Who are those people with giant head masks?   Known as the “comparsa,” you will see this group of characters chasing children and dancing to traditional music through the streets of Pamplona.   There are three types of costumed characters: gigantes, cabezudos and kilikis.

The gigantes of Pamplona have always been made by local amateurs, painters and carpenters. In the thirteenth century Pamplona already had three “roughly hewn wooden giants.”  Records suggest that in the 1520s the gigantes danced ahead of the San Fermín procession. In 1640, however, the city government paid the Sangüesa native Gaspar de Ramos five hundred reales to make five giant heads.

The gigantes we know today were made in 1860 by the local artisan Tadeo Amorena.  Amorena was commissioned by the City Hall to make new giants, which had to be ‘extremely light’, ‘provenly solid’ and be ‘noble figures, of elegant forms and proportions’. Amorena first made the two white giants, the European kings, and was later commissioned to make a further six.

The cabezudos are the giants’ courtiers, and were added almost thirty years later. They are the solemn members of the procession.  They don’t dance, and they march slowly. They have no special name, other than ‘the mayor’, ‘the councillor’, ‘the grandmother’, ‘the Japanese gentleman’ and ‘the Japanese lady’.

The kilikis, who strike terror in the hearts of Pamplona’s children, are named Barbas, Patata, Verrugón, Coletas, Caravinagre and Napoleón.  Barbas and Coletas are the oldest figures, and the rest were made from 1912 to 1941.

It was around this same time in the early 20th century that the zaldikos or caballicos were added: part jesters, part page boys. None of the six zaldikos has a name, and they all bear the municipal coat of arms on their hind quarters.  These characters have been part of Navarra’s folklore for centuries.