Vilão

This is the term generally used here to denote the country people of this island. The word almost always carries a pejorative sense, because the Funchal townsman regards the peasant as socially and mentally far beneath himself, although in most cases this is a flagrant injustice. The inhabitant of our countryside is ignorant, rough and superstitious, just as the inhabitant of the provinces of the mainland and of the Azorean islands is. And compared with the peasants of the suburban parishes and with a considerable number of the city’s own residents, he is in no way inferior to them, nor need he envy their degree of civilisation, except in his dress.

The rural inhabitants of Madeira, almost all of them illiterate, live in great isolation in homesteads scattered widely over the mountain slopes. Villages are unknown here, apart from small and thinly populated towns, so they are completely cut off from all social life and sheltered from the civilising influences of large centres of population. Their ignorance and the almost total isolation in which they live make them reserved and distrustful in their dealings with the landlords and the city folk. To this must be added a natural timidity, born largely of the absolute and at times despotic dependence in which for centuries they stood towards the holders of entails and the landlords, who came to own two-thirds of the arable land of Madeira. That is why our country folk are called crafty. As we have said elsewhere, it is generally acknowledged that the country people are of a peaceful and orderly disposition. The great majority are devoted to farm work, which in this region is very hard and toilsome owing to the particular nature of the terrain. They labour from daybreak until the shadows of night fall, generally carefree and indifferent to everything other than the unending toil of their laborious existence. Whether they live in straitened modesty or in reasonable sufficiency, their life passes serene and tranquil, and they are wholly resigned to their lot.