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    <title><![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Giants]]></title>
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    <ttl>10</ttl>
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      <title><![CDATA[Franco, against the giants of the Islands]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/culture/history/franco-against-the-giants-of-the-islands_130_5634545.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/b9e7083c-c004-4ddf-91c1-42fe55737df7_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" /></p><p>Today, giants are the protagonists of many civic celebrations. Their origin, however, was religious, within the context of Corpus Christi. The most important ancient feast of Christendom was instituted in Europe in the 13th century. It was set on the calendar 60 days after Easter Sunday to venerate 'the body of Christ,' personified in the consecrated host. Initially, it took place inside churches, but from the 14th century onward, it moved into the streets in the form of a procession. Attention then turned to men in costumes and on stilts who recreated episodes from sacred history with the aim of making it known to the illiterate population. Very soon, those actors became giants. The first one in the West dates from 1424 and was built in Barcelona. It was a replica of Goliath, the Philistine giant whom David, the future king of Israel, captured with a powerful slingshot. It already had the characteristic rigid shell that encases the man wearing it. In the Balearic Islands, the appearance of enormous anthropomorphic figures occurred two centuries later. The first is documented in Sóller in 1630 and the second in Sineu in 1653, the latter already integrated into a local festival, that of Sant Roc. The first Mallorcan giant whose name we know, Puput, dates from 1762 and is from Sant Llorenç. And in Menorca, the oldest giants are those of Maó. They arrived rented in 1934 from Barcelona to liven up the festivities of the Virgen de Gracia – the City Council would eventually buy the figures, which would not be given names (Tomeu and Guida) until 1992. In the Pitiusas Islands, however, the giant tradition was entirely nonexistent. </p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Antoni Janer Torrens]]></dc:creator>
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      <pubDate><![CDATA[Sat, 31 Jan 2026 15:46:41 +0000]]></pubDate>
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      <media:title><![CDATA[The giant shoemakers of Inca from 1994.]]></media:title>
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      <subtitle><![CDATA[The Franco regime marginalized certain iconic figures characteristic of many civic festivals, which originated in medieval Europe within the religious celebration of Corpus Christi. Since the 1980s, municipalities in the Balearic Islands, with the exception of the Pitiusas Islands, have continuously created new ones, spurred on by the massive Catalan independence movement.]]></subtitle>
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