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The salt de Maces owes its name to the utensils that the demons, disguised in green and red dresses and with their faces covered by a mask, carry in their dance. In Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia we can relive it with this snapshot captured in the Patum of this 2023.
The popular salt de Maces is quite different from both the Patum de lluïment and the full Patum of the night. At noon, eight devils act.
They brandish large maces (tools consisting of a stick more than two meters high, on top of which there is a round wooden and leather box that is topped with a fireworks) and that are intertwined from two opposing groups of four devils. each.
In the middle, Sant Miquel and an angel cross paths with the devils until, when they snap their fuets, they kill them with the spear and the sword. This jump is accompanied with music.
The celebration of the Corpus Christi party par excellence in Berguedà is the Patum de Berga. Its origin comes from the hors d’oeuvres that paraded in the old processions. In the middle of the 14th century, it ended up becoming the festival of the Bulla or Bustle of the Blessed Sacrament and, finally, in the Patum.
La Patum has different comparsas. The Maces represent the fight between Good and Evil, and they do it hand in hand with angels and demons. Originally they were part of the same performance as the Plens (the most spectacular element of the Patum, the final ecstasy of the festival, when Plaça de Sant Pere turns into hell).
