Dress

The dress of the Madeiran peasant has nothing remarkable about it today. It generally consists of trousers of linen, seriguilha (homespun linen-and-wool cloth), marafuz (coarse homespun linen-and-wool cloth) or some other fabric, a linen or cotton shirt, and a waistcoat and jacket, often made of the same fabric as the trousers. In some parts of the island a sleeveless jacket of marafuz or seriguilha is widely worn, leaving the arms covered only by the shirtsleeves. While at work, the farmer usually takes off his waistcoat and jacket but keeps on his hat or cap, which protects his head from the heat of the sun.

The peasant’s cap bears no resemblance whatever to the old carapuças. It is made of wool, fits the head closely and has a small tassel on top and two flaps at the sides, which are either let down over the ears or turned up, sometimes fastened to a button. This cap, known as the eared cap, appears to be a Madeiran creation and was already being worn in 1857.

The old costumes of the countrywomen have almost disappeared, replaced by dresses and bodices or polka jackets of chintz or wool, exactly like those worn by lower-class women in Funchal. In Camacha and some other places the women tie a roll of cloth round the waist and put on several skirts over it. As a result their hips take on a rounded shape, and the dress, which is rather short, sways from side to side as they walk. This movement is not without grace when the woman is tall and elegant and walks with an easy step.

The headscarf, its ends tied under the chin, is the head covering most worn by countrywomen, but there are parishes where the mantilla and the hat are becoming general, above all among women who come often to Funchal. A shawl thrown over the shoulders often completes the dress of the women of our countryside.

The old costumes of our peasants were unquestionably far more charming and picturesque than those of today. The men wore wide linen breeches ending at the knee, where they were gathered, with a shirt and a jacket of the same cloth. The women wore a striped skirt of a linen-and-wool fabric made on the island, a linen shirt and a cape of blue or red baize reaching to below the waist; this cape had pointed scallops, sometimes edged with ribbon. Many men owned coats or cloaks of coarse wool, which they wrapped around themselves on cold days.

For feast days the men had their waistcoats and coats of blue cloth, and the women pretty bodices or stays in bright colours, sometimes ingeniously embroidered, which they wore over their shirts. Men and women alike fastened their fine linen shirts with yellow buttons, sometimes of gold, and covered their heads with a small cap of blue cloth (carapuça (traditional Madeiran cap shaped like an inverted funnel)), lined with red, which had the shape of an inverted funnel. Well-to-do women could be recognised by the gold chains with which they adorned themselves; these were wound twice around the neck and then fastened to the lower part of the bodice.

It is likely that the striped skirts and embroidered bodices derived from old Moorish costumes, all the more so as it is known that there were once many Moors, chiefly in Funchal and Ponta do Sol (‘point of the sun’). As for the carapuça, however, it is hard to guess its origin, although White tells us that in some of Rubens’s paintings an object very similar to this old Madeiran cap can be seen on ladies’ heads. The carapuça protected the head so poorly that it is surprising the people of this island wore it at all.

Hans Sloane, Ovington, Captain James Cook, Forster and Barrow make no mention of the carapuça in the accounts of their voyages, which leads us to believe that this cap only began to be worn in Madeira in the first quarter of the 19th century. Paulo Dias de Almeida, in his Descrição da ilha da Madeira, written in 1817 and published in the Navy and Overseas Archive (Arquivo da Marinha e Ultramar), includes two plates showing carapuças, but without the long points that gave these caps the shape of inverted funnels.

Before they knew the funnel-shaped carapuça, the peasants wore a cap of red or blue wool, whose shape can be seen in the plate accompanying the work on the climate of Madeira published by Dr Nicolau Caetano Pita in 1812. This cap fitted closely to the head and was certainly far more comfortable than the pointed carapuça that became widespread on the island shortly afterwards.

Diogo Vieira de Tovar e Albuquerque, in an unpublished work written in 1807 entitled Descripçâo política e económica da ilha da Madeira, tells us the following about the costumes worn on the island: ‘Working men always wear a cloth carapuça, fitting close to the head, with two small ear-flaps, a long coat, wide linen drawers, short to the knee, where they are fastened, and close-fitting boots in the natural colour of the leather from which they are made. I believe this custom has perhaps been preserved from the usage of the first Portuguese inhabitants of the island, for the Portuguese of that time dressed in almost the same way, at least in form. I also believe that the use of long coats among working people is encouraged and maintained by the English, in order to promote greater consumption of their cloth, for the whole island is supplied with cloth from England. The women wear the same carapuças, skirts of cotton or chintz, and boots. Polite society dresses entirely in the Portuguese manner.’

In the parish (freguesia) of Caniço (‘reed’) the men wear hats made of palm leaf which, although very durable, have nothing to recommend them in elegance or suppleness. We do not know when these hats first came into use.

The carapuças shaped like an inverted funnel were worn in certain parishes until 1870; nevertheless, around 1880 and even later, a few old peasants could still occasionally be seen in Funchal wearing these extravagant caps. Some carapuças had two flaps at the sides, while others had none.

Of the old Madeiran costumes all that remains today are the boots of white or yellowish leather, without heels and with the leg turned down in the middle, and the blue baize capes with pointed scallops, which are still worn by some peasant women, even in the parishes bordering the municipality (concelho) of Funchal.

Barrow, who was in Madeira in 1792, says that the middle class, that is, shopkeepers and artisans, wore hats, shoes and stockings, with a long coat to hide the patches on their trousers, and that the women of the same class invariably dressed in black and wore a capacete on their heads. Ovington, who visited the island in 1689, noted that the people affected a certain gravity in their dress, wearing black in imitation of the clergy, and that the sword was so widely carried that even servants wore one while waiting at table.

Men of a certain social standing once wore embroidered silk waistcoats, and as late as 1870 physicians could almost always be recognised by their long black frock coats and top hats. During Holy Week and in the season of confession, ladies replaced their hats with black veils that covered their heads and sometimes their faces. This fashion, which went back to ancient times, began to fall out of use shortly after 1880.

Around the middle of the 19th century the councillors (vereadores) of the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) wore capes, breeches and stockings at official ceremonies. It was still in this dress, together with the obsolete plumed hats, that the members of the municipality appeared at the funeral rites of Luís I and at the acclamation (aclamação, formal public proclamation of a new king) of Carlos I, both held in 1889, even though the municipal uniform had by then been reduced to the said capes, which were of black silk lined with white.

At the beginning of the 20th century these capes were replaced by sashes of blue and white silk, which were worn until the proclamation of the Republic on this island.

Apart from minor local peculiarities, the dress of the inhabitants of Madeira today differs in no way from that worn in Europe. The fashions of Paris are strictly followed in Funchal, and it is above all the fair sex that pays them the most faithful homage, sometimes at the cost of great sacrifices.

If in Barrow’s time the women of the middle classes always dressed in black, heaven knows how things stand today, when it is they who most worship fashion and show the greatest inclination towards luxury, despite the high price of fabrics of every kind, and of fine fabrics in particular. It is the nouveaux riches of both sexes, generally vain and ill-bred people, who display the finest clothes, while the upper classes sometimes dress modestly, whether for lack of means or so as not to be confused with those who, by means not always lawful, have managed to increase their capital astonishingly.

Anyone walking through the streets of the city on feast days notices the greatest luxury everywhere and gains the impression that the great majority of the people of Funchal have the means to sustain it. Unfortunately, however, this is not so, and if we could enter many homes, we might perhaps find poverty and disorder there, in contrast to the costly finery their occupants display in public. (1921).

The truth is that the old and characteristic dress, especially that worn by the countrywomen of Madeira, has disappeared entirely, although some claim to find traces of it in certain localities far from the centre of Funchal.

For a fuller study of this subject, besides the authors cited in this article, the following writings should be consulted, as they provide curious and interesting information: Diário da Madeira (‘Madeira Daily’) of 7, 8 and 13 March 1938; Arquivo Historico da Madeira, vol. IV, pp. 178 ff.; and ‘Zargo’s Islands’ (Ilhas de Zargo), pp. 683 ff.