Cagarros (Cory's Shearwater Birds)

This is the time of the year when "Cagarros," (Cory Shearwater Birds)marine Azorean/Atlantic birds of the Albatross family come inland to brood.They spend most of their time out in the open sea, fishing at night all yearlong. They live up to forty years of age. Every year from February toNovember they return to the islands where they were born to nest in the manycliffs and crags that first saw them or even in holes they make on theground. In May the female Shearwater lays her only egg. Both she and themale sit alternately on it for about fifty days. When the fledgling is bornit is nurtured by both parents during the period of three months until it istime to return to the ocean and there stay until is time for brooding again.Nocturnal birds, they have been living around this area for about fiftymillion years, almost as long as the Atlantic Ocean itself. If you are outnight and you hear a crying above you in the dark, it¹s them in theirflight. They are blinded and thrown off course by the presence of light, sothat if you make a bonfire by the beach, before you know it, they will beflying above you one after another making a noise as if someone saying, "Icannot, cannot, cannot!" Azoreans say that their sounds remind one of thePortuguese word for water, "Água" repeated as if by someone desperate for water.

"Cagarros" is also what Azoreans teasingly call the people of Santa Maria,the first island of the Azores to be discovered. The reason is the singsongintonation of the way they speak. It sounds like the sound those birds makein the middle of the night, so they were named accordingly.This time of the year, when the "Cagarros," become more noticeable at night,when they come and go on their food getting trips to and from the ocean, isalso invade the harvest time in the Azores.

Indeed, the Azoreans were self-sufficient, they grew everything they needed.Today, one sees mostly cattle and pasture, but at one time, all of theAzores islands were rich in grains as well as a variety of other crops thatmade them self sufficient.

It was this wealth that made the Azores a granary of the Age of Discoveryand Expansion. As the Portuguese set off to discover the new world, theywould invariably stop here to replenish with wheat and fresh water.The area where the Lajes airfield and airport are located today, forexample, was called "Ramo Grande," and that area happened to be one of themost fertile cereal regions of the island. The wheat grown here wastransported to Angra and kept in huge underground silos found where now isthe "Alto das Covas," at the top of the Main street in Angra. The reasonthat the wheat was stored in these underground silos or "Covas," literally pits or holes, was to protect it from pirates who often attacked the island in search of food.

This time of the year, was also grape harvest time. Today you hear ofBiscoitos and Porto Martins as areas where grapes are grown, but at one time everyone grew what they needed, so that most everyone kept a patch of landby the seashore, the "Fajãs", or land on steep slopes by the seashore,reserved for the family¹s vineyard.

At this time of the year, they would throng to the ocean side, where manyeven kept small cottages and wine cellars provided with wine presses, winecaskets and other wine making utensils. There they would spend a few daysuntil the harvest (vindima) was done; the grapes had been sorted and crushedto make wine.

This was the time of the year, then, that the islanders bonded with theocean, prepared their wine and celebrated. Bonfire get-togethers were very common. The more people came down to celebrate, the more would stay aroundto help with the harvest.

People who owned a wine press or a wine cellar would allow others to usethem for their own pressing of the grapes and preparation of wine. Winepressing took on many forms. Those settlers, who came from NorthernPortugal where it was common to press the grapes by stepping on them,continued that tradition to this day. Others, probably, the more moneyed,had wine presses.

The most famous of the Azorean wines are definitely the Pico Island wines.As with the Madeira wine, it found its way outside the archipelago to honorthe tables of the Russian Czars themselves. More widespread were red tablewines or home made wines, or "Vinho de Cheiro" .

Today, when we are surprised by how much people of Terceira celebrate, wetend to forget that all these celebrations stem from the very humble ruralor agricultural traditions of this island. Grounded on a farming, rural,unindustrialized existence, every celebration is a manifestation ofharvest time, a time to bind, to come together, to share the bounty of theland, as any normal country folk do.

Silvério Gabriel de Melo
Juncal, Terceira