Mask Producers and Mask Bearers in the Galician Entroido of the 21st Century

Drawing on a selection of traditional masks present in Galicia, the paper focuses on the observation and analysis of the persistence and transformations of the Galician Entroido. The research is not concerned with bourgeois and urban Carnivals associated with modernity and contemporary society, but rather focuses on those manifestations typical of the rural world and linked to local peasant society. Over the last two decades, these entroidos have attracted the attention of public authorities and have become subject to processes of touristification. This research examines the know-how involved in producing the materiality of winter masks in the Galician Entroido: clothing, masks, and accessories, as well as how these objects adapt to the resources and time constraints allowed or imposed by the current post-industrial and hyper-connected society. The research also examines how the processes of knowledge transmission that arose in an oral culture, but continue to be reproduced in the 21st century, are being transformed.