Most descriptions of Pamplona’s comparsa de gigantes y cabezudos treat it as a single 1860 creation: eight giants, some smaller companions, all built at once by the same hand. That is wrong on the point that matters most. The cabezudos, the five big-headed figures that open the procession every morning of San Fermín, were built in 1890 by a different craftsman entirely, three decades after the giants they are constantly lumped in with.
The distinction is not trivia. It explains why the cabezudos look, move, and behave nothing like the giants they precede: different proportions, a different construction era, a different design brief. It also points at something bigger that general coverage misses entirely. The comparsa is not one parade of costumed figures. It is 25 separate municipally owned objects, built by three different craftsmen across three different centuries, carried by 58 rotating members of one dedicated association, and marched through a different set of streets every single day of the nine-day festival. Understanding the comparsa as a logistics operation, not a mascot, changes how you watch it.
This account draws on the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona’s own institutional records, including the 1860 letter in which sculptor Tadeo Amorena offered to build the city’s new giants, the city’s day-by-day 2026 route documentation, and figure-by-figure construction data published through the city’s own cultural portal.
What the Comparsa Actually Is
The comparsa de gigantes y cabezudos consists of 25 papier-mâché figures, all owned by the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona: 8 gigantes, 5 cabezudos, 6 kilikis, and 6 zaldikos. They are not a single design generation. Each class was built by a different craftsman in a different era: the giants and two of the earliest kilikis by Tadeo Amorena in 1860, the cabezudos by Félix Flores in 1890, two kilikis and two zaldikos by Benito Escaler of Barcelona in 1912, and the final two kilikis and two zaldikos by the Porta Coeli workshop of Valencia in 1941.
Carrying and dancing all 25 figures falls to the Comparsa de Gigantes y Cabezudos de Pamplona, the association registered with the city at Calle Yanguas y Miranda. Roughly 58 members work in rotating shifts each morning: three carriers per giant, since a full gigante can weigh up to 64 kilograms and reach nearly 3.8 meters with its bearer, and two carriers per cabezudo, kiliki, and zaldiko, who swap at midday. Music is not incidental. Seven separate gaita bands and one txistulari group each accompany a specific giant, note for note, every time that giant moves through the streets.
None of this is what a visitor sees glancing at a single photo of “the giants.” It is a coordinated daily operation with a headcount larger than most Pamplona restaurants employ.
The History Nobody Dates Correctly
The tradition is far older than any figure currently marching. The first documented reference to a giants’ comparsa in Pamplona goes back to 1600. By 1657, a builder named Francisco de Azpigalla had constructed eight giants and two smaller companion figures for the city, at a cost of 4,064 reales. For roughly two centuries, both Pamplona’s cathedral and its Ayuntamiento kept separate sets of giants for their own processions.
That two-century run, deeper than the age-comparison most visitors have heard about, very nearly did not survive. It ended in the late 18th century, when King Carlos III banned processional giants as an unserious distraction from religious devotion. The Ayuntamiento’s figures were destroyed outright. The cathedral’s set was simply abandoned until 1813, when a carpenter rediscovered them and the tradition resumed: six giants representing a Turkish pair, a Moorish pair, and a Caucasian pair. Restored again in 1839, they were in poor condition by 1860, which is what prompted Tadeo Amorena, a Pamplona-born painter, to write to the city council that March.
Amorena’s letter, preserved in the city archive, offered to build one or two giants for nothing but the cost of materials, specifying that the new figures had to be light enough (under roughly 80 libras total) for their carriers to maneuver safely, structurally sound despite that lightness, and built to noble, academically correct proportions. The council paid him 2,600 reales for the first pair, added a 1,000-real bonus, then commissioned six more for 6,000 reales. All eight debuted at San Fermín in 1860, and the council gave Amorena the old, worn-out giants in exchange. Those are the same eight figures, largely unaltered in structure, that still march every July.
The Cabezudos, Specifically
The cabezudos are the figures a first-time visitor is most likely to mistake for younger versions of the giants, and the mistake is understandable: they are smaller, cruder, closer to street level, and clearly built for a rougher kind of contact with the crowd. But they were made three decades after the giants, in 1890, by sculptor Félix Flores, and their design brief was entirely different. Where the giants are meant to be admired from a distance, the cabezudos exist to walk directly among people.
Each cabezudo has a head over a meter tall and more than two meters in circumference, weighs about 14 kilograms, and represents a generic figure rather than a specific person: Alcalde (mayor), Concejal (councilman), Abuela (grandmother), and a pair called Japonés and Japonesa. The Alcalde figure has a small mechanical quirk that makes him a crowd favorite: an internal counterweight system keeps his eyes level with the ground no matter how his head tilts, so from below it looks like he is watching you. The cabezudos’ job is specific and unglamorous. They walk ahead of the giants, opening a path through the crowd, and stop to take children by the hand as they go.
Kilikis, Zaldikos, and the Daily Route
The remaining two classes round out the 25-figure total. The six kilikis are smaller, tricorn-hatted comic figures who carry a foam-tipped rod and swat spectators as they pass, a tradition that in earlier decades used leather or an inflated animal bladder instead of foam. The six zaldikos, whose name comes from the Basque word for “little horse,” are hobby-horse figures with mounted riders who do the same. Neither class is one single generation either: some kilikis and zaldikos date to Amorena’s 1860 workshop, others to Escaler in 1912, others to Porta Coeli in 1941.
What ties all four classes together day to day is the route, and the route changes daily. In 2026, the comparsa alternates its departure point between the Estación de Autobuses and the Palacio de Ezpeleta depending on the date, and no two days of the nine-day run follow an identical street path. On July 7, the comparsa’s route runs to the cathedral to collect the Cabildo, then to the Iglesia de San Lorenzo ahead of the religious procession of San Fermín itself. On the festival’s more crowded days, the route deliberately shifts toward the city’s wider, newer streets to manage the volume of people. None of this is improvised. Every departure time and every street is published in advance by the city.
The Two Moments That Matter Most
Two points in the nine-day run stand apart from the daily circuit. On the morning of July 7, after collecting the cathedral’s Cabildo, the giants dance in the cathedral atrium while the Campana María, the largest bell in active use in Spain, rings overhead. It is the single moment the comparsa ties directly into the religious heart of the festival rather than functioning as street entertainment alongside it.
The second is the closing ceremony on July 14, at 14:00 in the Plaza Consistorial. The cabezudos, kilikis, and zaldikos hand out candy to the children they have spent nine days swatting with foam rods, a small, deliberate apology built into the tradition itself. The giants are lowered slowly by their carriers until each one’s head reaches the height of the crowd below, so that children can kiss it goodbye before the figures are put away until the next San Fermín.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many figures are in Pamplona’s comparsa de gigantes y cabezudos?
Twenty-five: 8 gigantes, 5 cabezudos, 6 kilikis, and 6 zaldikos, all owned by the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona and carried by members of one dedicated association.
Are the cabezudos the same age as the gigantes?
No. The eight gigantes were built in 1860 by Tadeo Amorena. The five cabezudos were built thirty years later, in 1890, by a different sculptor, Félix Flores.
What is the difference between kilikis and zaldikos?
Kilikis are small, tricorn-hatted comic figures carried on foot. Zaldikos are hobby-horse figures with a mounted rider, named from the Basque word for “little horse.” Both classes swat spectators with a foam-tipped rod as they pass.
Where does the comparsa depart from during San Fermín?
It alternates by date between the Estación de Autobuses and the Palacio de Ezpeleta, with a specific published route for every day from July 6 through July 14.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.