Most descriptions of Pamplona’s comparsa list six kilikis in a single breath, as if the tricorn-hatted, foam-rod-wielding figures that chase children through the streets during San Fermín were built together as one matched set. They weren’t. The six kilikis san fermin pamplona visitors watch every morning of the fiesta are three separate pairs, made in three different cities by three different craftsmen, eighty-one years apart, and only one of the six has ever carried the name of an actual historical figure rather than a generic nickname.
The gap matters because it explains what a close look at the figures actually shows: different weights, different proportions, and construction methods stitched into a procession that reads as uniform from a distance. It also corrects an easy assumption. Because the kilikis parade alongside the eight gigantes built in 1860, visitors reasonably assume the whole troupe shares that birth year. Only two of the six kilikis have any real claim to 1860, and even that claim rests on attribution, not a surviving contract the way the giants have.
This account draws on the figure-by-figure construction data published through Pamplona’s own municipal cultural heritage portal, the Ayuntamiento’s tourism pages for the comparsa, the Spanish Wikipedia entry for the troupe (sourced to the reference work Gigantes de Navarra by Unai Lako and Aitor Calleja), and Navarra press coverage tracking individual figures like Caravinagre across seven decades of official San Fermín posters.
What “Kiliki” Actually Means
The word itself is younger than the tradition it now names. Figures like these existed in Pamplona as far back as the 16th century, when they were called gigantillos, or “little giants.” By the mid-19th century, chroniclers were calling them cabezudos, the same word now reserved for the five bigger-headed figures that walk ahead of them, or bocaparteras. The name “kiliki” settled into use later, and its exact origin is still not documented. The leading theory, cited in the Spanish Wikipedia entry for the figures and in the reference work it draws on, traces it to the Basque kili-kili, a word for “tickle” that can also carry the sense of provoking or egging someone on, which fits a figure whose entire job is to startle people into running. No source treats this as settled fact, and this article won’t either. It is the best-supported theory, not a certainty.
Whatever its exact root, the word describes the same job today that it has for generations: six figures, smaller than the cabezudos, each wearing a tricorn hat, weighing roughly 10 to 14 kilograms depending on the individual figure, and carrying a foam-tipped rod called a verga or botana. The rod itself has changed more than the tradition around it. Older accounts describe it made from leather or a cured, inflated animal bladder; foam replaced both well before living memory. The Ayuntamiento de Pamplona publishes its own overview of the gigantes, cabezudos, kilikis, and zaldikos on the city’s tourism site.
Barbas and Coletas: The Oldest Pair, Attributed but Unconfirmed
Two kilikis are consistently described as the oldest of the six: Barbas and Coletas. Both are commonly attributed to Tadeo Amorena, the Pamplona-born painter who built the eight gigantes in 1860, and both are usually dated to that same year. That attribution appears in the Spanish Wikipedia entry for the comparsa, in the city’s own cultural heritage catalog, and in independent Navarra coverage of the figures. All three sources hedge the same way, using words like “probably,” “possibly,” and “attributed to.” No surviving contract or commission letter ties Barbas and Coletas to Amorena the way his own 1860 letter to the Ayuntamiento ties him directly to the giants. The pairing with 1860 is the best-supported explanation, not a documented fact, and treating it as anything more overstates what the record actually shows.
Physically, the two are not identical. The city’s own figure-by-figure catalog lists Barbas at roughly 11 kilograms and 0.65 meters tall, while Coletas runs closer to 14 kilograms and 0.9 meters, noticeably closer in scale to the cabezudos that precede the whole procession. That size difference is one more small piece of evidence that the comparsa’s two senior kilikis were never manufactured as an identical matched set the way the pairing of their names suggests.
Patata and Napoleón: Built in Barcelona, and the Only Kiliki With a Real Name
The second pair, Patata and Napoleón, arrived more than half a century after the first. In 1912, Pamplona’s Ayuntamiento commissioned the sculptor Benito Escaler, working in Barcelona, to build two new kilikis to march alongside Barbas and Coletas. The city followed the same practice it used commissioning a matching pair of zaldikos from Escaler that same year: sending reference material to Barcelona so the new figures would read as part of the same troupe rather than a visibly different generation.
Napoleón carries a distinction that no other figure in the 25-piece comparsa shares. Across all eight gigantes, five cabezudos, six kilikis, and six zaldikos, he is the only one named after an actual historical person rather than a generic title like Rey Europeo or Alcalde. Both Patata and Napoleón weigh close to 11 kilograms. Their hundredth anniversary was marked formally in July 2012, alongside two of the zaldikos built the same year by the same sculptor, a joint commemoration that is itself documentary evidence for the 1912 build date, a level of confirmation the undocumented attribution behind Barbas and Coletas simply does not have.
Caravinagre and Berrugón: Built in Valencia, and Pamplona’s Most Photographed Face
The youngest pair came from the Porta Coeli workshop in Valencia in 1941, the last kilikis added to the troupe. Caravinagre and Berrugón are also the heaviest of the six, at roughly 12 to 13 kilograms each, and their build era gives them a slightly different silhouette than the two older pairs.
Caravinagre is, by a wide margin, the most recognizable individual figure in the entire comparsa. Navarra press coverage and the Spanish Wikipedia’s own image archive document Caravinagre’s face appearing on the official San Fermín festival poster in five separate years: 1947, just six years after joining the procession, then again in 1997, 2012, 2015, and 2017, a run no other single kiliki, cabezudo, or gigante has matched. The 2012 poster, based on a photograph of the figure by designer David Alegría, won that year’s public poster competition outright. For a figure whose entire job description is startling small children in the street, that level of official recognition is unusual, and it is a large part of why Caravinagre, rather than any of the other five, has become shorthand for the whole class of figure in casual conversation.
The Verga, the Target, and the Boundary Nobody Skips
The kilikis’ foam rod is aimed overwhelmingly at children lining the comparsa’s route, along with any adult who gets close enough. That is not an accident of enthusiasm; startling the crowd is the entire point of the character, a piece of theatrical menace built into the tradition since its gigantillo-era beginnings. What visitor-facing coverage usually leaves out is the boundary built into the other end of the nine-day run. On July 14, at the comparsa’s closing ceremony in the Plaza Consistorial, the kilikis join the cabezudos and zaldikos in handing out candy to the same children they have spent the festival chasing. It functions as a deliberate, built-in apology, and it is the clearest evidence the tradition has always treated the swatting itself as theater aimed at children who are expected to run and laugh, not a punishment anyone is meant to genuinely fear. Families planning around the figures often pair the comparsa with the separate Encierro Txiki, the city’s cardboard-bull run staged for children on the same mornings.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the names of the Kilikis in Pamplona?
The six kilikis are Barbas, Coletas, Patata, Napoleón, Caravinagre, and Berrugón. They are not one matched set: Barbas and Coletas are usually attributed to 1860, Patata and Napoleón were built in Barcelona in 1912, and Caravinagre and Berrugón were built in Valencia in 1941.
What does kiliki mean?
The exact origin of the word is not documented, but the leading scholarly theory traces it to the Basque kili-kili, meaning “tickle,” with a secondary sense of provoking or egging someone on. Before the name kiliki took hold, these figures were called gigantillos in the 16th century and later cabezudos or bocaparteras in the 19th.
How old are the Kilikis of San Fermín?
They are not a single age. Barbas and Coletas are attributed, without a surviving contract, to 1860. Patata and Napoleón are documented to 1912, confirmed by a formal centenary tribute in July 2012. Caravinagre and Berrugón date to 1941.
Do the Kilikis hit adults or only children?
Both, though children lining the route are the primary target. Each kiliki carries a foam-tipped rod called a verga or botana, once made of leather or a cured animal bladder, to swat spectators as they pass. The tradition includes its own apology: on the festival’s last day, the kilikis hand out candy to the children they spent nine days chasing.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.