From next Thursday and for more than a week, the Val d’Aran opens the ban on wildness with the popular festival of Carnival, Magràs.
All kinds of carnival events will take place in different locations, from the most traditional ones, such as those of Les and Canejan who remember ancestral customs, to the most innovative ones like Baqueira and Vielha, which include original activities.
In the Val d’Aran the Carnival is denominated Magràs, term Aranese that includes the totality of the party. In some towns of the valley also it receives other names like Barbacàs in Canejan or Titassi in Les. Dances of costumes, rúas, comparsas and parades take place in this pagan festival where reigns the audacity, the mockery and the satire
Barbacàs in Canejan, the most traditional carnival
Recovered in 2004, the festival of Barbacàs de Canejan, is the most traditional of them all. In the afternoon the young people of the town, dressed in fur suits, parade through the streets of Canejan holding torches to frighten the evil spirits. Emulating the Barbacans, dressed in animal skins and horns and calves tied at the waist that sounded as they passed through the streets.
Imagen: arannau.com
In the origins of the Barbacàs, all the people participated in this parade, but especially the shepherds, disguised in furs and scandalizing with the calves as they passed through the streets. At present, in addition to the parade of torches, the festival includes the performance of the Corbilhuèrs de Les, after which the Magrás is burned. The evening ends with a dinner and a popular dance.
Titassi or days of juerga in Les
Historians say that the carnival festivities in Les, called Titassi, began with the Candelera. From that day and until the end of the carnival the young people of the town went out in the evening to walk the streets making a big fun and entering the houses to get some food with which they later celebrated a dinner. At the end of the festivities they had managed to assault all the houses of the town without being recognized since they had their faces covered.
A popular dinner and a masked ball in the Multipurpose Hall of Les next Saturday 22 will remember this old custom.
Baqueira,disguising in the snow
The ski resort of Baqueira Beret has also adapted its special idiosyncrasy to this celebration, and its Ski-Rally Photographic disguises that will take part on Saturday the 22th is already mythical. Participants should take a picture disguised in each of the beacons of Carnival distributed in different corners of the station and that must locate through the instructions provided by Radio Aran. A fun day that ends with a party in Baqueira Bar 1500 with music, cava, chocolate and coca.
And also in Vielha is prepared a Hèsta de Magràs will be held on Saturday the 22th in the Palai d’Esports.
Source: Grup d’arxivers de Lleida