Su Bundu of Orani

One of the most mysterious and interesting masks of the entire Sardinian carnival is that of Su Bundu. All the carnival of Orani is focused around this figure.
The Bundu is easy to recognize. It wears traditional farmer clothing with heavy winter overcoat under which he wears a shirt and a bodice, velvet trousers and traditional chaps.

The mask is unique in its kind. Entirely made of cork, often colored in red, it has long white horns, also strictly white mustaches and goatee on which stands a large nose and often a benign and serene expression. The Bundu never goes around without the unfailing pitchfork.

The masks come together in procession through screams and powerful shouts enacting a sort of pantomime that recalls the farmers sowing and harvesting rites.


The mask, (created in a later period than the other forms of traditional Sardinian ones), is a cross between the ox and the man, where evidently the human aspect prevails though soaked by the slight semi-bestial line given by the great size of the mask.
The terrible voices, the excited screams and the whole ritual finally give the figure an aura of mythical and ghostly damnation.