Here in Portugal there have been bagpipes for centuries; they are played by men and women in Portuguese traditional dress; they are known as 'gaitas'; and the pipers won't be playing 'Amazing Grace' but traditional Portuguese folk tunes.
To read more about Portuguese bagpipers, click here.
Let's go back to the Minho. All over this part of the world, often atop hills and outlooks, you can find rings of stone that once were houses in hamlets. The Portuguese call them citânias. The most famous of these, which is just outside Braga, is called Briteiros. (I'll write of this again one day.) Does that remind you of anything? Britain? Bretagne - the Celtic fringe of France? You can find bagpipes there too.
If you look at the Minhoto people, it's surprising how many are fair-haired, how many are tall. These are not the small-boned, olive skinned people found on Medieterranean shores; they are not even like those found in the Algarve. Wasn't water the road of the ancients? In pre-history, you could travel in a boat far more easily than overland. Don't you think the Celtic peoples of Wales, Ireland, and Britany were in constant contact with their cousins in north-western Spain and Portugal? Wouldn't they have exchanged ideas and customs, perhaps even inter-married? Folk memory is long and there might be similar tales still told with local adaptations, perhaps similar tunes played or carvings made on granite hillsides. There is more here than meets the eye.
Believe me, though, the bagpipes of the Minho are indigenous, Portuguese pipes. The pipers above are members of the band from Sao Tiago de Cardielos, Viana do Castelo. They travelled the 20 kms or so to Ponte de Lima to entertain us after the Vaca das Cordas last year, which I wrote of in July 2014.
As you can see above, pipers often come with drums. There are tambourine players, too. The reverberations the women below can bring forth from a tambourine are skilful and amazing.
The tunes the gaita band chose were some I have heard at other festivals played on accordions, guitars and the curious instrument called the tréculas, which I told you of in 'The Language of Flowers – the Meaning of a Carnation'. Many were dance tunes and in Ponte de Lima at the Vaca das Cordas festival some in the crowd danced to them.
In fact, no Portuguese festa, whether saints day, semi-pagan festival like the Vaca das Cordas, or local wedding would be complete without a folklore group. Do you have a special occasion to celebrate? You could book the Banda de Gaitas São Tiago de Cardielos for your party if you wished. Why not?
Do you know more about the pipers of Portugal? Or indeed more about links with other Celtic cultures? For example, are the peoples of Ireland, Wales and northern Iberia genetically similar? Do write in and tell us any thoughts you may have. (If you are Portuguese, please feel free to write in your own language. You don't have write in English. O que é importante não é a língua mas a contribuição.)
Mary Jo Cabral wrote:
I'm glad you enjoyed the story. With the first name Mary Jo and the family name Cabral, I guess you are half Portuguese but perhaps don't live in Portugal. If you don't, I do hope you get a chance to go there s sometimes. It's a wonderful, fascinating country with kindly people and the Minho really is the heart of traditional Portugal.
You sound knowledgable about musical instruments and their distribution around the world. If you know more about the Portuguese pipes, do share your knowledge with us. I like to learn and I'm sure my readers do too. I'm glad you enjoyed the post and thank you for your comments.
I'm so pleased you enjoyed this post. I hope you have had chance to enjoy the pipes of the Minho yourself. If not, do try to go and hear them. I am always so impressed by how the people there keep up their traditions. You see tiny children playing instruments in the processions and parades that take place throughout the year. If only we encouraged the playing of instruments in the same way in the UK!
best help with es(...) wrote:
Search
Between our house and the sea there's a long, rounded mountain ridge. Though its lower slopes are clothed with eucalyptus and pine, it's a bald mountain, the bare granite crown enlivened with just a little scrub in between the boulders. It looks inhospitable, as though no one would choose to live there, yet as we drive through the foothills and start to climb, we see a homemade sign: "Em Cabração, Lítio não." Translated, that reads as, "No Lithium in Cabração."
Cabração is one of several villages that subsist in the Serra D'Arga, villages which though modernised in many ways, still cling tenaciously to tradition. And none of them is happy about the idea of mining on their mountain.
To read more of the Serra and one of the villages which are fighting a threat to mine lithium, click here.
Now we've passed the equinox the year has definitely turned. Autumn is here. The leaves are turning colour. Chestnuts are everywhere; in the markets and the shops.... and in the plastic bag of produce handed over the fence by our generous neighbours. Now there is cloud and much needed rain. Yet even in the rain I found treasure in the mountain behind our house. I've been into the woodland up the road and look what I found!
To see more of autumn in the woods, click here.
Living the dream: it's what most of us plan to do at some time in our lives, isn't it? That is, we tell ourselves we'll do it when we retire or if and when we can afford it without disadvantaging the family or... well you get the drift. Actually putting the theory into practice, though, takes real dedication and lots of us chicken out. We make excuses about being too old – "My knees are not what they were..."; no longer having the energy- "Just look at those young folk! How I envy them their get up and go!" Or just needing to be sure we can access healthcare.... and so on.
Above you can see someone who, along with her husband, has had the courage of her convictions and taken the plunge. To see more of L and R's adventure and to investigate what the locals do during the grape harvest in the Minho, click here.
We first visited the Paço de Giela more than ten years ago. In spite of its status as a national monument this modest cross between a castle and a manor house was then crumbling into decay and we were, as far as we could tell, among its few visitors.
To find out how the Paço de Giela received a second lease of life and the renactment of Portugal's early history, click here.
That title is an odd mixture of words, phrases and ideas, isn't it? Have a look at this photo of a dragon outside a house on the way to the Peneda Geres National Park and see if you can tell why I've used it.
The dragon has its tail wrapped round a ball and seems to be giving a V for Victory sign. Don't you think that is unusual? So, what is going on? It has nothing to do with the boy wizard of children's literature nor with the bloody struggles for supremacy in mythical kingdoms so recently a TV hit. Nothing indeed like that. Think about famous institutions in northern Portugal and see if you can divine why the dragon is there.
To find out – if you haven't already guessed – why this family has chosen dragons to tell the world what matters to them, click here.
To stay up-to-date with this blog please subscribe to our Newsletter below:
