This year traditions stars on time and the first event is on the 17th January. It is one of the most known and colorful festivals in the Balearic Islands, the Sant Antoni festival. It has a wide range of leisure, cultural and entertainment activities in contact with nature and local culture.
Sant Antoni festival results from the Christianization of old ceremonies and primitive cults engaged to pagan divinities that protected fertility, crops and animals.
Sant Antoni, the patron saint of animals and agriculture.
January 17 is its feast day and a great party is held with a procession of floats. In addition, bonfires, singing & dancing, devil-chasing and the parade of the “big heads” (huge puppets representing traditional Majorcan figures) conspire to fill the streets of the temptations that Sant Antoni could not resist.
Sant Antoni as the patron saint of Majorcan agriculture is the protector of crops, fields and animals, especially domestic animals that live with men as dogs, cats, canaries, pigs, chickens and livestock.
Traditions of Sant Antoni festival in Majorca
The veneration of Sant Antoni has been represented in many ways throughout the history. It has evolved to become the great party celebrated today in Majorca. Currently they maintained the reason to venerate the saint, to ask for protection for animals and agriculture.
In many towns of Majorca, as well as in the fishermen’s village Sa Punta de s’Estalella, Sant Antoni’s Day is a holiday. Crowds of locals and tourists congregate in the streets. The night before they gather around the bonfires, dance with the devil or go to the church where their animals are blessed by Sant Antoni.
Book you sustainable accommodation in Majorca and this 2017 join the biggest festival of the island!