SOME HISTORIES ABOUT OUR PEOPLE

That is our people.
This is a moment of memories.
They are histories of history, many counted histories and others for to be told.
They are histories of this island, of the island of our parents, our grandmothers, generations that the memory of men does not reach.
They are histories that had been everyday life of the people of this land.



The agricultural worker the man of the land the man who cultivated the land.

How was cultivated the land?

Of wooden plough with pointy peak of iron beaten in the blacksmith of the parish, pulled for two cows, because the farming was small and did not have possessions to have a yoke of oxen. The earth is gone with the eye of the hoe and from time to time in time the cows were orientated to remain in the track.

The supper, is to the side inside of the hamper (beans soup with pumpkin) leaned against the wall is the cool water inside of the adobe canister.

Oh! Friend the corners also are for digging, to give us more maize grains. The devil is the rats that if people do not watch out they eat all the maize.


After plough the land it seeds.

How to hoe the maize?


Maize that full of abundance the house of the poor person and is that poor person that by the morning hurried, how many times of hoer on the their backs, guiding the cow in the company of the woman that brought the hamper with the lunch, if was not the hunger to press the return to the home still came far (worked from sun to sun).

The cow that by the morning already gave many litres of milk, that served to support the family, walks the track slowly behind the woman who leads it.

But the work continues by the hands of this people, who waters the land with the sweat of the face, running away of the sun underneath a hat of straw harvested in the S. João .
Months later the maize was harvested and was taken to be husked.

What it is the husking of maize?

The husking of the maize, that depending on a good harvest, translated abundance to guarantee the bread of the family unit, that event was reason of joy and songs, always to the sound of our guitar, left some songs like Charamba or the Chamarrita, almost always in duel with one and another, in a true challenge, putting to the test verve improvising, while the day passed the new maize are cooked, perfumed with seeds of fennel, smoking from the plates and a grail of Portuguese Brandy known has aguardente. In the entail houses of rich farmers,it was served fried fish , bread, barley coffee and wine.
The joy came when somebody discovered one red maize, giving it the right to kiss the face of all of the opposing sex that were there.


How to threshed the wheat?

Threshing-floor was the place where it passes the abundance that underneath of the track pulled by brave yoke oxen goes the grain that after beaten is bagged in linen bags that guarantee the weekly bread that goes to feed the brave ones of this island. Beyond a work place is also a place for gossip and fun for the kids that from time to time dares to jump to the middle.

With the pitchfork and shovels, women and men separate the straw of the grain, everything is not wasted. The abundance thus demands it. The oxen are of the Ramo Grande, our cattle.


Wicker

What is the wicker and what it served for?

Wicker, this tender and flexible pole, that normally served to make ataduras (knots), and despite became of great workmanship interest, has nothing of Terceira characteristics, therefore the wicker furniture is imported modern industry, according to all the probabilities of Madeira island, made mainly by labourers from Madeira island or its disciples. However without great art our people made its hampers to transport the grape, the maize, the rock, to use it in the labour detail, and the small ones took the baskets with the lunch. Also after boiled we saw it already without rind, they gave place to hampers for bodo and clothes.

A well kept wicker behind the door, served to stops the kids to be out of axle.

The Vintage

What is the vintage?

After done the hampers, we use them, because there is no vintage that does not use them. Vintage of wine of smell, now is forbidden, but long ago it filed the cellars of this people, thank God we still have verdelho and the jaquês. With joy was loaded in cars pulled by oxen in day of vintage. Wine that in the same cars, but decorated and with bread, in the festivities of The Holy Ghost gave joy to the poor person.

Sweet wine stepped on with the tired feet of this people and drunk with the joy of the share.


The Fountain

A privileged place of meeting, the fountain, that running without rest heard the shy colloquies of the youngsters use to their advantage brief moments of compliments to the beautiful young women, blushing their white faces. Fountain of crystalline waters to wash the linen of the white shirts that they wear on the Sunday or of the leasehold blouses that were the pride of the married women.

It was all beautiful, without the frenetics of nowadays without automobiles, the children could play happy and in security.

Beautiful is to remember these moments here written.

Professions

Some professions disappeared already, and marked its time by the art and quality of its craftsmen. It would be impossible to write about them all here.

The Shoemaker

Shoemaker who still had the privilege of being able to have an apprentice, who he will paid to be able one day later to make craft, today completely impossible thing because the insurance and the Social Security would take the master to bankruptcy.

To the bankruptcy does not take him but at least give him allot of work was who was not happy with the service done. The shoes had that taken care for and when it suffered some fix had to be very good.

The Weaving

For its antiquity, for its artistic character, abundance of decorations, polychrome and technique, the weaving is the first one of the Terceira popular industries.

In centuries XVII and XVIII, the azorians couples, gone for Brazil, had taken it and there it prospered.

The types of fabrics produced are several, and according to a work of Luís Drumond Ferreira, the main cloths manufactured in our island were fiampua and the full web. Some hatched, others weave, others make fringes and others still make fabric of remaining portions, that later give colourful blankets and to carpets, artistically elaborated by these hands of fairies.

They are few professions that today we still have the possibility to observe, thanks to the Groups of Folklore, that with their orders demanded that the old looms were mounted again and until young people took taste for this art that made the delights of our ancestor.

The festivities of the Holy Ghost

Holy Ghost God Mercy, thus prays our people. Is in tribute of the Holy Ghost that we explain: House of the Emperor, armed satin altar, candles and flowers, the crown is made in poor tin, but with the biggest devotion of the world it is in the top of the altar. At night, relatives and friends pray, later it took place the cheerfulness in some you badly rhymed songs to the duel or in a dance where never lacks the chamarrita.

To the side everything is ready, because in Sunday after the church mass they all hurried up to take place to eat soups and to taste alcatra with the wine. But as was said and proven the Terceira people are the most cheerful and playful of all the archipelago, Drumond Ferreira wrote and quote:

The festivities in Terceira island are initiated in the threshold of the new year and finish in the night of S. Silvestre.

The festivities of our people the Bailo Direito (Right Dance) or the Bailo Antigo (Old Dance), its songs challenges and its very appreciated songs of the old ones called Velhas, which songs of mockery, that without offence are authentic calls of attention to many social matters, that at the time were taboo.

The Bodo

The Bodo according to Joaquim Caetano Pereira and Sousa in its book "Sketch of a Legal Dictionary", were meals or foods that people gave for the poor souls of the deceased. The abuses of on that time, made El King D. Manuel to forbade such practical, with exception of the bodos of the Holy Ghost, instituted in the previous reign by Queen Saint Isabel in the Village of Alenquer.

Thus the bodos arrived at the Azores and mainly at Terceira island where it was kept until your days.

The Bodos of today are not as the ones in the pass, but we try to go back to the begin of the century and that this history remain in history that once was the Ramo Grande with the Vila Nova and to receive in the plaza of the empire,the most pretty and stuffed cars from Bodo, that still today is stubbornly kept in the houses of its esteem proprietors and with the respect that these authentic parts of museum must receive.

The Bullfight

History that loses it self in time, in the time where the Spanish walked here, according to opinion of some historians they introduced in Terceira island the taste for the bulls.

But the Terceira bullfights with the rope had created a type of bullfight very ours that its sui generis characteristics, can be classified as unique in the world.

The bullfights of long ago put into motion cheerful ranch's in wagons and oxen cars, carrying provisions, snacks and singing beautiful songs of our folklore.

Arriving there it was to see which one was the most fortunate, with staff and hat blinking the eye to some available girl.

The fight almost always happened, not only for the dispute of the pretty eyes, but sometimes the wine was responsible for it.

But the bullfight not only took much people to the place, but it would also catch the attention of pilgrims passing by, also calling the attention of old church hens and intriguers, who at the window made lace and spoke of other people's life, telling in the following day all the incidents as a periodical or reporter that in that time did not exist.

The Tasca

The wine, the cooked eggs, the drained broad beans, the limpets and the potatoes with Indian pepper, was things that does not lack, the tasca (tavern, inn, pub) was done extemporaneously, in an open pasture, the base of a house or a building in ruins. Showing a red flag as decoy, on a balcony, there were well tempered titbits with Indian pepper, pepper, salt and vinegar and the wine. As covering, a canvas, supported by a scaffolding of poles of eucalyptus. To one corner a barrel of wine, where it was possible to full the mugs of wine. The proprietor beat palms to call the customers to the consumption, while he cries out:

"Come inside customers".