Shepherds.
A familiar sight in Alemtejo and the Serra da Estrella are the shepherds, the rabadãos and zagaes, dressed in brown fleeces, with their huge umbrellas of faded blue slung across their shoulders. The late Conde de Ficalho, in the first volume of A Tradição (1899), described in an interesting paper the shepherds of Alemtejo, living a nomad life from pasture to pasture, after the fashion of the Arabs, transferring their clothes and food and implements on donkeys, as in Gil Vicente. Many of the words they use are of Arabic origin, as alfeire (a flock of young lambs) or the alfirme used to tie the sheep’s legs for the shearing. They wear a pellico, i.e., a great jacket of fleeces sewn together with corriol (strips of leather) or a çamarro, which consists merely of two fleeces without sleeves. The shepherd earns a small salary (soldada) and his food (comedia), and has certain sheep of his own (his pegulhal). The shepherds of the Serra da Estrella are more stationary. Sun and wind have fanned and tanned them till they sometimes resemble nothing so much as an old dead tree-trunk scarred by lightning, and they may be seen standing motionless as a tree hour after hour in the bare Serra. They are as remote from the twentieth century as are the days of Romulus and Remus, and their customs and those of the quaint villages set in the deep ravines of the Serra are worth a careful study, belonging as they do to an age long past, before civilisation sweeps them away. Read or write the inhabitants cannot, books and newspapers are unknown; but they maintain an old-world courtesy and dignity of bearing which are attractive. They constitute one of the most characteristic parts of the Portuguese people, one of the most interesting elements in the infinite variety of Portuguese life.
A SHEPHERD
CHAPTER IV
RELIGION AND EDUCATION
Anti-clericalism.
“To persecute is to propagate,” said one of the greatest modern Portuguese, Alexandre Herculano, and a Lisbon newspaper, O Diario de Noticias (22nd March, 1901), could declare that “toleration in matters of religion has with us been almost unbroken.” The anti-clerical agitation in Portugal in the year 1901 was for the most part an artificial echo of the agitation in Spain (the year of Pérez Galdós’ Electra), encouraged for political purposes. Popular demonstrations were organised and cheers raised for Liberty, Democracy, and Snr. Manoel da Arriaga (subsequently the first President of the Republic). On the 10th of March the Civil Governors were ordered to inquire whether any religious houses existed under illegal conditions, that is, contrary to the Concordat between Portugal and the Vatican. Properly, in view of the law of May, 1834, only the religious orders concerned with education, charity, nursing, and foreign missions had the right to exist. On the 11th of March fresh disturbances occurred, and on the 13th a decree was published ordering the inspection of those religious houses which could show their title to exist and the closure of all others. But there was in reality no “religious question” in Portugal, no comparison with the situation in France and Spain.
The Religious Orders.
The religious congregations took no part in industry nor did they evade the taxes (these are the two chief popular charges against them in Spain). On the other hand, they did much good work among the poor, and performed useful service in education. To many their sudden expulsion may seem a foolish and brutal measure. But France had banished the congregations, and those Portuguese politicians who model their actions on those of France must follow suit without inquiring whether the action of France in this respect had been wise or its results beneficial, or whether the conditions in France and Portugal were identical. Henry VIII of England abolished the monasteries because they were rich, and the fabulous wealth attributed to the religious houses no doubt largely inspired the modern cry of anti-clericalism. What must have been the disappointment when the wealth of some of the Portuguese congregations was found to consist of nothing but a few musty and worm-eaten volumes. Had the same arbitrary measures been adopted against a literary or industrial association, there would have been an outcry throughout the world at the tyranny or injustice: but these were only poor religious, men and women who had deliberately chosen to lead that kind of life, in many ways an ideal life in Portugal. Why happiness thus attained by a few should be so obnoxious to the modern politician is one of the mysteries of progress.