English Version | Sympathy: the first step to love?

13 Mar 2023
By Nuno Miguel Dias

Whoever has never eaten twelve raisins on New Year's Eve, like me, who hates raisins, and even more so having to think of a wish for each one of them, ingested in a hurry after each bell, which no one is capable of doing on a night when it is hard to stand up at 11:10 p.m., let him open the bottle of sparkling wine.

Whoever has never eaten twelve raisins on New Year's Eve, like me, who hates raisins, and even more so having to think of a wish for each one of them, ingested in a hurry after each bell, which no one is capable of doing on a night when it is hard to stand up at 11:10 p.m., let him open the bottle of sparkling wine.

Memories fade like hundred-euro bills in times of inflation, so I can't describe in detail everything that led me to be sitting on that sofa, looking at a VHS recording, after eating at least a kilo of sun-dried meat during a barbecue that started around lunchtime and ended, without the embers having lost their glow, late at night. I know that it was not yet the time for funk dancing, so the host, a native of São José do Rio Preto, offered us many hours of sertanejo music which, I confess, sounds better with each beer and becomes melodious if we add a few shots of cachaça. At the beginning of the 21st century, the young man arrived in Santarem. Not from the Amazon, but from Ribatejo, a province that could be called Sertão Tuga. This is because of the boiadeiros, which in European Portuguese are called campinos. They are also said to be people who love bullfights. And Marcos, in his mid-thirties, was one of the stars invited by an organizer who thought that a rodeo act in the bullfighting arena would delight the aficionados. And it did. It was to be temporary, but the experienced rider suffered a nasty fall that knocked out a knee and delayed his return to his hometown, this town in the interior of the State of São Paulo between the Tietê and Grande rivers, both tributaries of the colossal Paraná River that flows into the Iguaçú Falls, in other words, in the middle of the Pantanal. The video I was now watching was, precisely, a horseback ride through his farm. I could still see everything in focus, despite the many glasses of cachaça Arara ("Cegonha brought me, Arara will take me", he would say with each glass served) that he had managed to bring in his hold baggage, and I had many questions to ask about what I saw on that screen, beyond the green vastness that had been fainted by him. The vultures of birds in the sky, which around here would be sparrows, were macaws. That gigantic shining, motionless monster was an anaconda, which nobody did any harm to because it only ate one cow a semester, and during those long digestion times, it posed no danger. The dramatic ending of the film was a hasty escape at a gallop because someone had shouted "Olhá onça."

I missed the land, the man. And I, who greatly appreciate these cultural exchanges, wanted to know more while I listened to songs by Bruno and Marrone, Rionegro and Solimões, Rick and Renner, or Gian and Giovani, without falling into the temptation of evangelizing the animal with Caetano and Chico, Cartola and Adoniran, or Jobim and Gilberto, plus the tired sentence "But how can you listen to these things when you have such good music? "This is typical of those who think that Brazil is the size of Portugal, where Quim Barreiros has to run every academic week and Rosinha has to run every August festival. And I learned. Even about the characters in Tupiguarani mythology [a group of indigenous peoples in South America whose languages belong to the Tupguarani linguistic family], which is more rooted in those people than Catholicism in Europe. "This is serious stuff," he told me while explaining that you can't go into the deep woods because the only solution is to follow the trail of the Curupira [a figure from Brazilian folklore], whose feet are upside down. Or that you can't smoke in the forest because "here comes Boitatá and sets us on fire." Or that all the mischief that happens in the bush, like the disappearance of small items we thought we had with us, is the work of the Saci [a character from Brazilian mythology]. Not to mention the one who deserved Marcos' greatest respect: "Caipora, guardian of the forest." In his roça, there was a kind of altar, which divided the end of the cleared area and the beginning of the forest. On this altar offerings (cigarettes, cachaça, rapadura) should be deposited, while declaring the intention of entering that dense green kingdom. In the case of Marcos and his friends, the goal was always the same: to hunt armadillo, the tastiest meat of all. But if by chance they hunted more than they asked for "pro-Caipora," he assured me, "You get a beating, but a real beating. It has already happened to me. And I didn't even see where it came from. I didn't see anybody. All I know is that it hurt like hell."

This introduction serves as an account of what everyone has already noticed. Because this immigration thing, and even though there are dissenting opinions (which do not exactly excel in solidarity in general and emotional intelligence in particular), lends us multiculturalism (and any culture, be it multi or uni, is welcome). Multiculturalism is the primordial hammer that demolishes prejudice. And the builder of more humane and egalitarian progress. Therefore, Brazilians are very rich when it comes to superstitions. And this has to do with their own multiculturalism. A kind of fusion of countless cultures that crossed paths there, at least for the last five hundred years, from our Catholicism to the African religions (clearly evident in Candomblé, from Bahia) - which amalgamated with the mythology of the Indian peoples in such a way that, today, they represent one of the richest sets of beliefs and faiths in the world, not counting sects such as the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, because these represent another type of belief that has nothing cultural about it. So, when people say that Brazil is magical, we don't know if they are talking about a Carnival parade in Rio, a ceremony in the hills of Bahia where the Pai de Santo (Father of Saint) calls the Orixás (spirits), or that time when a shaman distributed a hallucinogenic potion in the middle of the Amazon. All we know is that yes, at no risk of evading the truth, Brazil is magical. And thanks to immigration in recent years, in Portugal there are also flowers on the beach, returned to the sand after being offered to Iemanjá. In the forests (from Serra de Sintra to Mata dos Medos, Almada), baskets are scattered with mangoes, papayas, bananas, and a fifty-euro note for the luck of the passerby who doesn't believe that, by stealing it, he will be afflicted by some misfortune and, sometimes, a black chicken or even a goat (which is not such a "good sign" as to the purpose of the "magic" ordered). Although the food offered to the deities is the theme we want to deal with here, we should mention that, in this universe, this is done to ask them something in return (a bit like my friend who asked Caipora for armadillos, remember?). In Brazilian Portuguese, these are "sympathies." Far beyond defining a state of mood or spirit that leads to closeness (sometimes between strangers) driven by empathy, "simpatia" is, in Brazil, a ritual that resorts to an object or food good to prevent or cure an illness or achieve something desired. It is a more sympathetic term (forgive the redundancy) to define a kind of voodoo, also originating from rituals brought to Haiti, Cuba, and South America by slaves. And although most people only know the version in which pins are stuck in a puppet that personifies someone to whom we wish to harm, it is much more than this (being the origin of candomblé in Bahia, xangô in the northeast, and batuque in Rio Grande do Sul), since it is the official religion of Benin, with seven million believers spread around the world. In other words, it is more people than Jehovah's Witnesses. And that they do not go around, with their skirts drawn below the knee, ringing bells.

A simple sympathy? Eat "nhoque" (yes, the Brazilian Portuguese for gnocchi) every 29th day of each month (that is, in February only every four years), with a note under the plate, to bring "prosperity," which is like saying "money." To get a suitor (to be faithful to the original text of the "recipe"), one hangs, in a hidden place in the house, a Saint Anthony (that's the one, the one from Padua, matchmaker that only he is), but inverted, which is very Lisbon, but in a strange way. Another recipe that is said to be infallible is to write the name of the loved one on the sole of the left foot or seven times on a piece of paper and put it in the shoe of the left foot. But since here we only deal with everything that comes out of the kitchen, we prefer to explain, for example, the reason for the sympathy of eating 12 raisins on New Year's Eve, which we would imagine originated in Ancient Rome. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the end of the 19th century, the municipality of Madrid started charging a fee (oh, so old, this tradition of municipalities charging fees, and I thought EMEL was a pioneer) to anyone who bought grapes, then consumed as a tradition on New Year's Eve, before "their time" (in Spain, both Christmas and New Year's Eve were celebrated on Three Kings Day, but the more progressive ones started to adopt more "European" traditions). As a protest, nuestros hermanos started eating raisins and the tradition caught on here too (blherc). As for the custom that may be much older (not necessarily corresponding to the Romans), we have that the pomegranate will have the same magical effect if we make a wish with each berry ingested (and a more pleasant taste). But filter a little further and we come to how to avoid consuming poultry meat because these animals "squint" backward and "one wants to move forward." Or eating long-string noodles without breaking them to lend prosperity. Or shrimp and dumplings (both moon-shaped) to bring prosperity. Or consume as much fish as possible because that was the food Jesus multiplied (for the Japanese, it represents fertility because it lays thousands of eggs). Or even eating lentils on the first day of the year because they represent coins (Nepal). Here, there is even room for feng shui, according to which we should have a pineapple ("cone of fortune" in Mandarin) in the center of the table. And nine oranges (representing gold) somewhere in the living room. And nine apples to bring harmony, peace, and health to the inhabitants of the house. And an arrangement, made by the couple's own hands, with pomegranates, so that fertility will not fail the couple. And, as you know, these superstitions are like Euromillions. If they exist, it is because someone has already had the luck. 

All You Need Is Love, would sing Lennon de- because of the entrance with God Save The Queen, but that's for boys. A self-respecting Portuguese guitarist would sing Tudo o Que Precisamos é de Sorte ao Amor (All We Need Is Luck in Love), performing at some collective with steaks and entremeadas on the grill and Bag In Box wine served in plastic cups. And because we don't want to disappoint anyone, here are some "sympathies" for attracting love, which is lucky. Not before drawing attention to the fact that "love spells" have always been present in the history of mankind, and are therefore a theme that ranges from the oldest folk tales to modern, re-adapted fairy tales, where potions and Druids, witches and elves use the properties of what nature gives to achieve that luck that, let's face it, is so rare that we all long for. According to the Nordic Druidic tradition, dill tea (fennel root or dill) is foolproof. It is enough to make it in the proportion of three liters of water that will then be poured into our immersion bath, and during this bath, we should concentrate on the one we most desire. Simpler is to powder a few bay leaves, which are then added to the daily perfume of a man who wishes to attract a woman. The same applies to the perfume of a woman who wants to attract a man, but in this case, it will be orange blossoms. Lavender buds wrapped in tulle and kept (always on Fridays) in the drawer where you keep your underwear attract men. The ancient Druids also said that chewing licorice makes kisses unforgettable. Unfortunately, they did not mention whether gum and chewing gum with that scent would have the same effect if they were invented one day. My mother is, even in this kind of superstition, much more humble. Whenever, as children, my sister and I would ingest a certain seasonal product for the first time that year, we would make a wish. It is the refinement of the oldest Tuga "sympathy" for finding love. Present in the phrase "men are conquered by their stomachs", i.e. "my girl, cook whatever you want, as long as you cook it well, and you will conquer him. Then he will, of course, be fat as a badger, but you, with that Midas touch for convent sweets and various delicacies, will get another, with more abs and such." 

Translated from the original on The Good Luck Issue, published march 2023.Full stories and credits on the print issue.

Nuno Miguel Dias By Nuno Miguel Dias

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