Porto Santo (demographic aspects)

The following passages are taken from an interesting lecture given by the Revd Father Eduardo Pereira and published in the Funchal Diario de Noticias of 22 and 23 July 1941.

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The social life of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) is also a subject of interest, curiosity and study, because of the striking contrast it offers with that of Madeira. The people have always kept to themselves within the island and within their own ethnic character, customs and traditions.

It is a distinctive and original land in the geological and demographic make-up of the archipelago. The people, descended directly from two races, the Portuguese and the Arab, show their influences and atavism in everything.

They are Portuguese in the sharply marked, strong features of 16th-century colonisers; they are Arab in atavistic traits of a pronounced Moorish character. The former reveal themselves in a sensitivity about lineage and in moral attributes; the latter in physical characteristics and mixed temperaments. In their moral make-up, however, they are more markedly Portuguese, and island and inhabitants show so much physical and political affinity with the Portuguese mainland that one might easily say they belong more there than here. The very upbringing of that people is another original facet of considerable psychological importance.

Their way of living and feeling, social manners, notions of hygiene, qualities of courtesy and solidarity, language, family, paternal authority, marriage, pedigrees, morals, diet, amusements, music, farming system – everything, absolutely everything, distinguishes the population of Porto Santo from that of Madeira. Out of Arab mistrust, the people do not give or open themselves at first contact to anyone, whether from within or without, wherever they may come from. First they get to know, then they study, and only then do they esteem, with Portuguese frankness and affection. Their affection is slow to come, but lasting. Let no one set out to deceive them, for they will be the first to see through the deceit. Unusually intelligent and shrewd, they do not let strangers know them without first knowing them. They are, however, of a captivating courtesy unequalled among our populations.’