maenad’s column
Every year they celebrate the Majorcan tradition of fire and devils on the eve of the 16th of January.
Great bonfires are lit across the island and crowds dressed as devils dance around them taking part in the ancient ritual of purification and the triumph of good over evil.
The modern reason for the festival is Sant Antoni the patron saint of animals. He was an Egyptian Christian monk who, was visited by the Devil, in the guise of a woman whilst living in the desert. To avoid temptation he walked across the burning embers of a fire and therein was born the tradition.
But I believe that this yearly celebration is an eco of the earlier tradition of the cult of Dionysus once a predominant religion in the Mediterranean in which worshippers led by women partook in a psychedelic cult of nature worship. Dionysus is often represented by a faun which is where we get our modern imagery for the devil. The transformation of pagan ritual into Christian ones is very common one and the removal of the significant religious roles previously played by women is a reoccurring theme with the church often through the demonisation of women.
So for me this sculpture is symbolic of the ancient tradition of priestess’s using sacred pharmacology to lead communities in the worship of the mysteries of the power of nature and the yearly cycle through the seasons of death and rebirth.