Unmistakable symbol of Mojácar, it has been used since ancient times, when its inhabitants used to paint it on the façades of their houses in order to ward off the “evil eye” and protect them from storms.
It represents a man with open arms, holding up a rainbow.
The first romantic travellers called it “the Mojácar doll”, when here the most elderly knew it as “The Totem”.
It was later dubbed with its current name of Indalo by a group of painters, philosophers, writers and artists, who made up the indaliano cultural movement.
The movement was founded by the Almerian painter and sculptor Jesús de Perceval in 1945. The starting point was the cultural difference of Almeria, based on an ancestral and Mediterranean culture.
The name Indalo is in honour of Saint Indaletius, a Cordovan Jew, who attracted by the fame of the Christian religion travelled to Jerusalem to find out about it. Upon his return, converted, he acted as a propagator of the Christian faith; he was an indal-eccius (which in the Iberian language meant messenger of the gods), as he Christianised this Almería region.
Related by the schematization of its lines with the same kind of cave paintings discovered in the Eneolithic shelter of the Los Letreros cave in Vélez Blanco, its typology is dated as a schematic cave painting of Levantine origin of 2,500 BC.
Today, it is not only an excuse for artisan inspiration, but continues to be a bringer of good luck and a messenger of the bonanzas of a magical land.
Giving an indalo as a gift is to wish a lot of luck and protection for whoever carries it.
