The Vijanera of Silió
La Vijanera is a winter masquerade held in Silió, a town in the Cantabrian municipality of Molledo. Bells, masks, skins, animal characters and theatrical scenes travel through the town to represent the passage from one cycle to another. The community maintains a tradition of great ethnographic value linked to other European masquerades.
Date and place of celebration
It is celebrated on first sunday of the year. When that Sunday coincides with 1 January, the organisation moves the masquerade to the following Sunday. The events take place in Silió and its surroundings, with an itinerary and schedules that must be confirmed in the programme of each edition.
La Vijanera does not automatically convert the day into a public holiday. This condition depends on the official work calendar and the local holidays that are approved for Molledo in the corresponding year.
Origin, loss and recovery
The sources of the organizing association relate the celebration to ancient winter masquerades spread throughout different valleys of Cantabria. In Silió it remained until the 1930s and disappeared for several decades. At the end of the seventies, recovery work began and, since 1982, the modern Vijanera was established again in the town.
The oral transmission of those who had known the old troupes, together with photographs and historical documentation, made it possible to recompose characters and scenes without presenting the current festival as an immutable reproduction of a single moment from the past.
Characters of La Vijanera
More than a hundred participants represent dozens of figures. Among the best known are the zarramacos, covered with skins and large bells; the bear and his master; the trapajones, dressed in plant materials; the lady and the young man; old; the dancers; La Pepa and different burlesque characters.
Each figure has its own clothing, gestures and functions. The ringing of the bells, the races and the interaction with the public turn the masquerade into a traveling performance, not a simple costume parade.
Acts and meaning
- Departure of the characters and tour of the entourage through Silió.
- Symbolic defence of the line or limit of the community.
- Capture and ritual death of the bear, associated with triumph over negative forces.
- Scenes of birth and renewal that announce the beginning of a new cycle.
- Reading satirical couplets about events of the previous year.
The meanings have been interpreted from agricultural, social and symbolic perspectives. It is convenient to explain these readings as interpretations of the rite and not as unique historical certainties.
Reconocimiento y conservación
La Vijanera is declared a Festival of National Tourist Interest and an Asset of Intangible Ethnographic Cultural Interest. The Friends of Vijanera Cultural Association organises and documents the celebration and maintains an interpretation centre in Silió dedicated to its costumes, masks and collective memory.