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!
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We don't often stay in posh hotels: guest houses and Airbnb are our standard choice. After all, as we are usually out and about all day, we only use our accommodation to sleep in, so why spend money on a place we'll hardly see? Besides, I like the opportunity to chat to locals and find out about the area I've come to and their opinions of what is going on. That is not so easy in a big hotel. Every now and then, though, we give ourselves a treat, especially in January, which is when the Pousadas and luxury hotels do deals.
The Pestana Pousada Palácio de Freixo, a luxury hotel on the banks of the River Douro in Porto, is a case in point. In January they sometimes offer rooms at half price. That is still well over €100 a night when you could probably get a perfectly acceptable room for €40 elsewhere but hey! What the heck? Let's have a night out!
To see more of the Pousada Palácio de Freixo, luxury hotel and national monument, click here.
In the previous blog I said that, though there's little to do up here on our mountainside, life is not without its simple joys. One is creating a garden from the jungle of weeds that used to exist on the terrace below our house. (I may show you that some other time.) Another is the freedom to walk up a quiet rural road or to branch off into the woodland. Today I'm going to take you on one of my rambles.
To read about my route and see what I found, click here
Christmas Dinner! I said before Christmas that I would try to write another post about the customs in Ponte de Lima but I never did.
To find out what people in the Minho love to eat on Christmas day, click here.
Belmonte synagogue
We are once again in the Beira Baixa town of Belmonte, home of the man who had brought about the evangelisation of Brazil. (http://www.me-n-youinportugal.com/index.php?blog&nid=98) But Catholicism was not the only religion deeply held in Belmonte, Judaism was there too and, just up the hill from the statue of Pedro Álvares Cabral, is the old Jewish quarter of the village.
What I am about to tell you is a story of deeply held faith and extraordinary, almost incredible, tenacity. It starts more than 500 years ago, at the time of the reconquest of Spain by the Catholic Kings, Fernando of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, contemporaries of that same king who had favoured and then forgotten Cabral; Dom Manuel I.
To read the extraordinary story of the Jews of Belmonte, click here
You can see Belmonte with its imposing castle from a long way off. Dominating the region with its 360° view, it was once an outpost built and manned by Portugal's early rulers to defend the state against invasion from Spain. However, unless Portugal's much more powerful neighbour was showing serious aggression, it is unlikely that any Belmonte resident ever met the king or any members of his court - or indeed anyone else from further afield than a few kilometres around - because the settlement was so remote and difficult to reach.
Despite its historic isolation, however, Belmonte is not without history. There is a fascinating reason why we chose to make a special effort to go to there and a curious fact that we discovered upon arrival. To find out first about the curious fact, click here.
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