Feast of the Holy
Spirit
About two kilometers
from my village, there is a village called Espírito Santo (Holy Spirit), in which
there is a celebration with a unique tradition in the country. This festival has a
whole litter made in pine nuts called "branch".
It's a party that needs
a lot of hand labour throughout the year. The party is of religious content, during
the time of Pentecost ("Pentecost" is the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles who were gathered for the first time, waiting for the Holy Spirit,
inspiring all of their work in the Church), usually in the month April or May, depending on Easter day. It's a party like any other, with Mass followed by
procession, folklore evening, the streets with the tents of fritters, snacks
and drinks, street vendors, artists (Portuguese singers), pipers, music band,
fireworks and dances. But what attracts the visitors is undoubtedly the
traditional "branch" that is made of pine nuts and integrates the
procession. It is the pride of the people of the Holy Spirit. No one knows for
certain the age or the origin of the branch but it surely is more than two
hundred years old.
On all Saints Day, November 1, a group of people starts looking for pine nuts in
the area of pine forests. As pine trees are scarce in the county
of Soure, people widen the search to Condeixa and Penela
area where there are a lot of pine trees. For three or
four weeks, people move through
the respective tractors with trailers, equipped
with ladders and with some agility they climb the pine trees and harvest the pine cones. Normally this operation is carried out on Sundays as it is a day of rest for most people. It
takes about three tons of pine cones, then they are stored in a shed protected from
moisture so that they can dry
up to Christmas. On the day of the Kings (6th January) another stage is initiated – they open the cones to remove
the pine nuts.
In threshing they extend pine leaves layers with another layer
of cones, and so on. They set it on
the fire so that the cones can open with
heat to remove the sprockets. Sometimes even
then some cones are not open, so
it is necessary to put them
on top of a stump, give a blow with the
wooden mallet to open them. The next
task involves joining all cones and having a
lot of people
(friends and relatives of party-goers) to "cascabulhar",
ie removing the
nuts of pine
cones, and putting the nuts in the "tarara"
to separate the pine
nuts (tarara is an agricultural implement to separate the seeds, corn or olive
leaves), which is a time consuming job. To prepare the "branch" people need around forty
"bushels" of pine nuts,
which is equivalent to four liters
Bushel is an old measure of capacity used especially for cereals. After a
deserved stop a new task begins in February. Men armed with hammers start
to break pine nuts, and women separate the brown film that
surrounds it. It is a painstaking
job that leaves pretty
clean pine nuts, another group
armed with needles and thread and a good vision
and great care should be carried
out to "threading",
ie drill the pine
nut by the edges to thread
with about 1.20 meters topped with a knot at
each end containing 1.00 meters.
On average for every Sunday afternoon people make 100 pitches in a total of 900
needed to decorate the branch.
Each thread takes about 300 pine nuts, and the whole
operation takes twelve Sundays. There are several people who know how to prepare the branch but tradition dictates
only one person preparing the litter without any
help. We are only missing the horseshoe-shaped cakes baked in wood stove. In
celebration of the end pine nuts are divided by the population that contributes to the party. The story goes that when there is no one to grab the "branch" it is buried in the
cemetery and this tradition ends,
which to this day never happened.
Festival programme
The branch leaves the house
of the butlers
Branch in church
Pine nuts
