Readers who were interested in my essay “Portugalidade – The essence of being Portuguese” will welcome the content of a new book, “Multicultural Mankind”, which is to be launched this month by the specialist British publisher Archaeopress.
This is a compilation of 17 articles which have the common denominator of tracing the global influence of Portuguese culture from the 15th to the 20th centuries. Each is presented bilingually with translations for the language of the country to which it refers. The subject matter is diverse but the main threads of language and commerce dominate the narratives.
Spoken Portuguese, like other imperial languages, has been adapted to a basic “pidgin” vernacular throughout dominated territories to provide a simple communication for social and trade purposes with native speakers.
In Africa alone, there are believed to be several hundred dialects based on highly varied tribal interpretations. The essay “A conflicting heritage: Mbanza Kongo (Angola)” reflects this. But in Asia, the assimilation of Portuguese with national languages has been much more complex.
The first Chinese/Portuguese dictionary and grammar was composed in 1583/8 at Guangzhou by Jesuit missionaries and was shortly followed by similar works for Japanese and Korean languages.
Obviously, the promotion of Christianity was a driving force, but the wish for cultural exchange needed a deeper knowledge of language than that required for the market place.
The enterprise of Portuguese merchants during and after the Age of Discovery is a matter of national pride, but it went far beyond the fabled belief that all roads for the trade in silks, damasks, spices and slaves led from the Far East to Lisbon. This should be modified to include the numerous other sea routes operated by the expertise of Portuguese shippers to ports on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
It is dealt with in several of the essays which also make reference to the role played by the Conversos who owned and/or manned many of the galleons which operated from the maritime hub of Manila. Known as “The Nation” or simply “The Portuguese”, these early merchant adventurers had the huge advantage of being closely connected to the Jewish diaspora with its sophisticated intelligence gathering organisation that formed the basis for successful international trading.
For the Americas, there are only two essays. One examines the “decolonisation of artefacts of knowledge” which accompanied the expansion from coastal regions to the interior of Brazil. The other makes a curious comparative study of the Yumanos of Spanish California with the Moorish traditions of a peasant community at Mértola in the Alentejo.
These disparate threads have been woven together by the scholars Marco Valente and Ana Cruz both of whom have long been associated with the Centre of Transdisciplinary Archaeologies at the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar.
Dr. Valente has participated in more than 90 Heritage Projects in Portuguese territories during the past 30 years. Dra. Ana Cruz, who sadly died recently, was immensely knowledgeable concerning the abundant tumuli of central Portugal. Besides being joint-editor, she contributes a fascinating paper titled “The archeology of death in the Abrantes region during the final bronze age”.
Illustrations of excavations at the necropolis of Bioucas-Souto are accompanied by photographs of the painstaking restoration of a dolmen.
Archaeopress are publishing the full edition at a price of £70 which, in view of the detailed content, is not unreasonable. However, this enterprising house also offers to the individual a limited Open Access service whereby a free PDF may be downloaded: details from www.archaeopress.com
Inevitably, comparisons will be drawn with photographer/historian Michael Teague’s monumental work “In the Wake of the Portuguese Navigators” which should now be regarded as a companion volume for the bookshelves of all who are passionately concerned with the renown of Portugal as being a tiny country with a huge global influence in the history of civilization.
|| features@portugalresident.com
Roberto Cavaleiro has been resident in Portugal since 1989 and possesses dual Portuguese/British nationality. Now in his 10th decade, he devotes much of his senility to the composition of essays, poems and commentaries on a diversity of Portuguese subjects.
