The burial of the sardine marks the end of Carnival. | J. AGUIRRE
Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday and Entierro de la Sardina, all celebrations for the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.
The latter of these, the burial of the sardine, is a Spanish tradition, the origins of which are disputed. One theory comes from the eighteenth century - King Carlos III gave nobles in Madrid a shipment of sardines for Lent. When they arrived, they smelt awful, so they were buried. Another is that a slice of bacon (a forbidden food) was called sardine. The most popular explanation concerns students in Murcia in 1851. They organised a funeral procession with a sardine, all to do with burying the excesses of Carnival and in a humorous way.
The funeral cortege, replete with weeping widows and a giant comedy sardine carried by pallbearers, is what a local association in Pòrtol (Marratxi) came up with in the early 1990s. This was the first place where the tradition caught on in Mallorca, and its procession is the best known. The sardine (made of cardboard) isn't buried, it's put on a bonfire, and then there's a sardine barbecue.
It's a daft event that is formally organised in only a few villages and towns - Inca and Manacor are among them.