Spring Equinox

As the yearly cycle began to approach springtime, the most important of the seasons, given the care placed in agriculture, social collective purification rituals were performed by primitive societies with the purpose of preparing the group to produce the magical control over nature. Being the most important time of the year, due to its direct relationship with the survival of the group, it was a very important occasion, thus known as a sacred time. The need for an emphasis on the separation from the previous, impure or profane time increased its sacred value.
Man believed that only achieving a state of “pureness”, free of social (or individual) evil, could he act up on the forces ruling the germination of vegetation. The successful passage to a sacred time, or a time of renewal, needed to be prepared by rituals of different nature, as for example:

Purification
The beginning was marked on the 1st of March by rituals of Purification, still evident within present Azorean cultural traditions. Most of these rituals are performed under different labels. For example, the sacrifice of a scapegoat (which could be a person who would become responsible for all evil deeds performed by the group during the year), was one of necessary steps to purify the group, allowing the passage to the sacred time. This sacrifice (of the King, or an important man within the society who, when old, would be killed, either symbolically or in reality) intends to prevent the decay of the fertile forces, both vegetable and animal, of the Earth. The fecund forces were symbolized by a new person coming in power. The Old Year vs. the New Year.

The sacrifice of a scapegoat (congregating all the sins of the group), is symbolized now, not only by the Catholic rituals of the Passion Week, but also by several others, referred further on.
At the present time, the substitutes for this scapegoat may be old vegetation, which is gathered, given the form of a person and then burned; King Momus parading at Carnival time, or the ‘donkey’ transported by students in Angra, at the end of their Carnival procession, are simulacra, or the remains of this ritual.
In what concerns the Catholic occupation of this time with the solemnization of the suffering and death of Christ, who embodies the scapegoat role, it is well documented throughout all Azores, with different kinds of rituals happening throughout villages and towns.

Inflicting suffering upon oneself was also considered to be reparation for evils committed, since sacrifice was, and still is, understood as a form of purification. Following the already existing beliefs, the Catholic Church has placed within this time of the year many symbolic rituals that reflect them, such as fasting and abstinence, obligatory confession and communion, for example, among others. It is interesting to note that the population of S. Miguel Island shows a preference for these reparation/purification rituals, as is exemplified by the intense practice of ceremonies and rituals involved in Santo Cristo dos Milagres and the tradition of the Pilgrimage of the Romeiros.

Lévi-Strauss and Durkheim both stressed the importance of avoidance rites in their discussion of the passage from the profane time to the sacred. Sexual segregation, as a form of sexual abstinence and/or fasting, physical prohibitions, inflicted pain and wounds, as well as symbolic communion with the divine, pointed by Mauss (1899/1968) and Durkheim (1912), are also examples of behaviour understood as having the capacity of preparing the passage from the profane time to sacred time.

Other sorts of rituals are still in use, for similar results, as it happens with the complex set of events tied to Carnival. In the Azores, Carnival traditions and practices exemplify this phenomenon in different ways, one of them being through avoidance rituals performed just before Lent. On some Islands, for example, Carnival season opens with four weeks of symbolic separation of sexes, representing sexual segregation, each week reserved for one socially and sexually differentiated group: ‘Amigos’ are first, and second ‘Amigas’ (friends), followed by ‘Compadres and then ‘Comadres’ (Godparents), each separate group formed annually only for this occasion and, apparently, for no other reason than to gather and assert membership in the respective group. For some one visiting the islands in this occasion it looks strange to see these enormous groups of just women or men, gathering for lunch in a restaurant.

Another ritual of sexual separation, acting as a reparation and purification ritual, is the expulsion of infertility as represented by the old. These takes another ritual form in Terceira Island through the humorous songs known as ‘Velhas’ (Old Women), which obscene nature is notorious (and will be approach further on).
One more form of expression of this sexual separation is the ‘Cornutes Procession’ being held on the Islands of, Pico, São Jorge, Faial and Flores. In addition, the masquerades in the village of Ribeirinha, on Terceira Island, where boys act at night to frighten girls, knocking on their windows and making much noise.

These acts, performed by sexually differentiated groups, which maintain the spirit (although not the function) of the of sexual separation, are, afterwards, followed by the exaggerated sexual permissiveness of the Carnival festivities, which pretend to give emphasis to the role and influence of human erotic emotions in the fertilization of plants and vegetation. In fact, the previous traditional separation at this time of the year was intended to give more genesic potentiality to the sexual acts which would follow them and are addressed to the vegetation germination period.

The need for the purification of society as a preparation for the entrance into the new agrarian year was based in the principle that the energy of the vegetal world could be renovated through humans’ help, as long as they were in a moral ‘pure state’. Thus, the emphasis placed in these rituals, still noticed in other manifestations, as, for example, social analysis and parody, in order to rectify social evil. These functions are still very obvious, not only at a religious level, with the imposing of the “confession” at least during this time, but also in a ritual ceremony that takes place in Terceira Island (being used also in S. Miguel, in the past). Lasting for four consecutive days, the ‘Danças’ and ‘Bailinhos de Carnaval’ (Carnival Dances) are theatrical, musical and dance plays, whose content reviews and critiques the social life of the past year, with important as well as simple acts being criticized, praised and or condemned, in accordance with established group values and mores. Basically, this manifestation is performed in different styles: satirical, dramatic/moralistic and mythical. One or more plays are presented by each village, in a total of about 60, which tours the island from the Saturday to the Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday, presenting the plays on stages of small village societies’ houses, where people gather for the occasion, some often spending more than sixteen hours per day in this function. These plays contain implied, as well as overt, social criticism, in a format constantly reviewed, which means the production of originals each year. At the end of these four days, the effect of all this activity could be considered to be equal to purification or cleansing of the infractions committed during the past year.

These performances, together with the other three ritualistic categories of abstinence, sexual deprivation and sacrifice, personified in the figure of the King, form a set of rituals whose purpose was the purification of the spirit, thereby establishing a boundary between the profane time of the Winter, symbolizing death’s Earth, into the sacred time of sowing and germination, represented by Spring.