Popular beliefs

Although civilisation has swept away many popular beliefs once common in Madeira, some still survive among us today, and they seem to us worth mentioning because they are deeply rooted in the minds of our people. Belief in sorceresses, in witches, in the evil eye, in bad air (ar mau) and in the power that certain individuals have to heal with words or to foretell the future by means of cards is found not only in the countryside but also in the city. It is worth noting that there are people considered educated who have not yet entirely abandoned certain superstitions handed down to us by the past.

In the popular view, sorceresses make it their business to work every kind of evil spell. They sometimes appear in the form of a stone jar rolling along the paths; if anyone touches it, it turns into a woman, who forces the person who caused the transformation to carry her home on their back. The chief task of witches is to suck the blood of children at night, although this evil can be prevented by placing an open pair of scissors under the pillow of the person one wishes to protect.

Campo Grande (‘great field’), on the Paul da Serra (‘upland marsh’), is one of the places chosen for the gatherings of the sorceresses, over which the devil presides, often taking the form of a goat. The sign of the cross, made with devotion, is enough, they say, to drive off the king of hell should we have the misfortune to meet him on our way, whatever form he may take. The words ‘tosca, marrosca, olhos na cara e freio na bôca’ [TN: a charm; roughly ‘tosca, marrosca, eyes in the face and bit in the mouth’], spoken aloud, are said to be extraordinarily effective in warding off any sorceress or sorceresses who seek to harm us or amuse themselves at our expense.

The will-o’-the-wisps that appear over ground containing rotting matter are, the people say, the work of sorceresses, who have no fear of revealing their presence anywhere, especially at night. Sorceresses are as a rule old and ugly women, and it is believed in Madeira, as in Portugal, that their power lies chiefly in a ball of thread that the devil gives each of them at her initiation. The case of the prophets of Porto Santo, related in all seriousness on p. 55 of Gaspar Frutuoso’s ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra), is attributed by that writer to ‘deceptions or wiles of Satan’. On p. 180 of the same work we read the account of a struggle that a cleric had with the devil near the chapel of Nossa Senhora das Neves (Our Lady of the Snows), a struggle from which the devil would have emerged victorious had the cleric not crossed himself or invoked the name of Jesus on realising that his life was in danger.

The belief that certain people have the power, or the knowledge, to foretell the future or uncover hidden things using nothing but playing cards is perhaps the most widespread on the island. Not a few women take up the trade of telling fortunes to satisfy the curiosity of the simpletons who believe their deceptions.

Elsewhere in this Elucidário we give some information on the art of healing with words (see Bucho encostado, Evil eye and Folk medicine). As for the bad air, all we can say is that it makes itself felt chiefly at night and has the property of harming any people and animals exposed to it. If, out in the countryside, you hear dogs howling at night for no apparent reason, it is because the bad air is passing, bringing on the evil eye’s wasting spell (quebranto) and various diseases.

Of the superstitions of our people we will add that a broken mirror foretells misfortune. Lending a sieve, or selling salt or yeast after sunset; kissing someone who is holding a lighted candle; staying at table while a funeral passes; and starting a job on a Tuesday or a Friday: these are things that many people, not only in the countryside but also in Funchal, refrain from doing, supposing that harm might come to them from it. Many people consider the number thirteen ill-fated, and if that number of people sit down at a table, it is said that one of them will die within the year. The owl and the patagarro are birds of ill omen, and so is a hen that has the bad habit of crowing like a cockerel.

It is on the eves of St John and St Peter that anyone may learn part of the destiny in store for them. An unmarried young man or woman who, at the hour of the Ave Marias, fills their mouth with water and listens will learn, from the first man’s or woman’s name they hear, the name of the person to whom they are one day to join their fate. The same result can be obtained by lots cast into water, if one of them opens during the night. An egg dropped into a glass can also tell a great deal if we leave it exposed to the air on St John’s night; and if on that night the water reflects the image of a person as the clock strikes 12, it is because that person’s life is assured until the feast of the same saint the following year!

The beatas are branches of trees and shrubs gathered on the morning of St John’s Day, when, so the people say, every plant has virtue except the malfurada. Placed at the door or inside the house, they cancel the effects of the evil eye and ward off many of the spells to which humanity is subject. Of all the plants found in Madeira, rosemary is the one most used to combat the devil’s wiles.

Besides the superstitions we have just mentioned, there are others that still people the imagination of our islanders, but for brevity’s sake we do not record them here. In any case, it cannot be said that the Madeiran people are among the most superstitious, or that their credulity is in direct proportion to their ignorance.

In Europe, even in the most advanced countries, there are more superstitions and popular credulities than in Madeira, as can be seen from several works on the occult sciences and popular beliefs published in the 19th century by various Portuguese and foreign authors.