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Here Come the Carantoñas!

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De Carmenventurav - Trabajo propio, CC BY-SA 4.0

 

In Acehuche, Spain, there’s yet another remnant of pagan culture much like the Krampus legends of Austria. Much like Krampus, the Carantoñas were co-opted by the Catholic church and are now a part of the festival celebrating the town’s patron saint, St. Sebastian, on January 2oth.

One big difference is that this is a daytime festival held every January 20th, so it has nothing to do with the Christmas season, but the similarities are striking. Men in the town dress up in homemade Carantoñas costumes and parade through the streets, much like the townsfolk at Austrian Krampuslaufs.

I expect there are similar vestiges all over Europe - leftovers of a time when the Catholic church was working hard to push pagan traditions aside. Most of those practices continued in some form or another but it’s only since the internet has become truly global in reach that we’re learning about many of them.