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In addition to a soup tasting, food court, parade, music and dancing, this year’s Portuguese Festival features a new event called “Share Our Table.” |
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Festival & Blessing strive to keep heritage afloat
By Elspeth Pierson
Banner Correspondent
PROVINCETOWN — Find a boat to rally round, put on your dancing shoes, buff up your Provincetown history, and grab your spoon — this weekend, the Provincetown Portuguese Festival is rolling into town, and it’s going to be quite a party. In a community known for its diversity, the three-day affair is a way for one of the town’s many groups to celebrate its heritage.
Portuguese settlers first came to the tip of Cape Cod in the 1860s. Ship upon ship rolled from the Algarve region of southern Portugal and the islands of the Azores into Provincetown Harbor, bringing with them their fishing, food and religious traditions. By the 1880s, the robust village of fishermen, whalers and devout Catholics had raised a fleet of tens of ships and a church devoted to the Roman Catholic Saint Peter.
When the church burnt to the ground in January of 2005, many locals and descendents of the town’s original Portuguese settlers felt a huge piece of Provincetown’s history revert to ash. They rallied to raise money to rebuild the church, and other parishes offered their buildings for the St. Peter’s community. This Sunday, June 29, at 10:30 a.m., the Fishermen’s Mass will be the first ceremony to take place in the new church.
The rebuilding of St. Peter’s wasn’t the first time local support kept the town’s Portuguese heritage afloat. The first annual Blessing of the Fleet, a tradition brought from Portugal by which a community’s boats are blessed for good catch and safe travels for the year ahead, was organized in 1948 after many years of long trips to Gloucester to receive the grace. “Arthur Bragg said if they can have a blessing then so can we,” says Don Murphy, Portuguese Festival committee chair. “That was 61 years ago, and we’re still doing it today.”
Over the decades, the size of Provincetown’s fishing fleet has shrunk and parade and church participation for the Blessing wavered. Eleven years ago, in the face of a dwindling fishing tradition, brothers Mark and Paul Silva decided to bring the tradition back to life with the biggest celebration yet: the Portuguese Festival.
“They said, ‘Let’s revitalize and recognize our Portuguese heritage,’” says Murphy. “Up until then it was primarily a religious ceremony, but now it is more a recognition of how much the people — not just fishermen but women, children and families — have contributed to this town.”
Lifetime Provincetown resident, three-generation Portuguese descendent, and festival team member Maureen Hurst remembers when the Blessing began. “I no longer have any relatives directly involved in fishing,” she says. “But back when I was a child it was the kickoff to summer. My children have memories of going out on my father’s boat.” Getting involved with the festival was her way of passing on the proud heritage to her grandchildren, she says.
Hurst’s grandfather came to Provincetown from the Algarve region of Portugal when he was 19 as a stowaway to fish, and her father followed suit. She remembers when the Blessing of the Fleet ceremony was a gathering of 75 to 100 boats. “There were so many fishing draggers back then,” she says. “I remember it being a real family time, with a sense of heritage and a celebration of the fishing industry with all its hardships and joys.”
While Murphy isn’t Portuguese, he places equal importance on preserving and celebrating the traditions of the group’s heritage. “Everybody wants to preserve Provincetown’s old buildings and heritage,” he says, “but let’s not forget to share it. That’s what this festival is all about.”
He and the rest of the team of organizers spend over 5,000 hours over the course of the year getting ready for the event and have had a lifetime of experience behind that. “If you take our ages they add up to just short of 500 years,” he says. “Oh, my goodness! That’s how deep the passion and knowledge of this festival goes.”
Highlights this year will include a new event called “Share Our Table,” or “Compartilhe Na Nossa Mesa.” The three-hour dinner, hosted at Bas-Relief Park from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, will honor the Portuguese tradition of hospitality, showcasing dishes from Provincetown’s best restaurants and inviting visitors to share in the local fare. “Even today when you go into a Portuguese home you are always welcome to share its table,” says Murphy. “Neighbors and friends can’t stop in without being asked to share a flipper or some sweet bread.”
Other opportunities to soak up the community’s flavor include the Portuguese soup tasting, a sampling of various versions of the region’s favorite bowl of linguica, kale and bone-warming broth held from noon to 3 p.m. on Friday in the same park, Saturday’s all day food court complete with sausages, rolls, rice and sautéed vegetables, and Sunday’s Tasca do Pescador, or fishermen’s café, in Motta Field.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. There’s entertainment on the stage at Ryder Street starting at 4 p.m. on Friday and a Homecoming get together at The Surf Club at 10 p.m.
On Saturday, the Portuguese dancers perform on Ryder Street from noon to 2 p.m. and then live entertainment kicks in. The parade is at 3 p.m. There is a fado concert at 7:30 p.m. on the waterfront and dancing in the street starting at 9 p.m.
Sunday is the traditional fisherman’s mass and procession from St. Peter’s to the pier where the annual parade and blessing of the fleet takes place starting at 1 p.m.
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Jun 26th, 2008