THE NORTHEASTERN ALGARVE AND
THE SOUTHERN IBERIA
FAMILY PATTERN
Cristiana Bastos
ABSTRACT: In the northeastern Algarve, Portugal, semi-dispersed settlements and
property fragmentation evidently had coexisted with a predominantly nuclear family
household pattern since the midnineteenth century, suggesting that a small holding pattern
of land tenure need not always lead to a stem-family household as is so often true in other
areas of Iberia. Other comparisons, drawn between the Algarve and the adjacent region
of Alentejo, suggest that regional variation is strong on all measures and poses an interesting
challenge to social scientific explanation.
INTRODUCTION
Departing for fieldwork in the mountainous
interior of the Algarve while imbued with the
usual cliches of the anthropology of the
Mediterranean, one realizes that something is
amiss. The importance of honor and shame
values, the strict segregation of the sexes, the
stark social dichotomies, and the unequal
distribution of property that characterize
Southern European societies (Davis 1977;
Persistiany 1971), seem to apply solely to the
neighbouring Alentejo region (Cutileiro
1977).
A preliminary observation might be that
the mountain context departs from the
Mediterranean pattern which in the Iberian
Peninsula coincides with the plains, altitude
thus becoming the &dquo;vertical North&dquo; described
by Braudel (1983, p. 38). It should be noted
that these mountains also contrast ecologically and culturally with the Lower Algarve.
Moreover, there is a tendency, expressed
in Portuguese common sense, to consider the
Algarve (and its inhabitants, algarvios) as
something &dquo;apart,&dquo; &dquo;different,&dquo; and &dquo;unique.&dquo;
This idea has been reinforced by impressionistic and literary accounts (e.g., Proença
1927) as well as by historical evidence until
the nineteenth century. Another interpretation attributes the difference to the different
ethnic and tribal descent of people of the
Cristiana Bastos is a Research Associate in the
Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalho e da
Empresa, Lisboa, Portugal.
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112
and of the Algarve. A more recent
attitude blames tourism for the Algarvian
liberal manner of life (which are not found
in the nearby Alentejo).
It is a fact that one senses a clear contrast
between the two regions, an impression which
is reinforced by fieldwork. The Alentejo fits,
in a broad sense, into the Mediterranean
&dquo;honour and shame&dquo; mold, whereas the
Algarve does not. This contrast constitutes an
interesting challenge for social-scientific
explanation. An understanding of the
differences in these two adjacent regions
should prove to be useful in the ongoing
discussion of European regional variation.
That is why in this article, which focuses on
the family in Northeastern Algarve, I have
adopted research criteria that, although
controversial within social anthropology,
make the data comparable to the case studies
of demographers and historians.
Northeastern Algarve is a region of low
schist mountains and plateaus which are part
of the so-called Serra Algarvia, the west-east
chain separating the Algarve from the
Alentejo. From the perspective of the coastal
region the region is derogatorily called a
serra, meaning that it is uninteresting and
miserable. Its inhabitants are similarly
referred to as montanheiros or serrenhos,
with the implication of backwardness. They
accept this image of themselves, considering
their region as marginal and applying the
name &dquo;Algarve&dquo; solely to the coastal and
fringe areas. There are some differences
between eastern and western Serra Algarvia.
I will focus on the eastern section, which has
relative ecological homogeneity (see
Macario-Correia 1984; Cavaco 1976; Feio
1983). The area encompasses, administratively, the parishes of Alcoutim, Pereiro,
Gi6es, Martinlongo, Vaqueiros (borough of
Alcoutim), Cachopo (borough of Tavira),
Odeleite and Azinhal (borough of Castro
Alentejo
Marim).2
The region’s relationship with the Portuguese state is mediated by the regional
administration of the Algarve,3 located in
Faro. From there, the northeast area is seen
as the poorest and most depressed zone and,
consequently, several development projects
and studies have recently been conducted in
it. The recent relative financial autonomy of
municipal administration has allowed for
certain improvements, such as electrification,
the drilling of wells, the building of roads and
transportation for schoolchildren. Attempts
at development, however, have clashed with
one of the most characteristic aspects of the
the extreme fragmentation of
region
landholdings. This is perhaps the key issue in
an understanding of northeastern Algarve
society, or of any social fact pertaining to it.
The fragmentation of land is visible to any
observer of the profusion of boundary
markers dividing minuscule plots, as well as
of the tightly-knit fields, whether cultivated,
fallowed or abandoned. These characteristics
make the landscape obviously different from
that of the neighbouring Alentejo, and the
comparison is brought out in Figure 1.
It can be said that northeast Algarvian
society is strongly conditioned by peasant
land ownership; energy is expended according to the daily and yearly needs of domestic
exploitation. Very little time is left for social
interaction among peers, in contrast to the
Alentejo where there is the daily ritual
expression of men meeting at the tavern for
the purpose of buying rounds of wine for their
friends.4 In the Algarve montes there are
-
scarcely any taverns or even wine; nor can one
find the associations of male solidarity so
common in the Alentejo, such as choirs,
sports groups, volunteer firemen squads and
active political groups. The strong gender
dichotomy which goes hand in hand with
these forms of male socializing is also absent.
While in the Alentejo the dichotomy assumes
a morphological form with urban public
space reserved for men and the house for
women, in the Algarve the sexes share equally
the relatively undifferentiated spaces. Thus,
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113
Contrasts Between the
Figure 1.
Alentejo and the Serra Algarvia
Note to
Figure 1:
Although the agrarian reform after the 1974 revolution altered the social issues (since private latifundia
became collective units [UCPs] and cooperatives), the size and technical features of the land units were
mostly retained. Montes is the local name for hamlets that in other areas are called sitios. The word
an isolated set of buildings of an agricultural
monte is used in the Alentejo for a different reality
In
the
northeast
the
montes
are
small
agglomerations of houses, barns, and plots
enterprise.
Algarve
most of them containing about ten households. There are two cases (Pessegueiro and Santa Justa,
both in Martinlongo freguesia) of very large montes with about fifty households. They should properly
to the place where the
be called villages, but people are very strict in reserving the word - aldeia
located.
is
freguesia
-
-
-
of the bases of the &dquo;honor and shame&dquo;
system are absent in the Algarve.
Marriage is strongly deritualized. In some
parishes most couples cohabit without
legitimation by either Church or State. The
parishes where this pattern is not as blatant
have been influenced by certain priests who
persuaded couples to legalize their unions.
The understanding of marriage in the Serra
Algarvia is thus an interesting puzzle that
admits multiple research strategies. As
anthropologists we are used to regarding
marriage as ritualized with complex ceremonies and as a fundamental step in the
creation of domestic groups and, frequently,
the transmission of property. Marriage is also
one of the most interesting manifestations of
cultural variability.
Field observation shows that in the Serra
Algarvia the criteria for the classification of
some
married and single people have to be adapted
to local categories. All the couples that decide
to &dquo;live together&dquo; (cohabit) and thus start a
new domestic group, regard themselves as
having the same status as married couples.
The decision is apparently made freely on the
basis of personal choice and in concert with
or against the opinion of kin. Later the union
may be &dquo;legitimized,&dquo; often because of social
pressure from above - the Church and the
priest some decades ago, the State and its
welfare benefits recently. There is a remarkable absence of horizontal social control as
well as of normative pressures as compared
to neighboring societies. Sometimes people
live together for their entire lives and marry
a curious and conscious
at age 70
of
the
legal consequences of
recognition
for
inheritance.
marriage
-
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114
RESEARCHING MARRIAGE REGISTRIES
The study of marriage registries for the
nineteenth century in the parish of Martinlongo reveals some relevant facts, confirmed
in and complemented by other sources. We
know from ecclesiastical documents that the
Church had a strong influence in this part of
the Serra. The priests knew the population
with an almost statistical precision, as is
evident in the annually updated Rol dos
Confessados (Confessional Roll). It may be
supposed that they exerted pressure on
people to marry according to the Roman
Catholic rite. As a result, registrations use the
same format year after year: the description
of the ritual consecration of the union
between a man and a woman, the date, the
spouses’ ages, place of origin, filiation, and
the signatures of the priest and two witnesses.
Some variables can be studied on the basis
of this information. We know, for instance,
that between 1860 and 1883 (in a total of 4211
marriages) the average ages at first marriage
were 29 for men and 25 for women. We also
know that marriages were unevenly distributed throughout the year, as may be seen in
Table 1.
This distribution reflects both the impact
of the agricultural cycle (with low figures in
June-July and November; high figures in
September-October and January-February)
and the periods of Roman Catholic ritual
restraint, such as Advent and Lent (resulting
in low figures in March-April and
December).
Equally interesting
are
some
nonsyste-
matic notes found in the registration books,
e.g. &dquo;and they brought along an infant of the
sex which they recognize as their child, that
was baptized with the name ...&dquo; These facts
strengthen the belief that many couples lived
together and had children before they
underwent the rite of matrimony. The
nominal record linkage of marriage and birth
...
registrations would certainly improve the
value of these figures. I have effected some
Table 1
Distribution of Marriages by Month:
1860-1883
to the method of proportional
numbers devised by Henry and Fleury (1976).
*According
nominal linkage with the listings of domestic
groups contained in the Rois dos Confessados. The first results seem to indicate that the
constitution of the household and the birth
of the first child frequently took place prior
to official marriage. On the other hand, it is
impossible to find the marriage registrations
of many of the couples included in the R6is.
It may be that some were married in a
neighbouring parish; but it could also mean
that they were never wedded.
Another interesting variable is the origin of
the spouses. The monte to which people
belong is indicated in the registration; the
recurrence of certain combinations seems to
indicate certain areas of intermarriage which
are positively related to geographical proximity. These areas broadly coincide with what
can be perceived, in the field, as invisible
settlement structures.5 These structures are
not expressed in administrative boundaries
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116
is there a readily verbalized native
consciousness of them.
It was one of these groupings, comprising
ten montes (plus three that do not exist any
longer), that I chose as a universe in which
to study the forms of domestic groups in the
nineteenth century and today.
nor
ANALYSING CONFESSIONAL ROLLS
The listings that the priests made around
Easter time in order to ascertain who in their
flocks had been to confession and communion are a very important source of data on
the structure of domestic groups in the past.
They described the members of each household in reference to the family head.
Sometimes their age, occupation, and place
of birth are indicated. The accuracy of these
documents was dependent on the particular
priest in charge. In Martinlongo, until 1868,
the lists did not include children under seven
(only after seven years of age do the children
have to attend confession and only after
fourteen are they expected to take
present involves approximately 100 domestic
groups
(see Table 2). The whole of the parish
(628 domestic groups; 167 of them belonging
to the village of Martinlongo, which is an
urban structure) was also studied for a
specific year (1875) (see Table 3).
Table 3
Household Composition in the Parish
of Martinlongo, 1875
communion).
In order to classify the structure and
distribution of the domestic groups so that
the results could be compared with other
studies, I used the &dquo;Cambridge typology&dquo;
(Laslett 1972, as adapted by Rowland 1984).
The population chosen coincides with a
group of montes in the southern part of
Martinlongo parish: Zorrinhos, Casa Nova,
Pereirao, Monte Novo, Estrada, Relvais,
Mestras, Barranco, Barroso, Montinho,
Corte Serranos, Arrizada, Montargil. These
sites vary
widely
in size from
one or
two
domestic groups in some isolated montes, up
to thirty in the larger ones. Some montes that
are part of the nineteenth-century sample no
longer exist; also, one that did not exist then
has since been created. Their history is,
nevertheless, quite stable; indeed there are
seventeenth century documents6 which refer
to currently existing montes. The set that was
analyzed for the years 1860-1878 and for the
very explicit: the lack of
households
is blatant, as well
multiple family
as the low incidence of extended family ones.
The number of simple family households is
very high, surpassing the figures known for
the Alentejo (see Santa Luzia data in Table
4). If the nineteenth-century data support the
The data
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are
117
contention that the nuclear family household
pattern was typical of the Algarve (which, in
turn, made the region exemplary of the
southern Iberian pattern), there are still
certain anomalies which must be considered.
Students of family form are prone to relate
the family to its wider economic setting, and
in this regard that Algarve is an exception to
the conventional wisdom. In order to
appreciate this fact it is necessary to consider
twentieth-century historical and ethnographic data for the region and discuss them
against the backdrop of the literature on
Portuguese and European family structure.
I will emphasize the criterion of residence
to define the units, since this seems to be the
most useful way of comparing the data in the
accounts of historians, demographers, and
anthropologists. It should be noted, however,
that the approach ignores considerable
information and particularly much that is
germane to anthropological analysis of
households.
THE CONTEMPORARY EVIDENCE
One of the most salient features of the
country of Portugal is its north/south
division. The separation delineated roughly
by the river Tejo differentiates two social,
economic, cultural and linguistic traditions.
The north was linked to the Christian
&dquo;Reconquest,&dquo; the south to the Moorish
tradition. Politically, the north votes right
wing and the south is leftist. The north is
dominated by small peasant holdings; the
south is known for its latifundia.
The north/ south contrast is also noticeable
in family forms. Northern regions are
characterized by the extended family household and in the south the nuclear family form
predominates. Statistics seem to corroborate
popular ideas about the distribution of family
types throughout the country (see Table 4).
This distinction has been explained in
socio-economic terms (Descamps 1935). The
stem-family household of the northern
Table 4
Household
Composition in a Northern Portuguese
Parish (Bilhó, Trás-os-Montes) and in a
Southern one (Santa Luzia, Alentejo)
Eighteenth-Century
Source: Rowland 1984:24
regime is related to the importance of peasant
property with its strategies for land inalienability, such as impartible inheritance
(O’Neill 1984); the southern nuclear and
neolocal family rests upon the assumption
that the majority of the population is
composed of landless wage earners. This
seems to fit the &dquo;attractive hypothesis&dquo;
(Rowland 1984, p. 16) of Poinsard, that the
organization of the family is determined by
the forms of property relationships. But one
can ask if the nuclear family has to be
associated with property ownership, or if
peasant property does really require a stem
family for its maintenance.
In northern Portuguese regions (Minho,
Trds-os-Montes) it appears that peasant
property and its transmission have consider-
family forms, giving rise to the
household system.&dquo; Rowland
on a comparative,
has demonstrated
quantitative basis that in the Minho such
able effect
on
&dquo;stem-family
-
-
system is associated with land tenure and
inheritance concerns (1984, p. 19). PinaCabral (1986, p. 64) says that &dquo;in the Alto
Minho, the strategic attitude which corresponds to a higher incidence of extended
family households is attached to a peasant
a
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118
type of identification with the land and the
agricultural household.&dquo; That strategic
tendency would result &dquo;from a series of
decisions which, at a conscious level, are
presented as independent and unrelated&dquo; and
&dquo;corresponds to a great concern for the
survival of the household as a whole and of
its land as a unit.&dquo; O’Neill (1984) described
a society from Trds-os-Montes where the
family and marriage strategies were designed
to preserve the patrimony. In each generation
of landowners, one of the siblings could
marry and have legitimate children/ heirs; the
others could not marry and produced
illegitimate/ disinherited offspring who were
potential servants (since their mothers
belonged to the lowest, landless class).
The case of the Algarve, however, is
distinct. The nuclear family regime, similar to
that of the Alentejo with its landless
households, is found in association with a
system of small-peasant-proprietor land
tenure. Possession of such holdings happens
to be the main local &dquo;obsession.&dquo; This
fixation, however, is not accompanied by the
assumption that the viability of the agricultural enterprise depends on a certain size, and
that the holding therefore ought to be
inalienable and transmissible to a sole heir.
Rather, all property is regarded as partible
and accessible to every potential heir. The law
that stipulates equal inheritance is highly
praised and followed. This fact stands out in
the Algarve in comparison to other regions
such as Minho, in the northwest of Portugal,
where the very same legislation is subject to
complex manipulation that permits the main
heir to keep the house and surrounding fields
in exchange for some material compensation
of the co-heirs. This has been called &dquo;qualified
partibility.&dquo;
In the Algarve then, there is no noticeable
effect of landed property on the shape of the
family. Marriage is idealized as a couple’s
private affair. Parents may approve of the
union or not; but if they do not, it is expected
that they will eventually have to accept it.
Referring to present day life stories, it is
possible to find a very generalized pattern.
Boy and girl start living together after having
known each other for some time. There may
be a simulated kidnap, or pressure resulting
from the girl’s pregnancy. Later they will
marry officially, although the ceremony may
be delayed for some years. The reasons for
this may include the difficulty in securing the
necessary legal documents, anti-clericalism,
or the desire to avoid imposing upon their
parents the expense of the ceremony and
celebration. In connection with the last
reason we often find two or three siblings
marrying on the same day, in order to have
a
single reception.
It is interesting
to refer to the specific
conditions under which boy and girl meet.
Very often they belong to the same monte or
of montes, where people know one
another very well. Sometimes they come
from fairly distant places, which may be seen
as one curious effect of property partibility
because in almost all of these cases the family
of one of the spouses has some land (or is
employed there) near the other’s monte. For
that reason they have to travel there
regularly, possibly to care for the trees or
simply to negotiate land arrangements. At the
present time fairs, annual parish festivities
and dances are the main occasions to meet
people from distant montes. Marrying in the
same neighbourhood seems to be more
difficult than in the past, for there are fewer
young people. This is counterbalanced by
greater mobility: now there are telephones in
the montes (a recent innovation), some boys
have motorbikes and, if necessary, a taxi can
be hired by a group of boys or girls to go to
a special festivity. In addition to this, after
having spent all of their childhood and
adolescence in the same parish, young boys
and girls frequently go to the coastal Algarve
to work in hotels or in construction. During
the 1960s and 1970s there was also a strong
wave of migration to France, Germany and,
to a lesser degree, Australia. These moveset
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119
proportion of people
Although the number of
marrying
marriages within the neighborhood remains
in the majority, there is no stated preference
for local endogamy, and local marriages seem
ments increased the
afield.
be convenient and to serve as a kind of
a valued style of life will be
maintained. People who want to change may
go abroad and create a different life for
themselves there.
Marriage, then, is idealized as an act of free
will. Supposedly, people marry when they
want, whom they please and because they
wish to do so. They are supposed to create
a new and independent household and
manage on their own. The previously
analyzed documents show that this must have
been the situation in the nineteenth century,
when there was a very high proportion of
nuclear families and the absence of multiple
families (see Tables 2 and 3).
There is a circumstance, however, in which
the rule of neolocality is broke: sometimes the
youngest and last child to marry brings his/
her spouse to the parental household to live.
a
There is an example of this in Table 5
with
the
older
couple
multiple family
coresiding with the younger couple and the
children of the latter. But this cannot be
considered an example of a stem-family
household where even in the face of the law
that stipulates equal inheritance there are
strategies or retaining the patrimony for one
of the heirs (as has been noted above for
Minho and Trds-os-Montes). In the Algarve,
should one of the children marry and remain
at the parents’ home, the situation is regarded
as temporary. As soon as possible the young
couple will move into their own house.
Should they remain, the house itself will be
divided equally among the heirs. All land
Table 5
Household Type by Form in 1986 in
Selected Sample from the Algarve
a
to
guarantee that
-
plots
are
also
regarded
as
partible, which
results in the fragmentation which seems to
be the main feature of the region.
Estanco Louro, an Algarvian scholar of
the 1920s, referred to such fragmentation as
&dquo;pulverization,&dquo; and said that it was due both
Source: Fieldwork in
to the
Martinlongo
Civil Code and to the character of the
population (1929, p. 134):
In the mountains, there is very accentuated
and widespread the so-called &dquo;fury of
division and subdivision.&dquo; There are some
properties in which the division reached the
point where the same heir inherited two or
three separate parcels of land, which, in
some cases, were 2-3 meters wide by 7-8
meters long. Similarly, urban property can
be divided: one single house may have three
or four owners. The division is made
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120
according to the number of roof timbers.
This system is also observed in the division
of property between adults and minors for in this case guardians and family
advisors follow the customs to the last
degree. The heir is afraid of being wronged
if he does not share in the very same plot
of land, which might be better than another
or susceptible to improvement. The fear of
his co-heirs’ jubilation will always make him
suspicious.
He added that exchanges of land are rare for
the same reason, and underscored the
importance of &dquo;egoism&dquo; (Louro 1929, p. 134).
Sales were also rare, since they are considered
a symptom of the seller’s prodigality and
decadence, &dquo;an obstacle to which we have to
add an impregnanted love which is generally
dedicated to the lump of soil they inherited
or acquired through sweat and almost
inadmissible privations.&dquo; (Louro 1929, p.
134).
Emigration, however, has changed
the
little. The values referred to by
Estanco Louro in 1929 were weakened and
some plots were sold. This fact allows the
system of indefinite partibility to survive,
because some of the migrants, namely those
who go to Lisbon or to the Serra de Serpa,7
sell the pieces of land they inherit.
Both those who remain and many of those
who depart maintain the ideal of having their
own plots of land, of working them for
themselves, and of living from the fruit of that
labour. When a present-day peasant of the
montes eats his weekly home-baked bread, he
knows very well from which of his plots the
wheat has come, as well as when it was
harvested, threshed and ground. The same is
true of the pig which is slaughtered for
Christmas and provides the household with
meat for the whole year. The peasant also
knows who has cooperated in these specific
situation
a
operations.
The slaughter of the pig requires a
gathering of men and women. Men catch the
animal, kill it, clean its skin, open it to remove
the organs and salt the limbs for ham.
Women collect the blood, wash the organs,
cut the meat into pieces and make the various
kinds of sausages which are preserved by
smoking. This occasions an annual celebration in each household. A few guests are
invited to help and then dine particularly well
on the fresh meat. There may be a balance
between the amount of labour given and the
food received at the banquet, but there are
also
some
long-standing reciprocities
ex-
pressed in this celebration. And, most
importantly, there is a kind of recomposition
of the extended family. Married children
come to help their parents and receive some
special gifts of meat. Widows and widowers
will also receive such gifts from their children.
Siblings and their spouses participate as well.
At harvest time (wheat-reaping, almondand carob-picking) the same people will also
come. There will not be any guests of honour
nor are there any gifts of food.8 Most
domestic groups work independently, and it
is common to see a couple, or a single elderly
peasant (widow or widower), harvesting his
or her plot alone. If anyone assists, it will
generally be the married children. If they are
employed they may take their holidays at
harvest time to help their parents. They view
this both as a duty they owe for parental care
in infancy and childhood and as something
they must do for the land that they will inherit
some
day.
While the
family dispersal caused by
neolocal residence is transcended on such
occasions by the gathering of several
independent nuclear families around what
could be called the core household, the event
is ephemeral and should not be seen as the
re-constitution of an extended family
household. Rather, in the northeastern
Algarve, equity within the domestic group
seems an unquestioned value that goes handin-hand with neolocality, the partible
inheritance system and the nuclear family
household.
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121
budget. The
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am very grateful to Jorge Carvalho (Centro
de Informatica do ISCTE) for creating the
data base and providing constant assistance
with the computer; to Robert Rowland, for
encouraging me to work with Martinlongo’s
Rois dos Confessados; to Father Manuel and
Francisco Lameira, who permitted access to
those parish documents; and to Miguel V.
Almeida who helped me with the English
version of this paper.
NOTES
Algarve is the Southern region of
Its
coastal area is widely known and
Portugal.
densely populated, and recently tourist development has had an important impact on it. The
interior area, however, is very little known. It is
even less known than the larger, ignored and
depressed region of the Alentejo. The Algarve and
the alentejo constitute the major part of the
"Mediterranean Portugal" (Ribeiro 1986),
contrasting with the Atlantic northwest and the
mountainous northeast of the country.
The Northeastern Algarve is a unique area
where a peasant economy survives in spite of the
unviability predicted by official reports. Its
contrast to the Alentejo is even more striking than
its contrast to the coastal Algarve.
2. Following Pina Cabral (1986) I use "borough" for the Portuguese cancelho and "parish"
1. The
frequesia.
for
3. The CCRA or Comiss&atilde;o de Coordena&ccedil;&atilde;o da
Regi&atilde;o do Algarve. The CCRs are the institutions
designed to promote the regional administration
of Portugal; the region’s model in several aspects
is a substitute for the ancient division by
provincias
and distritos. The Algarve is the only case of
coincidence between these divisions: Provincia do
Algarve = Distrito de Faro = Regi&atilde;o do Algarve.
In the Alentejo, for instance, what is called regi&atilde;o
coincides with three-and-one-half distritos (Beja,
&Eacute;vora, Portalegre and part of Set&uacute;bal) and two
provincias (Baixo Alentejo and Alto Alentejo); in
the northern Portugal the situation is much more
and the CCRs
complicated,
functioning.
4. This has
a
are
very important impact
not
on a
yet
man’s
same
is
reported for South Italy by
Anne Parsons (1964) and for Morocco (with tea
and sugar rather than wine) by Paul Rabinow
(1977).
5. These structures correspond to groupings of
that have more intensive interaction.
Although the main variable for its definition is
proximity, there is some historical and socially
montes
motivated distortion.
6. Livro de Visita&ccedil;&otilde;es, which compiled the
impressions of the Bishop from Faro on a visit to
the parish.
7. The mountains of Serpa (Alentejo) are
ecologically similar to those of Alcoutim (NE
Algarve). In this century they were not yet
colonized and their land was freely distributed in
parcels (sortes) to the local population. Locals say
they were not used to such schist land, and soon
the plots were sold to migrants from Alcoutim
(Jose Mariz, personal communication). For a
period there was important migration to that area
from the Algarve, and almost every family in
Martinlongo (Alcoutim) has some relatives there.
8. Several descriptions of mutual assistance
followed by meals have been described in northern
Portuguese ethnography. As a matter of fact, such
practices are very common in the north of
Portugal for harvesting, threshing, and a few other
tasks; while in the Algarve they are rare.
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