The origins of this celebration are lost in time. Popular memory has it that during the French invasions, the people of Vila Grande saw soldiers passing by on a road near the villages of Couto de Dornelas and knowing that wherever they went they were looting everything, they begged for divine protection. They picked up the image of S. Sebastião, took it out into the street, carried it up to the church tower and promised the saint that every year they would hold a festival in his honour if the troops didn't come down to the villages. The miracle happened, the troops followed and the people gratefully kept their promise.
the feast or little table of S. Sebastião is held every year on 20 January in the village of Vila Grande.
Given the scale of this festivity, everything has to be prepared well in advance. Around Christmas, the stewards go round the houses in the villages of the parish collecting cereals (rye and maize) to make the bread. In January, they collect the rest of the donations. Pork (mainly brisket and chops) and money to buy rice. Firewood is also collected to cook the food.
The food is cooked in the purpose-built "Casa do Santo" (Saint's House). It has a kitchen with a fireplace, a large oven and a room for storing the bread. For around five days and nights, hundreds of bread are baked, which will be distributed or sold during the festival.
is one of the biggest community festivities in the municipality of Boticas.
On the 19th at midnight, they light a fire in the fireplace of the "Casa do Santo", around which they have more than 20 iron pots with meat broken into pieces to be cooked.
On the 20th, as soon as the bell rings for Mass, the pots with the rice are put on to boil and after Mass, the people go in procession with the saint to the "Casa do Santo", where the priest proceeds to bless the bread, meat and rice. The distribution of the food can then begin on a table hundreds of metres long in the main street of the village.
Tiago Rodrigues
Born in Lisbon, he left the capital for a village in Barroso, where he has developed projects with various local institutions. He is a graphic designer and art editor at UMinho Editora. In 2017, he founded Terra Callaeci, a project dedicated to the promotion of the cultural landscape of Trás-os-Montes, as a construction of the people who inhabited (and inhabit) it.