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| Carnival
Activities |
The
Barranquilla Carnival
starts off with the
Pre-Carnival, during
which activities like
the following are
carried out:
|
Event |
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Reading
of the edict |
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Dancing
and "cumbia
festival" |
|
Carnival
music and its
roots |
|
Crowning
of the Carnival
Queen |
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Crowning
of the People's
Queen and the
Carnival King |
|
Children's
Carnival
Procession |
The
festival is launched
with the traditional
reading of the edict,
in which the
government, the
chairman of the
Carnival Board and the
Carnival Queen all
participate.
Every Friday of this
season is a Carnival
Friday, during which
the Queen participates
in parties, dances and
people’s street
festivities.
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| Carnival Schedule |
The
following events are
planned for the
Barranquilla Carnival:
|
Event |
|
Flower
Battle |
|
Parade
of the Carnival
King |
|
Great
Traditional
Parade |
|
Great
Fantasy Parade |
|
Festival
of the
Orchestras |
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Festival
of Courting and
Special Dances,
Comedies and
Litanies |
|
Joselito
is departing
with the ashes |
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Forty days
before Holy Week, Barranquilla, capital of
Atlántico Department, decks itself out to
receive national and foreign tourists who,
attracted by the fame of its festival, join
together with the city’s inhabitants to
enjoy four days of the country’s most
important folklore celebration.
During this period, the Carnival Queen
presides over the different festivities until
Tuesday, when the symbolic burial of Joselito
Carnival brings the celebration to an end and
announces the preparations for the next year’s
Carnival.
Barranquilla’s inhabitants, irrespective of
race or creed, join together to make the
Carnival. For them, what is important is
to dance and enjoy themselves for four days
and then prepare for the following year’s
celebration.
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History
of the Carnival |
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Its
history has been passed down from father to
son to keep its roots from being lost in the
mists of time. It is said that the
Spaniards brought with them the tradition of
celebrating the European carnival. This,
the slaves in Barranquilla combined with their
own traditions, by taking to the streets on
the cited dates, dressed in typical garb,
singing, dancing and playing their
instruments.
More recent tales tell that toward the year
1903, General Carajo proclaimed himself
President and started dancing in Ancha Street;
in 1918, the first Carnival Queen was chosen
and enjoyed her crowning amid the rhythm of
waltzes, "pasillos," champagne and
Scotch, in a private club in the city, while
the general public gathered in the
well-known "salones burreros"
or "corralejas" set up in the
streets to the accompaniment of the native
"cumbia" dance, drums, bagpipes and
white rum.
In 1921, the young people protested over the
separate organization and decided to join the
general public and make it a single
festival.
From then on, the "cumbias" and
other dances, parades and costumes have taken
on different expressions reflecting the people’s
creativeness.
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Points
on the Route |
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 Flower
Battle
The Carnival starts with the Flower Battle,
initially organized to replace the bullets of
war with flowers of peace, and today
considered one of the main activities.
It takes place during the Queen’s parade in
which the carriages and floats of the club
leaders advance amid their groups of
"cumbia" dancers.
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 Great
Parade
The Great Parade swings through the
city streets on Carnival Sunday while the
judges stand by to choose the best dancers and
costumes.
The imagination of the Barranquilla dwellers
reaches its maximum expression during the
Great Parade, in the dances of the different
Carnival clubs, as influenced by their African
origin. The best known dances are those
of the "Torito," or little bull, and
the "Diablo," or Devil, in which
multihued animal masks fashioned from wood and
painted in tones of black, red, white and
yellow keep pace to the beating of the
drums.
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 Dances
of the Congo
These dances have been passed down as the
symbol of the Carnival, conserving the African
tradition in their movements, which narrate
the history of their black forefathers in
Africa, the sad memory of their slavery in
America and its subsequent abolition.
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 Burial
of Joselito Carnival
As the story goes, Joselito was a coach driver
in the city who worked unceasingly, enjoying
himself only on
Tuesdays.
One day, he drank more that he was accustomed
to and fell asleep in his coach.
Carnival merry makers passing by jeered at his
drunken state. In their euphoria, they
decided to take poor Joselito in his own
carriage to the cemetery, while men and women
formed a funeral cortege, crying and lamenting
the death of the coachman with phrases such as
"Joselito has died, oh! Joselito! Why
have you died? Why have you left us,
Joselito?" These lamentations, year
after year, announce the end of the Carnival.
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