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The festival of the Vijanera in the village of Silio in Cantabria seems little more than an extravagant costume party. Yet partygoers decked out in pointed hats, cow bells and colorful feathers still look fairly normal compared to the ones who run around like tree trunks, green bushes or a white bear. What makes these adult villagers act like a bunch of idiots on every first Sunday of the year?
The purpose of all those bizarre outfits is to drive away evil spirits in all kinds of different ways, so that the whole community can head into a prosperous new year. The hunt for evil is quite complex. The dressed up men (for some reason women are not allowed) all play different characters, called the Zarramacos. Most of them are hung with cow bells, wear strange hats and sheep skins and have their faces painted. But the rules are not already strict. The men in the even more daring and unrecognizable creations are the so-called trapajones. These are creatures from nature. Hence the tree trunks and green shrubs.
Together they must fight evil. The grand prize is the defeat of the white bear, which is the main symbol of all evil in the world. The holiday invariably starts with the reading of the coplas. This is a humorous and slightly critical story about what went wrong in Silio in the previous year. Then the bear is awakened from hibernation. Then the party starts with a wild chase through the village, which eventually culminates in the finding of the bear and the symbolic death of the 'animal'.
The exact origin of the festival, which has the official status of national tourist interest, is not one hundred percent clear. But it is certain that it goes back to before Roman rule. Over the years it has of course changed and become a lot more exuberant. Now it is mainly a mixture of superstition, culture, religion and a good dose of fun.
