Pedro Cura teaches Lithic technology and is the brother of my professor Sara Cura. The young koora s are these always busy, always pleasant people. Pedro had promised to take me to visit a site that i was working on for my assignment as soon as he could get hold of a jeep and also some time. And this Monday he said we could finally go.
The trip was primarily for him to make a count of some sign boards for archaeological sites that they had installed in the municipality some time back. Our jeep was a slightly dilapidated two seater owned by the municipality with a big carrier. We were also to collect a lot of stones on our way for this archaeological park Pedro is going to build.
From the town center where i live, the administrative boundaries of the concelho of Mação spreads out in undulating hillocks of pine and eucalypti and oaks.(Eucalypti are very recent additions to the landscape and they do what they do everywhere . suck out all the water and minerals.) We had the entire forenoon to cover all of that.The vegetation is broken by little villages with a handful of cottages and names like Vale de Vacas (valley of cows).
The village of a dozen people
Many of these houses do not have anybody living there now. Like the town center, most of the young and middle aged population have left Mação, only to return for holidays or after retirement. The land around is mostly owned by these expatriates, being handed down from the parent to child. Recently a number of new houses have come up in the area, but these are mostly holiday houses for some one in Lisbon. Market comes in a few of these villages once a week in a truck.
The smallest village in the concelho has three houses and 12 people living in them. Ten of these people are above seventy. The youngest of the village is the 36 year old wife of an 86 year old man (he married his son’s sister in law) and their 12 year old son. Everyday the council’s bus brings the boy to school and drops him back. Often Pedro takes him along for little archaeological expeditions. But he s left to himself in his village for most part of the weekends and holidays. Isolation of this kind.. I had never imagined!!
Furtado
The river Tagus was always the Southern boundary of Mação. Then, in the 19th century a fire ate the entire region. There lived a noble on the other side of the river who liked the look of the land on the opposite banks. Ten when all was reconstituted after the fire he claimed for himself a little triangle of land that belonged to Mação from the emperor.The administrative stupidity still exists and is called Furtado (the stolen) by the old.
“A little slice of paradise”
From my balcony i can see windmills on the hilltops far away. Driving around those hills and visiting a few sites, we went up close to one of them. One of the highest points of Mação, the hillock gives to you the landscape in all its beauty. The blue river Ocreza and the rivulet Praçana laces the hills and join Tagus, the largest river in Portugal. (Here in Ocreza was a rich collection of pre-historic Rock engravings which were discovered in 1971. Two years later all but a few were drowned when a dam came up over the river) The clouds were so low that they touched the river below. The cliffs had various tinges of yellow and orange owing to lichens or Iron content in the soil. A little off the hill Pedro stopped near a shrub which bears small red round fruits. They are excessively sweet and known for their alcoholic content.
A little further down, we stopped at a natural shelter that Pedro calls “a slice of paradise”. A small spring offers the coolest of waters and the place is a small hide out made of wines and trees. The magic of the place seems to be known from earliest times for the rocks nearby holds the remains of the chalcolithic (Copper Age) rock painting from the Tagus valley.
I was back in Mação bit more intelligent about stones and burials and minerals and rock art but also much happier than before.
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