Today, Wednesday the 14th of February, Mojácar is preparing to bring the 2024 Carnival to an end with its traditional burial of the sardine and officially start Lent.
The funeral procession will leave the Multi-Uses Centre at 8pm to accompany the deceased sardine to Plaza Nueva, the endpoint of the route.
This year, the sardine will make its last outing on a caravel, emulating those with which Columbus conquered America, but in this case, our herring wants to “conquer the love” of a beautiful mermaid who accompanies him on the boat until his final journey.
Legend has it that the burial of the sardine has its curious origins in the 18th century, due to a batch of these fish that Charles III ordered in 1768 thinking about Lent and the prohibition on eating meat. As at that time the means of transportation were not very fast and the king lived in the capital, the poor sardines did not arrive in a very good state.
The joy and jokes, which have never been lacking in any part of our geography, made the residents of the locality organise a funeral which the “Alegre Cofradía del Entierro de la Sardina” (the Burial of the Sardine Happy Brotherhood), created for the occasion, was in charge of, and which still maintains the tradition that has spread to all towns, captured by Goya himself in his well-known work “The Burial of the Sardine.”
In Mojácar, and as is now usual, the funeral procession will be made up of a large number of wailers and mourners who, in rigorous mourning, with their corresponding candles and publicly expressing their pain, will accompany the deceased.
Presiding over the procession, together with the Mayor and his Government Team, will be a peculiar “priest” officiating at the funeral and reciting the “litanies” that do not fail to contain his pertinent criticism, in a humorous way, of all Mojácar’s well-known figures. To each Saint, the corresponding request, to which the entire procession fervently responds.
Given the solemnity of the moment, the Municipal Music Band will accompany all those who want to join this expression of pain along the route.
When the funeral is over, with duty now fulfilled, the Local Council will offer a good hot chocolate and churros to recover from so much pain and to say farewell to “Don Carnal” (Carnival) and to face the arrival of “Doña Cuaresma” (Lent).
