Siglas poveiras
Encyclopedia
Póvoa de Varzim
Póvoa de Varzim is a Portuguese city in the Norte Region and sub-region of Greater Porto, with a 2011 estimated population of 63,364. According to the 2001 census, there were 63,470 inhabitants with 42,396 living in the city proper. The urban area expanded, southwards, to Vila do Conde, and there...
in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
for many generations. The siglas were primarily used as a signature for family coat-of-arms in order to mark family belongings. The symbols were normally written using a razor on wood, but painting on boats and beach sheds was also common.
The purpose of the siglas was to record history and thus has been ascribed as Póvoa's "writing system". However, the siglas do not record sounds or specific words, and so are not true writing. The reason for their prominence has been ascertained to be due to a common ignorance of the Latin alphabet among the local population.
Types of Siglas Poveiras
Lixa Filgueiras argued that there are two types of symbols, distinguished by their use: the marcas (marks) and siglas. The marks served as a way to register ownership and thus were commonly present. The siglas, on the other hand, were used for magical and religious concerns. The siglas, being symbols of a mythical character, were thus rarer both in their ancient and newer forms.| Reference box for the types of siglas used in fishermen marks compared to the marks on the doors in the chapels of Balasar Balasar Balasar or Balazar is a Portuguese parish, located in the municipality of Póvoa de Varzim. As of the 2001 census it had a population of 2,475 and a total area of 11.57 km².-History:... and Santa Tecla |
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| Type | Póvoa de Varzim | Balasar | Santa Tecla |
|---|---|---|---|
| Religious Siglas | 18 | 11 | 11 |
| Magical Siglas | 5 | 6 | 4 |
| Maritime Siglas (total) | 47 | 23 | 20 |
| Boats or parts | 32 | 12 | 13 |
| Fishing | 5 | 8 | 4 |
| Penas | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| Pés de Galinha | 6 | 2 | 2 |
Family marks
Siglas poveiras have been used for family coat-of-arms since a very long time by Póvoa's community. Using these symbols, personal and fishing belongings were distinctly marked and thus a form of property registration. The "marca-brasão" ("blazon-mark") of a family was known within the entire Póvoa de Varzim community and children were recognized by counting the number of pique (similar to a trace) within their marks.The usefulness of this system is evidenced by its usage amongst merchants in their books of credit, and the siglas were read as we today read a name written in the Latin alphabet. Currency values were symbolized by rings and traces, drawn after the mark of an individual.
According to a former port authority of Leixões
Leixões
Leixões is located 4 km to the north of Douro River mouth, in Matosinhos municipality, near the city of Porto. Leixões is one of Portugal's major seaports. Leixões Sport Club, commonly knows simply as Leixões, is Matosinhos' sports club....
, the Count of Vilas Boas, an individual stole a compass in Póvoa de Varzim and tried to sell it in Matosinhos
Matosinhos
Matosinhos Municipality is located in Porto District, Portugal. The main city is Matosinhos. It is bordered to the south by the city of Porto and lies within the Greater Porto subregion. The municipality has a population of 168,451 in 10 parishes. Many people have recently moved from the...
, but he was unaware that the recorded "drawings" in the cover indicated the owner's name and thus the first person whom he approached (a woman from Póvoa de Varzim) managed to recognize the mark immediately. Summoning other fishermen, who also recognized the mark, the thief was apprehended and submitted to the port authority.
Nevertheless, it was on the tombs of the dead that the sigla-mark acquired a sense of personal significance. It became common and accepted to have one's sigla carved onto one's tombstone.
Inheritance
The siglas were not simply invented, but passed on through generations. The base family sigla was passed from the father to the youngest son — in Póvoa de Varzim’s tradition, the heir of the family is the youngest son — to the other children was given the sigla with a trace (the pique). Thus, the eldest son would have one pique, the second two and so on, until the younger son that would have the original sigla, inheriting the same symbol as his father.
Analyses were made to check if families have actually used the same symbols throughout generations, due to some supposed inconsistencies within some families. It became apparent that the inconsistencies had historical or genealogical motivations, and that these symbols were inherited through generations and preserved as part of Póvoa's local traditions. Hundreds of different marks were studied leading to 84 different original families.
Chapels in beaches and hills
The Poveiros, throughout generations, used to make inscriptions in the doors of chapels close to beaches or hills as a journey mark or as "campaign promisses" (promessas de campanha). This has been observed in Nossa Senhora da Bonança in Esposende's beach, and Santa Trega in La Guardia Hill, Spain. The mark inscribed would serve as a marker for the Poveiros that would come later indicating either the passage of the inscriber or the attempts to procure good luck from the venerated saint of that place.
On September 23, 1991 a sculpture honouring Siglas Poveiras was inaugurated in the festival of Santa Trega in North-western Spain, as a means to perpetuate the ancient and lost door of the Chapel of Santa Trega known to be covered with Siglas Poveiras. After the inauguration, an expedition aboard the Lancha Poveira Fé em Deus (Faith in God) came from Póvoa de Varzim, whose fishermen went up to the Trega and prayed in the chapel dedicated to the patron saint of the hill. The hills close to the coast, by being visible by the sea, have always had an importance in the Poveiros sect traditions. Long ago, the fishing class went to this hill to pray to the saint in a ritual with chants attempting to change the winds so that they could return home.
Siglas, being used in the same way, can be found in the temples of Senhora da Abadia and São Bento da Porta Aberta, in Terras de Bouro
Terras de Bouro
Terras de Bouro is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 277.5 km² and a total population of 7,955 inhabitants.The municipality is composed of 17 parishes, and is located in the district of Braga. The present Mayor is António Ferreira Afonso, elected by the Social Democratic Party...
, São Torcato, in Guimarães
Guimarães
Guimarães Municipality is located in northwestern Portugal in the province of Minho and in the Braga District. It contains the city of Guimarães.The present Mayor is António Magalhães Silva, elected by the Socialist Party.-Parishes:-Economy:...
and Senhora da Guia, in Vila do Conde. In the municipality of Póvoa de Varzim, these can also be found in the Chapel of Santa Cruz in Balasar.
Divisas
The crew of each boat also had a sigla that was used by all the members of the crew. In the case of a worker shifting to another boat, he would have to adopt the sigla of the new boat. These boat marks were known as "divisas".
The divisas are true "arms shields", intended for the boat’s recognition; curiously, however, they were different from the boat’s owner's mark. One should notice that all the Poveiro belongings were marked with his personal mark, except for the boat. This fact seems to indicate that the boats were predominantly subject to magical-religious invocations, often adopting a protecting-saint for the boat and thus earning a mythical character and also surrounded by protecting symbols.
A. Santos Graça, Epopeia dos Humildes, pag. 146
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English translation
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Marriage marks
The Poveiros wrote their sigla in the table of the mother church upon marriage, as a way for recording the event. This usage of siglas can still be found in Igreja Matriz of Póvoa de Varzim (the mother church since 1757) and in Igreja da LapaLapa Church
thumb|180px|Lighthouse of Lapa Church.Lapa Church, officially Igreja Paroquial de Nossa Senhora da Lapa is a Parish church in the Portuguese city of Póvoa de Varzim. It was built in 1772 by the local fishermen community...
.
A table in the old Church of Misericórdia that had the function of a mother church until 1757 kept thousands of siglas, the obtainment of which would aid in a deeper study of the siglas poveiras, but these were destroyed when the church was demolished.
Origins
For Santos Graça, the siglas poveiras were related with the Castro peoples, and the author compared it and other dissimilar modern marks, found in other fishing communities, with the Iberian writing system. But, this thesis did not have sufficient proof.
After a visit to the National Museet in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Octávio Lixa Filgueiras, by accident, found objects marked with "home-marks" from Funen
Funen
Funen , with a size of 2,984 km² , is the third-largest island of Denmark following Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy, and the 163rd largest island of the world. Funen is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 454,358 inhabitants . The main city is Odense, connected to the...
in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. Moreover, the complex hereditary mark system of Póvoa de Varzim was also found in Funen.
The Siglas development is at least, partly, attributed to Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
s that settled in the town during the 10th century and 11th century. This form of primitive writing developed within the community of Póvoa de Varzim was kept due to the practice of endogamy. Also, the similarity with the Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n tradition of using specific bomärken ("homestead marks") for signatures and for marking property has also been noted.
Each base sigla has a name, normally related with daily objects, but this sigla-object association occurred at a later date for both, Póvoa de Varzim and the system studied in the Danish town of Funnen. The hourglass of Funnen was drawn in the same way as the chalice of Póvoa de Varzim thus indicating that both are remnants of a later era.
Siglas have also been compared to runes, especially in the 1960s when Lixa Filgueiras called for further studies on the matter.
Comparing only identical Nordic runes:
- pique - i-rune isaz (ice
IceIce is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...
) - arpão (harpoon) - t-rune Tiwaz (Tyr)
- meio-arpão (half-harpoon) l-rune laguz (lake
LakeA lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...
) - cálix fechado (closed Chalice
Chalice (cup)A chalice is a goblet or footed cup intended to hold a drink. In general religious terms, it is intended for drinking during a ceremony.-Christian:...
) - d-rune dagaz (dayDayA day is a unit of time, commonly defined as an interval equal to 24 hours. It also can mean that portion of the full day during which a location is illuminated by the light of the sun...
) - cruz (cross
CrossA cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run obliquely, the design is technically termed a saltire, although the arms of a saltire need not meet...
) g-rune gyfu (giftGiftA gift or a present is the transfer of something without the expectation of receiving something in return. Although gift-giving might involve an expectation of reciprocity, a gift is meant to be free. In many human societies, the act of mutually exchanging money, goods, etc. may contribute to...
)
- lanchinha — Poveiro Boat (port)
- lanchinha — Poveiro Boat (nose)
- mastro e verga — Barco Poveiro with hoisted sail
- coice — Barco Poveiro (an area where women pushed for Ala-Arriba
Ala-arribaAla-arriba is an expression that means " strength" used by the population of the Portuguese city of Póvoa de Varzim. It represents the co-operation between the inhabitants and is also the motto of Póvoa de Varzim. This expression was used when the population dragged a boat to the beach, before the...
) - padrão — Cruzeiro of the Cemitery of Póvoa de Varzim
grades de dois e três piques — Gratings (Agricultural object used in the smoothing of the farm fields after harvest in Giesteira
GiesteiraGiesteira or Bairro de Belém is a neighourhood of the Portuguese city of Póvoa de Varzim. It is one of the six traditional neighbourhoods of the city, and one of the eleven city districts...
, Póvoa de Varzim)
sarilho and meio sarilho — Sarilho (object used by women to make hanks of wool or hemp in Póvoa de Varzim)
Current use of Siglas
The siglas are still used, but not as often as previously by some families.External links
- Families (part one)
- Families (part two)
- Siglas Poveiras in Galicia (Spain)
- As Siglas Poveiras - Casa dos Poveiros, Rio de Janeiro (Brasil)
- Abreviaturas, Acrónimos & Siglas
- Siglas Poveiras - Câmara MunicipalCâmara Municipal- Portugal :Its members are elected by the Hondt method, serve year-round and are paid. The president of a Municipal Chamber is the head of the most-voted list...
da Póvoa de VarzimPóvoa de VarzimPóvoa de Varzim is a Portuguese city in the Norte Region and sub-region of Greater Porto, with a 2011 estimated population of 63,364. According to the 2001 census, there were 63,470 inhabitants with 42,396 living in the city proper. The urban area expanded, southwards, to Vila do Conde, and there...
