La Encamisá de Navalvillar de PelaEntre el mito y la tradición

Abstract

On the night of 16th January in Navalvillar de Pela (Badajoz) a ritual festival takes place with its own personality. Our attention will be focused upon this very festival, which is known as "La Encamisá". The aim of this project is to research and investigate the origin of "La Encamisá". According to myth, the origin of this popular and traditional festival dates back to Islamic Spain and recalls the victory of the peleños against the troops, when the latter tried to conquer the town. This ritual, according to spoken tradition, commemorates the historical salvation of the population, achieved by employing certain strategies: White shirts, bonfires, horses, bells, voices; where the neighbours, dressed as warriors, pretended to be a great army and managed to scare off the half moon. Our work has involved the investigation into the origins of this myth, which has led us to the primary sources available on file, in order to check the sincerity behind this spoken tradition. This popular celebration, like so many others that are passed on from one generation to another, has caused confusion between reality and fiction. Through this project, which has been carried out between 2011 and 2015, we have found out that in reality, the "La Encamisá" celebration took its name sometime around 1948, to establish the San Anton Race as a male-participatory event, which is celebrated during the civic-religious festivities in honour of San Antonio Abad, whose festive practices were related to the fire cult and animal protection by means of the ring-road and the race. Similarly, the cultural fusion of the symbols used during "La Encamisá" (drums, flags, bells, "biñuelos" a sweet pastry typical to Navalvillar de Pela, wine, rattles, costumes, etc.,) do not cease to be a way of communicating the past with the present. The tradition is not just a thing of the past and has been influenced by new components as a consequence of the festival's palpable "touristification" in recently established acts, such as the Procession of the Saint, the traditional Blessing of Animals, the Announcement of the Town Steward, etc. All of this has contributed, to a greater or lesser degree, to the loss of the festival's original significance, as it has become simple entertainment or public show where riders and horses, richly decorated, parade along a "catwalk" and are observed under the watchful eye of the audience. To demonstrate these hypotheses we have dedicated the (almost) eight hundred pages that follow.