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Banner file photos/Guadazno & Rose
The Blessing of the Fleet procession heads down Bradford Street in 2005. |
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The Pat Sea is all decked out and ready for the Blessing of the Fleet in 2005. |
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It’s all about tradition
By Stefan Sirucek
BANNER CORRESPONDENT
PROVINCETOWN — The memories are all coming back — the dancing, the food, the Fado. Dust off your kale soup spoon because it’s that time of year. The Portuguese Festival is in town and Thursday, June 21, is opening night.
This is the Provincetown Portuguese Festival’s 11th year and the 60th anniversary of the maritime tradition at its core, the annual Blessing of the Fleet.
The Blessing of the Fleet is a Portuguese fishing tradition, in which ships receive a benediction to protect them from the dangers of the sea and to ensure good catches throughout the year.
As the Portuguese immigrants whose descendants now populate Provincetown and Truro came to work on the whaling and fishing vessels that called Provincetown’s docks home, they carried the tradition with them.
Nevertheless for years Provincetown’s fishermen attended the ceremony in Gloucester, before deciding to bring it home.
“Finally some of the fishermen from town went out there, looked it over and said, we can do that,” says Susan Avellar, one of the organizers of the festival.
And they did. Arthur Bragg Silva is credited with bringing the event to Provincetown, where he and others organized the first Blessing of the Fleet in 1948. The tradition has been carried on ever since.
“The fishermen embraced it immediately,” says Betty Costa, unofficial historian of the Blessing. “It started out primarily Portuguese fishermen and their families and very quickly grew.”
While, today, Provincetown’s economy relies more on tourists than on mackerel or whale blubber, the tradition of the Blessing continues.
“Times have changed but we still want to remember how important the fishing industry was to this community and heritage,” says Don Murphy, chair of the festival team.
Yet it hasn’t been easy to keep the ritual going as Provincetown’s fishing fleet has dwindled — affected by increasing government regulation, dwindling fish stocks and a changing industry.
David Dutra knows the difficulties better than most. A 40-year veteran of Provincetown’s fishing fleet, he captains its oldest working vessel, the Richard & Arnold. It’s difficult for people today to understand just how profoundly Provincetown was once defined by its fishing, he says.
“It was a seafaring town,” says Dutra. “We had 60 draggers here and everyone had something to do with them.” Whether they worked on a ship, were involved in one of the related industries, or had family who fished — “everyone was involved in the fishing industry.”
That’s, of course, no longer the case. The once-famous fleet of 60 vessels has been reduced to about eight, only five of which are in working condition. Similarly, most boats can now afford to be manned only by skeleton crews.
“In 1933 my boat was the biggest boat in Provincetown and it had a six-man crew and now I fish it all alone,” says Dutra. “It’s too much work for one man and not enough money for two.”
These hardships have presented a challenge to the traditional Blessing. With fewer and fewer boats in the town fleet, and fewer locals with a connection to the trade, what had once been a rowdy celebration of the town’s livelihood became difficult to organize and finance.
Eleven years ago the Portuguese Festival was founded, in part, to counteract that trend — to expand the celebration to include more events highlighting Portuguese culture and to keep the tradition of the Blessing alive.
“The Portuguese festival came in as a lead-in and resurgence of Portuguese pride and of the Blessing and interest in the Blessing,” says Costa.
With the addition of numerous events and new activities surrounding the Blessing, including exhibits, dancers and a genuine Portuguese café on the wharf — the tradition grew into a broader celebration of Provincetown’s Portuguese heritage.
This year’s festival will honor that heritage while also paying homage to the difficult times.
Like Fado — the traditional Portuguese song style that is at once both inspiring and tragic — this year’s festival will have a somber note within its revelry as the community honors those fishermen who have lost their lives plying their trade.
“We wanted to take the time during this 60th to recognize and appreciate those fishermen lost at sea,” says Murphy.
Many in Provincetown can remember the terrible eight-year period (from 1976 to 1984) which saw the sinking of three local vessels — the Patricia Marie, the Cap’n Bill, and the Victory II — each with all hands lost.
Even in a fishing community familiar with the dangers of the trade the deaths were deeply felt. “Those losses shook the entire town,” says Costa.
In honor of those fishermen and others lost at sea, several newly placed lights on Ryder Street will be lit and a dedication will take place before the opening night’s festivities begin.
In addition, local artist Salvatore Del Deo will exhibit his series of paintings “Homage to the Patricia Marie,” a depiction of Provincetown at the time of the tragedies.
Then it’s off with four days of standout events for all ages, leading up to Sunday’s parade and Blessing. “There’s something in the festival and the Blessing for everybody,” says Betty Costa. “It’s very moving and very stirring. And lots of fun things but some very deep things too.”
Murphy says the festival is a “testament to the community,” and that it couldn’t happen without the enthusiastic efforts of local people, who call him up each year to offer their help.
“We have close to 100 people — volunteers and sponsors — who make this happen,” says Murphy. “The support that we get from the town is absolutely incredible.”
And that’s the crux of it: the fact that, at its heart, the festival isn’t just a celebration of community but an exercise in community.
Murphy, who was seven years old when the Blessing of the Fleet first began in Provincetown, believes there is something special about Provincetown and its Portuguese heritage that deserves to be cherished.
“When I was growing up here there was a very strong, close-knit, wonderful Portuguese community. … That’s in my heart and kind of what I celebrate personally.”
As for the fishermen who started it all, says Dutra, "We're pretty ragtag. … But the spirit is still there."
For all the changes that have been wrought in Provincetown’s identity, including the sometimes awkward shift from fishing village to tourist hub, that strength endures. You can see it in the aging fisherman who still goes out and crews his ship alone, and in the grandchild who proudly carries the banner of his family’s former boat.
It’s a glint of the same toughness that those immigrants who left their homes for new lives on a windblown stretch of sand must have had. It’s Provincetown.
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Jun 21st, 2007