“In the night they made such a din that the whole of that place seemed to be shaken by an earthquake, and the demons, as if breaking the four walls of the dwelling, seemed to enter through them, coming in the likeness of beasts and creeping things; altogether the noises of the apparitions, with their angry ragings, were dreadful.”
So wrote St. Athanasius in his account of the torments visited upon St. Anthony, as the devil sent his minions to break the pious resolution of the popular fourth-century Egyptian hermit.
He could almost have been writing about the streets of any number of Mallorcan towns and villages as locals step out into the brisk January night to gather round the bonfire and cheer on fork-wielding dancing demons or flee from their fiery onslaught.
Across the island, normally placid public spaces are transformed into Breughelesque infernos, with fire pouring from the sky as a raucous legion of sharp-horned, frenzied demons – or dimonis – is unleashed upon the streets. For a brief hour or two, the youth of the town have free run of the square, startling the populace with fireworks and flames, chasing after onlookers whose terror, feigned and unfeigned, only seems to egg them on.
It’s a scene repeated in town squares throughout Mallorca – in Alaró, Algaida, Artá, Sóller and, spectacularly, Sa Pobla and, further afield, throughout Catalonia on saints’ days – most notably on the feast of St Anthony, but also during certain local festivals, notably Sóller on the feast of St Bartholomew.
But, though the dimoni himself bears all the hallmarks of medieval iconography–from horns to tridents and thrashing tails – it would be wrong to associate the tradition with a purely Christian conception of the devil, say most scholars. According to poet and writer Alexandre Ballester, “the dimoni has nothing to do with theology. The dimoni is deeply rooted in Mediterranean society and is a picaresque trickster, and, like any good trickster, he’s often a victim of his own tricks.”
Barcelona-born Mallorca resident Carlos Garrido agrees. “The dimoni represents the most basic instincts, the bestial and the repressed. This is apparent in his deformed, grotesque face and the fact that he’s hairy and dark. Nature itself is seen as something demonic, unexplainable and threatening. His goat horns, his bat wings, his reddish colours (blood and fire), green hue (the colour of lizards) hint at this. He’s composed of all the animals we consider as inferior beasts.”
“Just like an animal, he’s a prisoner of his most base instincts, instincts he’s incapable of repressing. So on the one hand, he inspires fear, but on the other hand, laughter. The dimoni is clumsy, ugly and a half-beast. Mocking the dimoni is quite easy.”
“We’ve a great affection for the dimonis here in Sa Pobla,” explains cheery Margarita Rayó, who leads visitors through the colorful exhibition devoted to the dimoni tradition in this Mallorcan town. “Even if they do carry pokers and forks to stoke the fires and run after people,” she adds, with a laugh.
Dimonis have participated in folk dances since at least the Middle Ages in Mallorca. One of the best-known celebrations is the Cossiers Dance of Algaida, a popular folk dance consisting of six men and one woman, accompanied by a demon, all dancing to the rhythms of the traditional flabiol wood flute. The dance is performed on the eve of the Feast of Saint James in July, and follows a strict route known as a quadrat. Throughout the medieval period, dimonis were used to keep dancers in line, say some scholars, while others see the presence of the woman as representing the soul in battle with evil, personified in the dimoni.
In recent years, dimoni groups have sprung up throughout Mallorca and Catalonia. In Sóller, the formidable Esclatabutzes have been thrilling us since 1996 and spend three months preparing for their big night out dressed as devils on August 24. The group is linked to others throughout the island and in Catalonia in a network that helps other villages set up their own dimoni festivals. In 2002, for instance, the town of Santa Margalida welcomed its first dimonis, thanks to the help of the dimonis from the town of Alaró.
Whatever the origins of the dimonis–folk spirits, as an incarnation of evil, a mix of both or just an excuse for subversive carousing–they seem set to remain a part of Mallorca’s fun-filled fiesta calendar, with more and more participants every year. And it’s no surprise. As Margarita Rayó chuckles, at Sa Pobla’s dimoni museum: “There’s a little bit of a dimoni in all of us.”
Pictured: Demon masks at the Dimoni Museum in the town of Sa Pobla. They escape from the confines of the colorful exhibition space when the town’s youth run riot during the festivals of St Anthony in January. Plus fiery demons on the streets of Sóller.
