The Carnival of Madeira () is an annual

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival ...

held forty days before

Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...

, that ends on

Shrove Tuesday Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), observed in many Christian countries through participating in confession and absolution, the ritual burning of the previous year's Holy Week palms, finalizing one's Lenten ...

(called Fat Tuesday in Madeira - Terça-feira Gorda in

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

) the day before Ash Wednesday (first day of Lent). On certain days of

Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...

, Roman Catholics traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival," from ''carnelevare'', "to remove (literally, "raise") meat."

Organization

One of the first major festivals of the year in Madeira, apart from the Dia dos Reis, the Madeira carnival is known as one of the best in Europe. Traditionally, there are two main carnival parades in Madeira, which are very different from each other. The allegoric parade, which takes place always on the Saturday of the Carnival weekend, is the more sophisticated one and needs a great deal of commitment and organisation from all the groups and the people involved. Numerous samba groups with thousands of participants in magnificent and colourful costumes dance to electrifying samba music through the streets of

Funchal Funchal () is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Autonomous Region of Madeira, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The city has a population of 105,795, making it the sixth largest city in Portugal. Because of its high ...

, spreading an ambiance evoking the Rio Carnival. The second parade, called ‘trapalhão’, is older and used to occur all over the island, now it floods the streets of the city centre with thrilling joy on Terça-feira Gorda, ending the Carnival period. In this parade everybody can take part and the – sometimes quite daring – costumes and depicted caricatures are left to the participants’ own imagination. Both parades have a defined itinerary in the city centre and end at the Municipal Square (Praça do Município) where more entertainment with live music and costume competitions is provided. At least one month before the Carnival peak time the best-known and established Carnival groups visit the hotels and entertain the guests with dance and music performances. During the 19th century people from Madeira emigrated to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

and took the tradition of Malasadas on Terça-feira Gorda (

) with them, now it is called Malasada Day in Hawaii. Traditionally the people of Madeira eat

Malasada A malasada ( pt, malassada, from "'' mal- assada''" = "badly-baked"; similar to filhós), sometimes called "Portuguese fried dough," is a Portuguese confection. It is a fried type of doughnut, made of flattened rounds of yeast dough, flavoured ...

s on Terça-feira Gorda (

), the reason for making malasadas was to use up all the lard and sugar in the house, in preparation for

(much in the same way the tradition of Pancake Day in the UK originated on

s are sold alongside the main carnival parade on Saturday and on the last one, the trapalhão on Terça-feira Gorda (

). Arguably, the

Brazilian Carnival The Carnival of Brazil ( pt, Carnaval do Brasil, ) is an annual Brazilian festival held the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and s ...

could be historically traced to the period of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries when their

caravels The caravel (Portuguese: , ) is a small maneuverable sailing ship used in the 15th century by the Portuguese to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. The lateen sails gave it speed and the capacity for sailing win ...

passed regularly through Madeira, a territory which already celebrated emphatically its carnival season, and where they were loaded with goods but also people and their ludic and cultural expressions who then lend them to what would become the biggest cultural manifestation in modern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Themes of the Saturday Parades

* 1999 - 20th Century: was a retrospective look at various aspects of the 20th century, costumes etc. * 2000 - Millennium Fantasies: was a look towards to the future, costumes etc. * 2010 - Seas and Oceans: Celebrating the life given to Madeira via seas and oceans * 2011 - Magical Forest: Wednesday 2 March - Tuesday 8 March, the main carnival celebrated magical forests. * 2012 - Signs of the Zodiac: Wednesday 15 February - Tuesday 21 February, celebrated the signs of the

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pat ...

* 2013 - Madeira Magical Moments: Wednesday 6 February - Tuesday 12 February * 2014 - Madeira Sparkling Carnival: Wednesday 26 February - Tuesday 4 March * 2015 - Magic of Light: Wednesday 11 February to Wednesday 18 February * 2016 - Carnival of Dreams: Wednesday February 3 to Wednesday 10 February * 2017 - The Great Gatsby: Wednesday February 22 to Wednesday March 1 * 2018 - Madeira – 6 centuries of joy: Wednesday February 7 to Sunday February 18 * 2019 - Madeira – 600 years discoverying revelry: Wednesday February 26 to Sunday March 10 * 2020 - Carnival in Fantasy (): Wednesday February 19 to Sunday March 1

References

External links

Página do Turismo da Madeira(in Portuguese)Magical Forest Theme carnival for 2011(in Portuguese)Madeiraislands.travelProgram for the Madeira Carnival 2011Madeira Seekers (in Portuguese)
{{Carnival around the world Carnivals in Portugal Madeiran culture February observances March observances

Organization

Themes of the Saturday Parades

See also

References

External links