There is a festival that takes place here on the island smack dap between Christmas and Three Kings Day which is called FESTIVAL DE LAS MÁSCARAS DE HATILLO. I had the opportunity to attend this festival for the first time about three years ago and it was an awakening to say the least.
It is no longer the festival of our fathers and grand fathers times with the traditional sack masked riders on horse back. Now it is an elaborate and I might add expensive affair that is more like a roving street riot than the festival it is supposed to be. Somehow, throughout the years this festival has been transformed into something of a free for all for the modern young people which is catered to by many of the local merchants. Many of the floats don’t even have a relationship with the traditional and in the one I attended there was even a float that displayed a Nazi Swastika! What that had to do with the festival is a mystery to me and those that attended it. It is a festival that is permeated with large consumptions of alcohol
According to various data this festival was brought here from Tenerife in the Canary islands. Tenerife (previously known and spelled as “Teneriffe” in English, before mass tourism adopted the Spanish spelling), a Spanish island, is the largest of the seven Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. Tenerife is the most populous island in the Canaries, and the most populous of all Spanish islands.
Well, you can judge for yourself from this short video documentary of the festival by MANUEL MORA MORALES.
For more such videos go to the link below:
CANAL OFICIAL DE AMAZONAS FILMS®
Tags: CANAL OFICIAL DE AMAZONAS FILMS, LAS MÁSCARAS DE HATILLO, MANUEL MORA MORALES, Tenerife
