SAMUGHEO

January 16, 2013 First release of Mamutzones SAMUGHEO de San Antonio

I’Mamutzones of Samugheo, are part of the rich and original repertoire carnivalesque of the inland areas of the island, where the cult of tradition is still very much alive.
Masks Samugheo (Or) are those that retain most of the features from which they originate. Although their original meaning has partly lost, they represent a time the passion and death of Dionysus, the god of vegetation, whose festivals were celebrated in almost all the ancient agrarian societies. Dionysus, the god who died and was reborn every year, as the vegetation is represented by zoomorphic mask of “s’Urtzu”, wearing a whole skin of a goat, with the head attached. The goat was in fact the most common form in which God was manifested. The representation of his passion, which in ancient times was a sacred ceremony in the Christian period was trivialized and downgraded to a simple carnival mask. In this form it has come down to our century. “S’Urtzu”, held for the life of Su Omadore, his guardian, every now and then falls to the ground and pretended passion before his death.
The masks of the “Mamutzones” instead represented the followers of Dionysus. They dress in skins and hides his face with a cap of cork fitted with genuine horns goat or beef, try to reach the Dionysian ecstasy and be taken over by the god to become like him. Every so often surround “s’Urtzu” and dance around. Once all Mamutzones brought with them a stick wrapped in ivy or periwinkle, in the likeness of Tirso. This instrument is somewhat cumbersome, is now being led by a few mask and the one who leads the group. The bells have apotropaic meaning, ie they want, with their sound away from the ceremony to keep the evil spirits.