Stories of Cabeceiras

The inventory recalls confrontations in fairs and pilgrimages, in a rural context in which the stick served as support and defense. It distinguishes this past from the cultural practice of presentation. Knowing this change allows you to look at the Pau Game as a tradition that adapted to the communities and times.

The chart associates the transformation to the changes of rural society and to the transmission between generations. In the presentations, it highlights training, attention and decision-making capacity. The schools of Abadim and Bucos appear as places of learning in the inventory process. The same object thus gains another social framework: knowing history includes realizing why it is practiced and how it is learned.

According to the Museum, in the first half of the 20th century the Fair of the Thirty was held in Pereiras on the last Sunday of each month. The locality also welcomed the annual Onion Fair, or Santo Antonino, at the end of August or early September. Both were known for selling cattle. This calendar belongs to the historical account, does not announce current fairs.

The pair of women's Chancas MTB 449 was made by José Alves Leite and acquired by the Museum of Lands of Basto. Wood, leather, rubber, tacks and cord make up the piece, measuring 26 cm long and 15,5 high.

The record associates this footwear to the fairs and Sundays. When more spent, it passed to the work of the field: wear could change the occasion of use, without finishing the life of the object. It is a documented description, not a rule for all families.

The collection also includes man's chanccas, MTB 450, also made by José Alves Leite and acquired by the Museum. The record refers to the passage of the most spent footwear to the field. Compare the two pieces allows to accompany documented materials and uses, without reducing all the clogging to a single model.

The MTB 450 pair is 28 cm long, 16 high and 9,5 wide. In MTB 449, the registered width is 7,5 cm. The differences describe these two pieces of the museum, not a table of sizes for all punches or hooks. The inventory number allows to keep each set of measures connected to the right object.

In the response of 1758, the abbot of the Faia mentions the São Miguel fair, started on September 28 and lasting three days. He also mentions São Tiago, 21 and 22 of July, and a monthly fair on the day 2, at the head of the municipality.

Olela appears on several occasions throughout the year, including Santa Catarina, December and São Matias in February. It is important to keep the origin of the description: this is the calendar counted by the abbot of Faia, not a list of fairs all held in the parish. The dates belong to 1758 and are not advertisements of the current agenda.

The report of 1956 describes people arriving on the roads, on buses and trains. Alameda do Seco and the garden of Praça da República concentrated the movement. Barroso products and blankets joined the fair: the meeting connected territories and transports.

In the excerpts gathered by the Museum, the fair is also an occasion to present animals and debut clothes. The text evokes joints of ox ornamented with flowers on the way to the livestock contest and lists aprons, handkerchiefs, skirts, blouses and slippers. The party gathered work, trade and public presentation.

It is a journalistic description, with expressive language and a proper look at people. It helps to imagine the environment, but it does not measure how many visitors arrived or allows to treat all habits described as universal.

The memory of Formigueiro gathers blankets, quilts, towels and blankets made of wool, linen and rags. The municipal guide links its sale to the fairs of São Miguel, in Cabeceiras, and Santa Luzia, in Arco de Baúlhe.

Following these fabrics is connecting the work within the village to the movement of people and goods. The report retains a commercial memory, not a list of current banks.

Alvite's memory of 1758 describes the Saint Antonino fair on September 2, with its eve. Barroso bulls, bought for different destinations, came. Most of the fair was located in Pereiras, in Refojos.

In the same place, the vicar refers to a monthly fair on 2, introduced a few years ago and considered less important. Distinguishing the two avoids confusing the annual meeting with the monthly calendar. The report documents trade and movement at that time, without announcing current fairs.

Teresa Soeiro reports that, in the middle of the 20th century, the tamanqueiros of Outeiro even took two cars of oxen loaded with punches and cocks to the São Miguel fair in Refojos. They accumulated production for months and kept the merchandise in wooden tents, in candlelight. The fair brought together artisans and dealers: the shoes followed for other customers.

João Pacheco, no Arco de Baúlhe, and Luziário Pereira de Magalhães, with their son António, in Refojos, are protagonists in the investigation of the Museum on lattice. The workshop of Luziário and António was in the Beco dos Ofícios; the nearby fair was the main point of sale. Teresa Soeiro relates the decline of craft with the diffusion of aluminum and plastic.

The inventory brings this work closer to everyday gestures: the MTB 241 copper mug served to make coffee, the MTB 240 cantara contained water and the lamps lit. The functions are documented for identified pieces. Knowing the objects helps to understand the workshop, but the collection does not confirm that these craftsmen or establishments continue in activity.

Teresa Soeiro's investigation gave rise to the exhibition The Art of lattice in Cabeceiras de Basto, in the Museum's facilities in Arco de Baúlhe. The work retreated to the artisans who began using white iron, or flander leaf, at the beginning of the Modern Era. The collection of the last professional routes was thus linked to a longer history of materials.

The objects reveal the variety of tasks: lighting a house, transporting wine, watering plants or storing oil for a locomotive. The craft passed through the house, field and transport. Comparing these functions helps to discover metallurgical work in gestures that seem to belong to separate worlds.

In the Parochial Memoirs of 1758, the vicar of Vila Nune tells that the residents resorted to the post office of Raposeira, in the couto of Refojos, and Mondim. They arrived from Porto on Monday and left on Thursday. The news had its own paths and days: communicating also required waiting.

The vicar located each of the two points of mail about a league. The indication approximates service and distance: it was not enough to know when news came, it was also necessary to have a place outside the parish. The report does not say who carried the letters between that point and each resident.

When comparing documents there is a difference: Santa Senhorinha also resorted to Raposeira, but his abbot mentions arrival on Tuesday. We keep the two versions. Only these answers do not allow to decide whether the difference is due to the way of describing the service, an error or other circumstance.

In a text of 1977 recovered by the Museum, São Miguel appears linked to the harvest of beans and corn on the driest slopes. The harvest completed this cycle. It is a memory in which agricultural work helps explain the time of the feast.

The relationship between corn, beans and harvest places the celebration at the end of an agricultural cycle, as the chronicler described it. It is a way to read the calendar through the works, and not just the festive days.

The two years of the newspapers should be separated: the portrait of the arrival and table belongs to 1956; the reference to the harvests comes from 1977. The Museum gathered these testimonies in 2024. The digital publication date does not make the memories a description of the current feast.

In the description of 1956 published by the Museum, the food establishments and tents were filled. Regional wine accompanied new lunches or chestnuts, served in glassy white clay mugs. They are details of a chronicle that brings the fair closer to its daily gestures.

The table appears in the middle of a moving fair. The chronicle evokes groups crossing paths, buses and trains, blankets coming from Barroso and the arrival of people in the Alameda do Seco and the Praça da República. Eating and drinking were part of this meeting, alongside the trade, the religious festival and the livestock contest.

There are two dates to be kept: the quoted text came out in the newspaper in 16 September 1956; the Museum re-disclosed it in 26 September 2024. The excerpt has the expressive language of a chronicle, does not present visitor counts or meals sold. By comparing it with the memory of dried nuts in crops, we discover the same fruit in different occasions and forms of conservation.

The municipal presentation of Outeiro highlights Santa Maria, Senhora da Livração and Senhor do Livramento among its pilgrimages. These names add a community dimension to the parish known by the Câstaria and the Tamancaria. The source describes traditions, but does not provide here a program dated: this reading does not announce the holding of parties or its schedules.

The Museum recalls that, in the decade of 1960, the Pereiras had primary school, tailoring, blacksmith and cereal store. These examples show a place where to learn, buy and work crossed paths. They are memories of activities of that time, not a list of services that are still open.

The memory gains another dimension when we join it at the fairs of the place. The Museum's article describes, for the first half of the 20th century, the Fair of the Thirty and the Fair of the Onions, also known as the Fair of Saint Antonino. Trade was not limited to shops: it included periodic meetings, especially cattle.

The same place also brought together the old chain and football field opened in 1925. By linking these stories, the street is no longer just an alignment of buildings: learning, work, administration and leisure appear. References belong to different moments; they are not a photograph of everything working on the same day.

In 1758, receiving news in Santa Senhorinha depended on the post office of Raposeira, in Refojos. The memory indicates a quarter of league distance and a connection to Porto: departure on Thursday and arrival on Tuesday.

These two days allow us to imagine a weekly pace of news. They do not allow us to calculate how long a concrete letter took: the text does not describe its entire path. Raposeira also appears in the memories of other parishes, showing how a service connected different communities.

The response of Vila Nune does not coincide on the day of arrival: it mentions Monday for the post office of Raposeira and Mondim. This difference deserves to be visible. Compare sources is also to realize where they do not agree, instead of turning separate accounts into a unique calendar.

The inventory of the Land Museum of Basto holds tools used by Manuel António Teixeira Leite. The Torquesa pulled the leather to the wooden base; the sovela opened the orifices of the nails; the hammer fixed them. What if a nail was badly placed? The pliers served to remove it. These objects allow reconstructing gestures of work, without transforming the inventory into a currently visitable workshop.

The inventory also preserves the place where these gestures were made. The low working table, called 'work' and registered as T15, was used by Manuel António Teixeira Leite. The T14 bank had a thick board and a small stem where wood was supported for finishing. The workshop was a set of supports and instruments, in addition to the tools that fit in the hand.

A grinding stone, T33, recalls another task: handling the knives. Working the footwear included keeping the tools able to cut. Already the pair of T27 sticks was inventoried in an intermediate phase, with wood worked and ready to receive the leather. The unfinished object helps rebuild the sequence of the manufacture.

The municipal presentation of the Faia includes the manual manufacture of footwear among the artisan traditions of the parish, next to the tannaria. It is a clue to look at the local economy beyond the fields: we also worked with our hands to produce everyday objects.

The source does not identify workshops, craftsmen or footwear models. Therefore, this reference does not allow you to choose a current store or claim that it was punches or clogs. This question remains open. Compared to the documented stories of soles and tampons from other parishes helps to realize how much a craft name can hide from materials, techniques and people.

Numa publicação de agosto de 2025, o Museu recorda o serviço de mercadorias que circulava à quarta-feira na Linha do Tâmega, em 1984. Era associado à locomotiva E 165, fabricada pela Henschel & Sohn em 1908. A imagem postal usada pelo Museu foi feita em Celorico de Basto: documenta a linha, não a estação do Arco.

The support is a postcard from the Portuguese Association of Friends of the Iron Paths, dated 1984. There are three times to distinguish: the construction of the machine, the service remembered in the postcard and the publication of the Museum. The document does not describe the load of each trip.

In the relationship of Santa Senhorinha of 1758, Olela appears as a place of fairs in December, February and March. The parish priest refers payments for settlement and rights. It is a window on local exchanges of that time, not the calendar of markets today. The text specifies the days: 14 and 15 December, 24 and 25 February and 27 March. The dates belong to the account of 1758.

In 1758, the procession of the Body of God gathered in Santa Senhorinha the Chamber and representatives of the nearby parishes, with crosses and ecclesiastics. The memory mentions expenses with wax and sermon: behind the celebration there was preparation, objects and work.

The Abbot also describes separately the triduum of the forty hours, with music and sermons for three days. Distinguishing the two references helps to realize the religious calendar of that time. The document is a testimony of 1758, not the agenda of the current feasts.

The account of St. Pedro of Alvite distinguishes the civil subjects, linked to the Abbot and the convent of Refojos, from the criminals, attributed to the municipality judge of Cabeceiras. The Couto thus had an organization that is not limited to a line on the map. It's a historical description, no correspondence with the current administration. There is an important territorial distinction: the answer places Petimão in the term of Celorico of Basto. The skills of the Couto are described for other places, avoiding reading the entire parish as a single jurisdiction.

In memory of 23 May 1758, the abbot João de Lima Lobo de Noronha enumerates sixteen places. The enumeration includes Covilhã, Augueiros, Presas, Nogueira, Candedo, Ribeiro, Outeiro, Porcarice, Faia, Togais, Souto, Ribeira, Tuesdays, Breia, Casa Nova and Joio. Situa the church out of place and describes the parish on a northern slope.

The list helps to think of a territory distributed by small cores, and not just around the matrix. Names belong to historical transcription; they are not a current administrative list or allow to draw the boundaries of each place by themselves.

The same testimony presents two counts: 99 neighbors and 418 people. The document separates them; they should not add or read “neighbours” as another total of inhabitants. It also distinguishes scales: when speaking of the municipality, the abbot refers to eighteen parishes, but declares not knowing the number of its neighbors. Knowing what the author did not tell is as useful as knowing the numbers he left.

Ribeiro and Ribeira appear as different entries. Outeiro is here in the list of places of Faia: the coincidence with the name of another parish does not authorize to shift this reference on the map. The complete list allows to compare names, while chapels help to perceive some relations between places and houses.

In the reply of 1758, the abbot of Faia notes that the mail arrived on Tuesday and left on Thursday. A brief information reveals the pace of communications in a rural community. The document does not identify here the building where the letters were received; these days belong to the old account, not to the current postal services. The abbot placed Braga at eight leagues and Lisbon at sixty. The recorded distances, without conversion to current kilometers, add scale waiting for the news.

The answer is inserted in a questionnaire that also asked for distances, fairs and aspects of local life. In the same memory, the abbot distinguishes the São Miguel fair from the Olela fairs and the monthly fair in the head of the municipality. Mail and fair are two examples of rhythms that help to perceive a community; the text does not say that the letters were delivered in these markets.

In the memory signed in 23 May 1758, the Abbot of Faia declared that there was no ruin caused by the earthquake. It is a counterpoint to the testimony of Alvite, who described damage to the crosses of a chapel. The absence of ruins in the account does not demonstrate that the earthquake was not felt: it shows what was recorded in that answer. Reading the two documents brings the general history of local experiences closer.

It is useful to notice who writes and when: the answer is from João de Lima Lobo de Noronha, abbot of Faia, and arises in a set of questions that also covers places, crops, fairs and mail. The earthquake is one of the subjects of this local portrait. The signature of 1758 dates the testimony, not the event that he recalls.

In the Pereiras, the building of the former House of the House continued to serve as a chain until 1972, according to the Museum of Lands of Basto. After recovered, received Casa da Música. A municipal news of July 2010 already included it among the spaces proposed to know the municipality. The Museum article needs the change from the House to the Monastery in 1835 and the inauguration of the Casa da Música in 2003: the building continued to change its function after not receiving the municipal administration.

The story of the building begins before the chain that remained in memory. The article of the Museum assigns the editor João Gil de Abreu Castelo Branco the order to build the House of the House in 1586. It then admits a reconstruction in the 18th century, in place of the previous building.

The two floors shared functions: jail in the first, Chamber and hearings in the second. This organization gathered administration and justice in the same space. When the House left, the prison remained; when it closed, the building did not disappear. The inauguration as Casa da Música, in 2003, added another use to a construction with several chapters.

In Pereiras, the memory of the municipality also passes through football. The Basto Land Museum identifies the field inaugurated in 1925 as the first of Cabeceiras de Basto. It served from home to different sports communities, linking the place to the practice of the game and the meetings of those who accompanied it.

In 1982, the construction of the National Road 311 led to the move of the countryside to another location. A sports equipment can thus help count the transformation of a settlement: space changes, but memory preserves the connection to the previous place.

The Museum article, published in July 2024, places the field in a place that had trade, school and fairs. The bibliography includes The Journal of Cabeceiras, of 20 September 1925, and Ecos of Cabeceiras, of 15 August of that year. They are references indicated by the Museum, without reproducing here the contents of these newspapers.

The parish report places Santa Senhorinha in a valley between the Gatiras and the Ladario. It lists places such as Rendufe, Soutelo, Outeiro Seco, Olela, Devesa and Vila Garcia, among many others. The church is described outside the village, in the middle of a field. This portrait allows you to imagine a community distributed across several cores, but retains the names and perspective of the document of 1758, without functioning as a current map.

The author also lists villages that were seen, distinguishing the position in the valley of the look from the Ladário. Visibility was part of the way of presenting the territory. A place could be described by what surrounded it and by what could be seen from a higher point, beyond its limits and names.

In 25 of May 1758, the vicar Manuel Pacheco da Cunha numbered eight places: Cavez, Vila Franca, Ponte, Arosa, Rabiçais, Moimenta, Revorça and Parada. He located the church in the middle of the parish and described six chapels. Names help to recognize a hammock; they are not a current list of administrative places.

São Gregório, in Vila Franca, São Mamede, in Arosa, and Santa Maria Magdalena, in Moimenta, were attributed to the abbot of Pombeiro, with its maintenance linked to the Benedictine congregation of Tibães. São Bartolomeu, on the Bridge, had as patron João Correia, of Guimarães. In São Caetano, in Raviceis at the passage of the chapels, and Santa Luzia, in Revorça, the charge was for the residents. The transcription itself uses the variants Rabiçais and Raviceais.

The report also describes five altars in the matrix and a brotherhood of the Souls. The parish appears as a space of worship and collective organization, with distinct responsibilities. The pilgrimage of São Bartolomeu is mentioned for 23 and 24 of August; they are dates of historical testimony, without functioning as current agenda.

The parish links went beyond the chapels. The vicar wrote that Cavez did not have their own mail and resorted to Raposeira, which was located to a league. He also indicated the absence of fair in the parish. They are clues to think where news arrived and where services were concentrated at that time; they do not describe the current offer nor allow automatically to convert the league into a road distance.

The Douro nase, Pseudochondrostoma duriense, is native to the Iberian Peninsula. Santa Maria da Feira’s municipal profile describes adults in strong-current river sections and juveniles preferring slower water and fine substrates. It also mentions upstream movements before reproduction. The Cavez record from 2016–2017 confirms the species in that survey; it does not describe the sampled fish’s ages or behaviour.

There is a clue in the mouth: the lower lip is straight and has a well-developed horny edge. The body may show small dark spots. These features complement the habitat story; they do not replace careful identification.

The municipal source places upstream migrations between March and June and gives an approximate lifespan of six years. Upstream means towards the source. The calendar and lifespan describe the species in general, without dating a movement or determining the age of fish sampled in the Tâmega.

The memory of 1758 describes the river of Santa Senhorinha running all year round, but with little water in summer. The memory describes cultivated shores, fruit trees and wild grove, linking water to irrigation and rural work.

Vila de Lobos and Cainhos had olive oil mills; the mills are referred to in Vila de Lobos and Sestelo. The same description allows following various uses of the river: to cultivate, grind and transform the olive. It does not confirm which of these equipment survive or operate today.

Unlike the precipitated currents described in São Nicolau, the abbot characterizes this river as quiet and oriented from sunset to spring. He begins his journey in Aboim and lists the passage by Várzea Cova, Passos and St Clemente before arriving in Santa Senhorinha. It is the geography reported in the document, not a current demarcation of the course.

The use of water for the fields is presented as free for residents. The relationship was signed on 23 May 1758. This detail is important: the indication of little water in the summer describes a pattern known to the author, not an observation made in the summer of this year.