Tragedy in Madeira (A)

by Albino de Meneses, Baptista Santos, Abel Rocha de Gouveia and Domingos dos Reis Costa, 1910, 189 pp. Regional dress. To shed further light on the subject treated in the article Indumentária (II-136), we transcribe the following interesting passages from the Diário da Madeira (March 1938):

“

Folklore studies of the dress peculiar to different regions have established conclusively that clothing, in its cut, arrangement and colouring, always corresponds to the way of life of the inhabitants and, above all, to the nature of the surroundings, through their climate, relief and the tones of the landscape. Where the landscape is richly flowered, splashed with many intense colours, dress – especially women’s dress – is equally colourful, so that the figure harmonises with and becomes part of the scene in which it lives and works. A Madeiran who visits the Minho at once finds there a landscape that recalls that of Madeira. And in the dress of the Minho woman he will recognise, in the bright, many-coloured stripes of the skirt, a close likeness to the dress of our own countrywomen. Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’), luminous but colourless, has not given women’s dress – not even by imitation – the liveliness and hues that, in the eyes of Portuguese and foreigners alike, have made the charm of the peasant costume of this “Flower of the Atlantic”.

In the land of the Perestrelos, dress is as neutral as the tone of its fields and mountains.

Indeed, it all comes down to a formula of harmony imposed not by any rule of art but solely – rather as in mimicry – by instinctive conditions that are entirely unconscious. Within the many colours of Madeiran peasant dress there are variations from place to place or, at least, from municipality (concelho) to municipality.

Here striped skirts, elsewhere skirts entirely red; the same capes and bodices vary in colour; and the capes even differ in the tone of the edging on the points near the collar, and in the manner of throwing them or arranging them over the shoulders. It would be worth studying all this in the localities themselves, with information from the oldest people, the best keepers of traditional custom.

In the parishes (freguesias) or in the seats of the municipalities, as might be decided, the Tourism Delegation would arrange for dolls to be made and dressed by local ‘seamstresses’ according to the agreed model. Supervision would be entrusted to a committee of competent people in whom a regionalist sense was combined with an interest in this kind of folklore. It would be made up of Madeirans with a love of the subject and recognised good taste.

These small figures, classified by locality, municipality or parish – representing, of course, country people of both sexes – would form a permanent exhibition in a suitable place, which would certainly be of great interest to Portuguese and foreigners alike. It would be interesting for its picturesqueness, for its folkloric value and for recording the dress of the various localities, something that has still to be done in a definitive way.

We are inclined to believe that the study of our costumes and their recording in models – officially exhibited, let us say – could only benefit everyone interested in the folklore of Madeira as far as dress is concerned. If, alongside the accurately dressed figures, we added household objects and agricultural or other implements associated with the regions to which the garments belong, the exhibition would be more complete still and therefore more useful.

There are amateurs here of recognised talent, with proven skill in modelling clay, who, if entrusted with making the faces of the countrymen and countrywomen, would give them a local character and all the expressive force peculiar to our people.

Once the heads had been modelled and the body proportions set on a schematically made wooden frame, the rest would be up to the ‘seamstress’, we repeat, after the composition of the figure had been carefully studied.

We insist that the figure be dressed not in the city, which spoils everything with its fancies and inappropriate stylisations, but in the countryside, where people know the fabrics, how to cut and adorn them, and even how to sew them with precision.

At the same time, home weaving should be looked after with loving care, and the regional recipes of our dyeing, especially those for wool, which are based on vegetable colourings, should not be allowed to be lost.

At the Year-End Festivities, these little mannequins would serve as a model for the groups from each district that came to Funchal to take part in processions or other items on the programme. Contests would be held among them, intended solely to stimulate their love of their dress and customs, with prizes for their gallantry, the rhythm of their dances and, above all, the accuracy of their costume, everything always guided by a traditional spirit’.