The Pero Palo feast

Villanueva de la Vera lives carnival time reproducing an ancient tradition. The people of this town judges a puppet that represents a bandit.

The Pero Palo feast is the specific way that inhabitants of Villanueva de La Vera celebrates Carnival time.

Its origin is still unknown, but some hypothesis illustrate the basis: It could be a bandit, a warrior or a debt collector who was executed in the village.

Other theories state that it was a way to denounce the abuse of authority that landlords were carrying out during Middle Ages.

Whatever its origin, the celebration recreates a popular trial against this figure. The feast has last up to present times, and it is a well-known tradition among the people who live in the zone.

The figure itself is a puppet filled with straw and dressed up with typical male costume in La Vera. Moreover, the 'turra', its head, is made of wood and is preserved along the years.

On Carnival Sunday and Monday the Pero Palo is carried by peropaleros, people who carry the puppet, and drummers through the streets till the main square . There, the Pero Palo suffer wath they called judiás: taunts and insults.

People are divided in two factions : accusers and those who deffend Pero Palo.

On Carnival Tuesday morning, the big tuesday, Pero Palo is condemned to death. The sentence is announced by a horseman. The inhabitants celebrate this sentence shooting their arms into the air and playing firecrakers .

In the afternoon, two Captains: a man and a woman, participate in the parade trhough the streets accompanied by music and drumms. Then, in the main square, people carry out the ofertorio, an act where people donate money.

At the end of the day, Pero Palo's straw body is burnt and his head preserved for the next year, and the people at Villanueva says goodbye to this ancient feast.

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