Gondiães e Vilar de Cunhas

Popes of São Sebastião, knowledge of wool and mountain villages: discover Gondiães e Vilar de Cunhas. The Feast of Popes of Gondian and Samão is a memory of community sharing. In Vilar, Cunhas and Uz, the granaries and the mountain landscape tell other stories; the Fojo of Uz recalls old practices of wolf capture.

Gondiães, Vilar, Cunhas and Uz

Four names to get to know the northeast serrano of the municipality. Gondiães connects to the Beça River Basin; Vilar, Cunhas and Uz belong to the historical territory of Vilar de Cunhas. Agriculture, forest and pastoral care bring the inhabited nuclei closer to mountain and plateau land.

The Feast of Popes and Community Work

Gondiães and Saman are associated with the Feast of the Popes of St Sebastian. Food preparation and sharing, including bread and bacon, occupy a central place in the municipal description. It is a Community tradition with its own calendar references; this history does not automatically announce the realization of an edition. Wool socks and lace also belong to the knowledge mentioned in these locations.

Two parishes in ancient documentation

The transcripts of the Memories of 1758 present Gondiães with matrix of São Martinho and Vilar with matrix of São Lourenço. The separate reading of the two sources retains identities that the current administrative union does not erase. The Casa de Chouzas and its granaries are other references of rural and manorial architecture. Historical designations of documents must be read in their own time.

The ritual of sharing in Popes

The municipal description places the tradition to 20 of January, alternating Gondiães in the even years and Samão in the odd ones. Preparation involves bread, meat, popes, and wine, with blessing and community distribution. A record of the Basto Land Museum of 2012 describes changes in food and meal organization. Tradition has history and transformations; the promise linked to a plague is a narrative of origin, with no medieval date proven in this research.

Spigs and mountain knowledge

For Vilar de Cunhas, the municipality highlights the Casa de Chouzas and three granaries, proposing for the set a nineteenth-century chronology. Wool socks appear in the characterization of Gondiães and Vilar de Cunhas, while laces are also mentioned in this latter territory. These references link architecture, crop conservation and textile work. The churches of St Martin and St Lawrence recall the two old parishes gathered in the present union.