One of the most interesting original Portuguese popular feasts is celebrated in Lazarim, a village located in the surroundings of Lamego (north of Portugal). Instead of scantily clad dancers, feathers, bright colours and party music, be prepared to encounter people disguised as the devil sporting carved wooden masks and unusual costumes fashioned from materials such as wool, twine, cane, cork and sackcloth.

Lazarim boasts that its pre-Lenten celebrations (Entrudo in Portuguese) are the “most genuine in Portugal”. Although other villages might dispute that, there’s no escaping the fact their traditions and costumes, especially the masks, are old and unique.

To prove the importance of the wooden masks, on Carnival Tuesday, the feasts end with a parade of the “caretos” (masked participants) and a mask contest awards the artisans who take part in these peculiar feasts.

Careto is one of the oldest traditions that’s still being practised in Portugal. It’s a pre-Roman, Celtic ritual that only a handful of villages still partake in. Mask craftsmen from Lazarim work for it throughout the year and the masks construction start soon after the end of the previous year's festivities.

The hand-carved masks are works of art. There’s even a small museum in the village so the craftsmanship can be appreciated year-round and mask-makers spend countless hours transforming a piece of solid wood trunk into a wondrous disguise and each tries to outdo their peers with imaginative designs.

Carving it piece by piece, with a very rough picture of a demon starting to become visible. The oldest artisans even say that you don’t put a mask on a piece of wood, the mask is already inside it and you just need to find a way to reveal it. This is a very poetic way to way to tell that when you need to work with the wood to get a finished mask, try to force something else and it will fail.

Whether Lazarin’s festivities are better than any other Portuguese villages is debatable but the quality of the craftsmanship that goes into their wooden masks is unrivalled.

The wooden masks of Lazarim