On the island of Terceira, we have always been a people with a remarkable gift for seizing opportunities. While others advertise promotions such as “buy two, pay for one,” we have perfected the art of doing even better: celebrating two festivities for the occasion of one. On October 31, we celebrate Halloween; on November 1, we go from door to door for Pão-por-Deus. This, one might say, is calendar management elevated to an art form.
For many years, Pão-por-Deus was nothing short of an institution. Not a child remained indoors, and scarcely a neighbour escaped a visit from the little ones. All that was required was a small patchwork cloth bag, a resounding cry of “Pão-por-Deus!” and the pilgrimage from doorstep to doorstep would begin. If the offering was generous, it was rewarded with a grateful “thank you.” But if the lady of the house decided to bestow a solitary chestnut upon her visitors, or pretended not to be home, there was invariably a mischievous little verse ready to dispense a measure of popular justice. By late afternoon, the children would return home with their little bags brimming with chestnuts, corn, oranges, and the unmistakable satisfaction of a duty faithfully accomplished. Everything was simple, authentic, and wonderfully unpretentious. There was certainly no need to transform one’s home into an improvised cemetery merely to enter into the spirit of the celebration.
Then the Americans arrived at Lajes Air Base. And, as happens with almost everything that comes from America, the novelty crept in quietly, almost imperceptibly, but eventually made itself thoroughly at home. First came a few pumpkins, scattered here and there. Then appeared the ghosts, the cobwebs, the bats, and the skeletons, until, before anyone quite realised what was happening, even the neighbour’s dog was parading around in a Dracula cape.
The children were quick to recognise the extraordinary advantages of this arrangement. On one day, they ask for “Trick or Treat”; on the next, they proclaim “Pão-por-Deus.” The strategy is nothing short of brilliant: twice the opportunities to replenish their supplies of candinhos, those irresistible little sweets. Where their grandparents once managed to fill a modest cloth bag with chestnuts, their grandchildren now succeed in filling entire buckets with chocolates.
The traditional little fabric bags have given way to pumpkin-shaped buckets. Chestnuts and corn have gradually surrendered their territory to sweets in every imaginable colour, miniature chocolates, and gummy confections capable of testing the patience and professional convictions of even the most dedicated dentist. And the children, who once ventured outdoors wrapped in warm coats against the autumn chill, now emerge disguised as zombies, witches, vampires, or superheroes, in a bewildering cultural assortment that would compel any self-respecting anthropologist to ask permission to take notes.
At heart, our traditions have undergone what specialists, with scholarly solemnity, call acculturation. We, with considerably less academic ceremony, simply call it “mixing everything together and seeing what happens.” And, as it turns out, the experiment has been rather successful.
Lajes Air Base, which for decades was far more than a military installation, became a gateway through which American customs, fashions, and habits entered the everyday life of Terceira, gradually weaving themselves into the island’s social and cultural fabric. Today, “Trick or Treat” and Pão-por-Deus coexist quite comfortably, without provoking any serious diplomatic incidents between pumpkins and chestnuts.
The people of Terceira possess a rather exceptional talent: they welcome what arrives from elsewhere, give it their own distinctive flavour, and, within a few years, solemnly swear that things have always been done precisely that way. It is almost an insular superpower—or perhaps merely another curious side effect of the American presence at Lajes.
So, the next time someone laments that our traditions are disappearing, all they need do is wander around the island at the end of October. They will encounter a zombie clutching a pumpkin-shaped bucket and demanding “Trick or Treat” on one evening, only to discover, twenty-four hours later, the very same child knocking at the very same door with a spirited and unmistakable cry of “Pão-por-Deus!”
If that is not the authentic spirit of Terceira, then I confess I no longer know what is.
On Terceira, traditions do not disappear; they merely change their masks. And if we have managed to persuade Halloween and Pão-por-Deus to live together in such cheerful harmony, then surely we have demonstrated that multiculturalism can also flourish on our very own doorsteps—as long as there are enough sweets to go around.
Trasnalted to English by Diniz Borges