It is celebrated the Sunday before Easter Sunday .
People celebrate it to remember
the offer made to Jesus Christ by His followers, when He came down the
Olivetrees Hill , after having stayed there , all alone , for 40 days in
meditation .
People get a small bunch of olivetree branches and rosemary , they go to the church in procession singing " Honra , Gloria e Louvor a Vós , oh Cristo , Rei , Redentor ! "(Honour , Glory and Praise to You , oh Christ , King , Redeemer !). Then , in the church , the priest blesses the Bunches with the holy water and he says the Mess that everybody attends respectfully .
Many years ago these olivetree and rosemary Bunches were left on the altar as an offer to the Christ . Nowadays , people keep this especial Bunch at home all the year round , and it is replaced by a new one every year , to get their homes and lives blessed all the time.
In June 3 " popular saints " are celebrated : St. Anthony ( 13th ) , St. John ( 24th ) and St. Peter ( 29th ) .
A bonfire is the highest point in every evening of the celebrations : a fire is made on the ground and some brave funny happy people , especially men , try to jump over it .
In St. Anthony's night , the most celebrated - 12th to 13th June - and after the bonfire is lit the girls sing and dance around it and they slightly burn a globe artichoke they have chosen , and picked up in the fields .
After they have burnt it they keep it at their window box getting the night air , so that the next morning they can see if it flourishes again -- if it happens it means that their beloved really loves them ; if the globe artichoke flower keeps burnt and fades the beloved boy does not love the girl .
Some old traditions and celebrations are taken as true happenings ...
In our country the 1st of November is the all Saints Day but we also celebrate the Dead . It is a holiday all over the country and it is celebrated in the cemeteries , visiting and decorating with flowers the graves of relatives and friends .
In some rural areas children use to go door by door , carrying a bag and asking for " cookies " . They are offered cookies , biscuits , fruit , small money ... well, whatever people can offer .
As a rule , the request is made by using traditional ways : " Give me your cookies , in praise of your devotion Saint " ,
" Bolinho , bolinho a nós
para mim e para vós
para dar aos finados
que estão enterrados " , or just " Give me the cookies " .
In the end the children compare their bags and the one whose bag is fuller , is considered to be the winner .
Maybe this tradition is somewhat related to the Hallowe'en . . .
During the Easter season , in some villages , men and boys get together in a group and go to the village houses to sing for " the souls " .
They take old lamps and a bag to put in the gifts they are always offered .
This group splits up into 2 groups : one sings in front of a house and the other answers , also by singing , in front of the next house .
So , it is a " desgarrada " ( similar poems / lyrics are already present in the Medieval Portuguese Cancioneiro )
St. Martin's Day and Women's St. Martin
St. Martin's Day is celebrated everywhere all over Portugal. It begins in the afternoon -- people eat grilled chestnuts and drink "jerupiga" and "água-pé" . Some also paint their faces with the coal used to grill the chestnuts .
However , what is most typical of our country is that the day before , 10th Nov. , we celebrate the so called " Women's St. Martin Day " and , of course , only women take part -- they eat the grilled chestnuts and drink as much as they are pleased because , as it happens just among women , they are not worried about being seen overdrinking .
Everybody celebrates this Day even if only to eat one chestnut and drink one small glass of "jerupiga" or "água-pé".
Enterro do bacalhau / The Codfish Funeral
" The Codfish Funeral " , in our area , was an Easter Season tradition that marked a season in which meat was absent and the codfish took the place of a " King " in our diet . Codfish was the favourite food because eating meat was forbiden .
This way people got fed up with fish , mainly codfish after having had it for 45 days .
So , some people , in a critical attitude , performed a public " play " concerning the end of the abstinence from meat -- this way they condemned and symbolically burried the codfish .
The " actors " knew their roles by heart and , as they were walking along the streets , formed a kind of court that had the power to condemn the " codfish " .
When the " play " was over this group left to another village , singing and dancing .
It is a great tradition , which happens in the " town of the students " - Coimbra .
This festival is celebrated every year in May and it lasts for a whole week . It begins with the " Serenata " , at night , which the sudents themselves make playing the portuguese guitar , the guitar and singing their typical songs - fado de Coimbra . In the next evenings there happen concerts by bands that everybody knows and enjoys , as well as some sport events .
The students also make a great long parade which is a high point in this festival and everybody in town is out in the streets to watch it . It always takes place on a Tuesday afternoon and all the courses of Coimbra University are represented there . Each course has its own colour and its own allegoric car and the students go in this parade dressed up in their University uniform - " traje académico " - taking their coloured insignia : ribbons , hat and stickwalker .
This festival - Queima das Fitas ( Burning the Ribbons ) - is named after a especial situation that happens with the students attending the year before their graduation : they have narrow ribbons which they really burn in a large calderon in an old Square of the University . After this burning they replace these ribbons by large ones they keep to their graduation .
Different traditions , diferent uses , different creeds make the gipsy wedding an uncommon one . The brides are promised to the grooms right after they are born . By the time of the marriage they have to be virgins , so that they are really accepted by their new family ;they generally get married very young , sometimes when they only are twelve years old . The After the marriage the wife moves to her husband's family house . There she will do the housework as she is not allowed to have a job out . As for the husband , he may have already been married or he may be much older than she is , he will be the chief of their family and will work for their support .
In the wedding day all the arrangements are made so that everything will be provided to the guests. The ceremony takes place in the open air at the camp . The bride wears a white dress ( a sign of purity ) and a long veil covering her face . The wedding is performed by a gipsy woman who knows all the gipsy rites . The bride and the groom must eat a bit of bread with salt ( as a sign of abundance and fidelity for the couple ) . During the wedding party the bide and groom 's parents rip off the colars of the male guests . Each parent offers his/her son or daughter a wedding present which generally is a high amount of money , a car and a house . Having all this they can live happily for ever !
This day -- 25th April 1974 -- was , and still is , a very important day for us as it was really that day the Portuguese people finally got their freedom .
Up to then we lived under the oppression of a dictatorial government that strictly controlled everything and everybody .
This great revolution happened due to the courage of the people and some military forces , mainly commanded by Army Captains that had been in the Colonial War .
As they listened to their sign -- "Grândola , Vila Morena " , a song by Zeca Afonso and considered nowadays as the Hymn to freedom -- the soldiers got together , moved on and got to put down the fascist régime that was lasting for 48 years .
From that day on the freedom of expression , of acting , of thinking . . . were conquered .
This way it was achieved a goal that many , many people had been expecting for a long time .