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COMENIUS MULTILATERAL PARTNERSHIPS 2012-2014

2. Carnival is a festival that is celebrated in countries of Christian tradition.
The celebrations often take place in public parades. The distinctive and char-
acteristic of the carnival is the use of masking.
The word carnival comes from the Latin carnem upbeat ("eliminate meat") as
originally indicated the banquet that was held on the last day of Carnival
(Mardi Gras), immediately before the period of fasting and abstinence of
Lent
Carnival is one of the most important traditional festivity in Italy that
starts on the seventh Sunday before Easter and ends on the last Tuesday be-
fore Lent.
Each village, in Basilicata, has a typical parade.

3. Every year, in San Mauro Forte, on 16th January, the Carnival festivities begin with
a cowbells’ parade: people divided in two different groups and started to walk around
the village’s streets playing big cowbells.
This festivity has ancient origins: it has a propitiatory meaning: to stay away from ills
and to hope for rich harvests.

4. On 17 th January, in Tricarico, a din of bells and
colored ribbons swarms invade the country from
the early hours of dawn. People is dressed as cows
and bulls, representing a herd in transhumance.
On this day the masks gather around the church of
Sant 'Antonio Abate, on the edge of town, and af-
ter completing three laps around the building pro-
pitiatory, as dictated by tradition, are started in
procession to the village.

5. In Stigliano, since 1984, like other important and famous places in Italy (Viareggio,
Putignano) there is an important handmade paper mache puppets parade with funny
and coloured masks dancing in the village’s streets.

9. Characteristic are, also, the “Horned masks” handmade in Aliano.

10. The "horned masks" are grotesque and diabolical animal figures. Dressed in knickers
with harness horses and mules hung, are decorated with leather bands with bells and
gears and belts of horsehair. They face covered by a hideous mask made of clay and
papier-mâché with a big nose and big horns. On their heads they wear feathers roo-
ster arranged by way of hair, and sheepskins in hand withered and rolled.

13. Traditional foods
RAFANATA (eggs, cheese, rafano)
rafano
SANGUINACCIO (cake with chocolate and pork blood cream)