and encouragement.
The sometimes tacit, often explicit, assumption is that folk festivals can serve as instruments
of such preservation and encouragement (Bauman, 1992: 1).

Of course, the festivals we are talking about here are not folk festivals in the sense
referred by Bauman. His focus was on the large-scale festivals organized by, for instance, the
Smithsonian Institute, showcasing carefully chosen examples of Native American and other
so called vernacular American culture. Still, it is worthwhile reflecting on his observation
about the role of preservation and the way that it is implemented.
Cultural performances are inevitably subject to change if they are to remain
meaningful for the people whose cultural repertoire they are part of.
A certain degree of freezing is inevitable when documenting a cultural performance with the
purpose of preserving its distinguishing features at a specific moment in time. The problems
start when the inventory takes on a life of its own, and is taken as a manifest to control what
counts as authentic and what not. There is a thin but treacherous line between allowing for
the somewhat chaotic spontaneity and improvisation characteristic of 'folk' practice, and the
intended 'safeguarding' of what are considered the 'authentic' features of the festival.
Even though tightly organized, the performances in their current form still leave enough
room, on the part of the participants, for personal creativity and for the experience of physical
and emotional release.
As Bendix (2005: 196) has warned, however, the imposition of a "regime of authenticity", is
likely to decrease the sensory pleasure participants derive from their participation, which will
in turn affect their emotional commitment, thus taking away the foundation of what gives the
festival its authentic feel in the first place.