The oldest folk dancers in Mallorca

Mallorca’s folk dance tradition is very much alive today.

There are numerous ball de bot dance troupes, and there is also the present-day homage paid to centuries of culture embodied by the cossiers and the cavallets, who are notable for the horse figures that are worn around the waist. These ‘knights’ originated in Barcelona and crossed to Mallorca in the middle of the fifteenth century. Their history is older than that of the cossiers. In Llucmajor, there have been cavallets since 1458. Known as the cavallets cotoners, the name is derived from the Guild of Cottonmakers in Barcelona, to which ownership of that city’s cavallets was ceded in 1437.

As with some other traditions in Mallorca, the Llucmajor cavallets went into decline, so much so that they ceased to be. In 2000, they were revived, and they have been dancing for the Santa Candida fiestas ever since. These dancers are children.