PORTUGUESE CHILDREN
Portuguese children are taught to be very respectful to their parents,
and those of the upper classes are carefully educated. It is the
fashionable thing to have foreign nurses for them--English, French,
or German--so that they may grow up to be good linguists. They go
out for their daily walks and amuse themselves much like English
boys and girls, hide-and-seek being a very favourite game; and they
are just as fond as we are of hearing fairy-tales. They know all the
old ones--“Cinderella,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and many others,
besides many of the old Portuguese folk stories and legends, which are
gradually dying out, but which are still firmly believed in by most
of the peasants, and some of which I will tell you about presently.
Girls generally have foreign governesses as they grow older, and the
boys go to school very early. They work for long hours and have many
examinations to pass.
In Lisbon the young fellows play football and tennis, which they have
taken from the English; but the Portuguese people are not naturally
given to playing games. The little ones of the poorer classes have
hardly any education at all, and are only too often to be seen begging
in the streets.
The one event in the year which the town children look forward to
above all others is the Carnival. In Lisbon this is a great time for
them, though many of the old customs are gradually disappearing, for,
alas! in Portugal, as elsewhere, there are many people who think that
the old-time ways are not sufficiently up-to-date. The Carnival used
to last for many days, and all kinds of practical jokes were played,
some of them not at all amusing for the luckless folk who were the
victims. Strings were tied across the road to trip people up. Water was
squirted at the passers-by, or gloves full of sand and packets of flour
thrown down on them from the windows. Oftener, however, there would be
pleasanter missiles--bouquets, buttonholes, and bonbons--which were
caught and returned by the gay throng. All this is modified nowadays,
but a good deal of frolic still goes on, and it is considered
great fun to pin papers on people’s backs--“tails” they are
called. Many nice and some nasty presents and letters are
sent anonymously to friends through the post.
Then, also, there are masquerades, when people go about in fancy
costume, decorated carts are seen in the streets, and the whole town
gives itself up to amusement. Masked balls take place in the theatres,
everyone going in fancy dress, and wearing little black masks, so that
no one is supposed to know with whom they are dancing, and many of the
“costume balls” in smart society are given during the Carnival.
Some other festivals that are particularly looked forward to by children
are St. Anthony’s Day, on June 13; St. John the Baptist’s Day, on the
24th; and St. Peter’s Day, on the 29th. Small altars, decorated with
flowers and tiny candles, are placed on the door-steps by poor children
who run after the passers-by begging for farthings “for the good Saint”;
but it is the children, and not the “good Saint,” who benefit by the
contributions.
On the eves of these saints’ days all children, if they can, rich
and poor alike, delight in letting off fireworks, and in the evening
crackers and squibs may be heard on all sides.
At about this time of year the girls have many superstitions about
marriage. They throw thistles on the large bonfires which are lighted,
thinking meanwhile of some lover. These thistles are left out of doors
during the night and the following day, and if they remain green, they
believe they will be fortunate in their love affairs, but if black and
burnt, oh sorrow! no love is to be expected from the one thought of.
It is to be feared that under these circumstances there must be many
disappointments, unless, indeed, a little mild cheating be resorted
to. There is also an old custom of gathering rushes on St. John’s Eve.
Lovers each cut a rush of equal length, and if in the morning one is
found to be longer than the other, the love of the person who cut it is
supposed to be the more true and lasting.
Certain plants and flowers are looked on as being lucky, and special
virtue is supposed to attach to them if picked on the morning of St.
John the Baptist’s Day. In many parts there are legends of beautiful
enchanted Moorish maidens, who are doomed to live in deep wells, but
are allowed to appear early on that morning, and ask of those who come
to draw water some boon which may break the spell that binds them.
St. Anthony is supposed to be the match-maker among the saints. In the
church dedicated to him in Lisbon there is a letter-box where young
people post letters, asking the Saint to find them sweethearts, and
if their love affairs prosper, they sometimes post cheques and other
thank-offerings to him in the same little box in church. The priests
read the letters, and also stand proxy for St. Anthony in the matter of
pocketing the money.
It is not only the children who make merry on the eves of these three
saints’ days. In Lisbon the common people spend the night at the
Praça da Figueira--the market-place--which is beautifully decorated
with flowers and fruit, some hanging in bunches on sticks. Men and
women buy pots of “Majarico”--a sweet-smelling plant, in the middle
of which is stuck a large paper pink with some sweet love-verse,
and these pinks are presented and accepted with pleasure by both men
and women. Farther north, and especially at Coimbra and Figueira,
these festivals are most remarkable. There are bonfires and music;
the men and women dress in the picturesque costumes of the country,
the women wearing, as on all festive occasions, a great deal of very
handsome gold jewellery, for they spend most of their earnings on
these quaint ornaments, and are very proud of them. There is much
guitar-playing by the men, and all join in the popular Portuguese
dances, “Ver-de-Gaio” and others, and sing the most lovely
romantic songs.