Caparrots and gegants (big heads and giants)

What is

Party figures: gegants (giants carried by a person inside) and caparrots (cabezudos: enormous head on the dancer). In Mallorca, caparrot is the word for big-headed.

How is

• Gegants: structure with large head and busts; in Palma they weigh 30-60 kg depending on material and size; a person inside.
• Caparrots: disproportionate head; the body is that of the dancer.
• Materials: tradition of wood and cardboard (Enciclopèdia); In 1871, those from Felanitx wore a "huge cardboard head."
• Sa Pobla: 11 Vells Caparrots (1952) that represent fashion models of the time; Caparrots Minyons (1983); gegants (80s); the Grif (1998), 2.80 × 1.40 m, breathes fire.

How is fa

• Cardboard or fiber on mould; wooden or aluminum frame for giants (check workshops in Mallorca).

Com s'usa

• They open and accompany delegations; They dance in the square. Sa Pobla: two dances with “Jo i un pastor” Sant Antoni de sa Pobla .
• Felanitx: parade with cavallets and dimonis cavallets of Felanitx .
• Sa Cabaneta: gegants siurells Sant Marçal .
• Palma: Trobada de Gegants and Diada de Mallorca.

Vocabulary

• caparrot: big-headed; in Mallorca also "head" or "stubborn" (DCVB).
• gegant / geganta: giant.
• geganter: bearer.
• colla: group.

History

• 1424: first giant documented in the Corpus Christi (Barcelona, ​​Goliath); The tradition soon spreads to Valencia and Mallorca.
• 19th century: they go out for Corpus Christi to parties and carnival.
• 1871: cardboard giants with the Felanitx cavallets (Arxiduc).
• 1952: caparrots de sa Pobla.

On veure'n

• Museum of Sant Antoni i el Dimoni (sa Pobla).

Why is it design

• Period portrait: the caparrots from 1952 set the fashion of their time.
• Scale: resizing creates the festive effect.
• Living heraldic figure: the Grif takes the town's shield to the street.

For the project

• Locate caparrots and gegants workshops in Mallorca; workshop sheet.

Sources

• caib.es/eboibfront/pdf/es/2015/32/909662
• caib.es/eboibfront/pdf/es/2015/32/909668
• enciclopedia.cat/gran-enciclopedia-catalana/gegant
• mallorcamagazin.com/veranstaltungen/feste-freizeit-events/diada-mallorca-palma-2

Working text from the Disseny Indígena knowledge base, machine-translated from Spanish.

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