Explosive Carnival in Portugal

The Carnival celebration in Portugal begins on the XI century and is celebrated during the 3 days that precede the Ash Wednesday. In Portugal, the most traditional name for Carnival is "Entrudo", from the Latin word "introitus". During the festivities, people wear scary masks and make lots of pranks with each other. As the Carnival is right before the 40 days of lent, people use it to celebrate the "desires of the flesh", so, everything related to that is practiced during the Carnival festivities.

Anyway, lets talk about the "explosive" part of the Portuguese Carnival. During this celebration, the culminanting moment is what we call the "Enterro do Entrudo", or, in English, "The Shrovetide Burial". This is like a funeral procession of a scary puppet with some bombs inside ( usually small salute bombettes ) that is carried inside a coffin through the streets followed by a crowd (some people in the crowd cry during this moment, like in a real funeral procession making the moment even more intriguing). At the end of the procession, usually in a square or any open place, there is the end moment - fire is set to the puppet and leave it burn and explode in pieces - this is an amazing moment, because parts of the puppet like clothes and straw fly due to the explosions. Unfortunately in some places (I think the majority today) don't use bombs inside the puppet and just let it burn, but some still preserve the ancient tradition.

I think this kind of celebration also exists in some other countries, if you live in a country that also celebrates Carnival this way, please let us know in the comments.

entrudo

Image from https://www.altominho.tv

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