08.12.2005
Madeiro in Proença-a-Velha
for Cristina and Filip
One warm sunny winter day (which is an exotic
combination for a Polish man) I was driving on the way from Fundão to
Monsanto. I drove through picturesque mountains, passing calm villages,
abandoned houses and olive trees.
I passed through a village which name I didn't notice. Through the car
window I noticed a man sitting in the main square, and I kept this image on
my mind.
After several hours in the way back, I saw the same view again – the same
man sitting at the very same place with the very same position. I decided to
stop.
I took my heavy Ukrainian camera and asked permission to photograph him – he
agreed. I took my photo and suddenly I noticed two happy ladies with bunches
of flowers. That was the beginning of an avalanche, more and more women
arrived with flowers...
They invited me to join them. I followed them far away from the village,
where I saw ox-carts full of big dry logs, and men preparing food. I was
warmly invited. They gave me fresh bread, sardines and wine.
With sardine in one hand and camera in the other, I tried to document what
was hapening there. The wonderful hospitality of friendly people, who
invited with full heart a stranger hardly speaking Portuguese.
That's how my first Log in Proença a Velha was, and I hope this will not be
the last.
Text by Marcin Górski
The Log of Infant Jesus is a millenarian tradition that's still alive, in
this bleach of the 3rd milenium, in many places in the country-side and in
all parishes of Idanha-a-Nova, as the presented photos, taken in December
2005 in Proença-a-Velha, are a good example.
Log, strump, trunk, andiron, "galheiro", fire, or simply Christmas fire, are
names by which continue to be known in Portugal these vestiges of sacred
rituals, that in antiquity were made in Winter solstice, when our ancestors
lit fires in homage and prayer to the Sun, so it shine again strong and
sovereign, after a period where cold, blackout and darknesses seemed to toke
care of nature.
Pagan rituals that survived several centuries of social, religious and
political transformations, and that still last today, in these borderer
lands, in a full integration with christian rituals and traditions, as if
they originate from it!
It's on Christmas Eve, in the night of Christmas supper, that the Log is
lighted, so that the just-born God (the Sun of primitive peoples, Jesus of
actual Christians), can be heated in this cold and frozen night, while young
boys, around the fire or scouring the village streets, celebrate and sing
hymns in Its glory!
But, if it's true that's in the night of 24th that the old Log is lighten,
that it should light until New Year's Eve, this is not, however, the Day of
the Log! In the great majority of these villages the Day of the Log it's the
8th of December, the day where ceremoniously it enters the village, with
people adhering in an enthusiastic form, applauding and celebrating its
passage, incorporating and participating, as if this was a procession!
The entire population participates, but the organization of the Log belongs,
according to tradition, to the single boys, young men of "lucks", those that
in that year give their name to join the national troop! And, if is in troop
that boys became men, as today people still say, we're here, without a doubt,
in presence of an iniciation ritual, a fire and force proof of these "influents"
of the Log, as they are called in Proença, in their passage to the group of
men! Rituals of other ritual.
In this forgotten and desert interior, due to the lack of "lucks" boys, the
oldest assume the organisation responsibility, so that the ritual is kept
and tradition persists!
"Festum Osirid Nati" in old Egipt, "Wakening of Melqarth" in old Phenitia, "Natalis
Solis invicti" in old Rome, are the ancestors of our actual "Log", as also
are the "Ceppo" of Italy, the "Tréfoir" of France, the "Yule Clog" of
England, or the Christmas fires of Letonia! The fire, the heat and the light
of men, as an homage to fire, heat and Celestial light!
Text: João Adolfo Geraldes
Translation: Sofia Quintas
exhibition: Dia de Madeiro em Proenca
dates: 9.12.2006 till 7.01.2007
place: Galeria de Exposicao do Nucleo do Azeite, Proenca a Velha, Portugal
book: Madeiro - Retratos de uma Tradicao Milenar
authors: M. Górski, J.A. Geraldes, J. Mugeiro
editor: Proencal, Magno Edicoes
