Mouros and the Mourama

One of the most common themes in portuguese folkstories is the “enchanted Moura”, a magical being imprisoned in a specific place, guarding a treasure and/or asking travellers to free her from a spell. Most believe these legends are related to the Arab invasion to the Iberian Peninsula in the 7th century, since the word “moura” means “moorish woman”. But these legends are centuries older than the North African invasions, and are found in areas the Islamic Empire did not conqueronly or rulled for a very short period of time, so very little Islamic influence was left there¹.

In Portugal everything that is old whether it is a Mamoa, a Dolmen, an inscription, a Castro, an ancient fountain or even anthropomorphic graves: everything was, according to the population, build by the Mouros². This is obviously false, since the Mamoas and dolmens are Stone Age constructions, Castros are Lusitanian fortifications and antropomorphic graves are Christian burials, hence all these monuments were made before the Islamics set foot in the Peninsula. So why the native population atributes everything to the Moors? Leite de Vasconcellos’s answer to this question is that “what today, among us, is said about the moors used to be said about the Celts and Turduli in the ancient eras I am speaking about; the Celts and Turduli of then were for the people’s imaginary the same as the Moors are today”³. In conclusion, the portuguese population simply atributed everything old to the most recent invader, maybe because they were seen as different and mysterious: in ancient times that would have happened to Celts and Turduli, now happens to Moors (Mouros).

So, if these entities are not Moors, what are they? Well, Martins Sarmento, a portuguese archeologist, believed they were gods from the Indigenous population that, after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, lingered in the population’s imagery⁴. According to him, the fact that Christians view pagan gods as demons, not as non-existent or fake entities, contributed to the perpetuation of its memory⁵. An example would be that of Atégina, a Lusitanian goddess of the underworld, associated with goats, just like her brother Liber who was syncretized with Bacchus, also associated with goats, contributed to the association of the devil with the goat in folkstories and in peoples’ minds, because “all the gods of the Gentiles are devils”⁶.

Note that the portuguese people do not have an aversion to goats, in fact goats are very popular animal in the mountais, especially for their milk, which is used for the famous Serra da Estrela Cheese, but in folk stories they are associated with evil.

Martins Sarmento was not the only one to study this subject and hypothesize about it, but the truth is no one knows for sure the origin of these “Mouros” and the Mourama (the place the Mouros inhabit). Still, Martins Sarmento believed that it was possible to find a correspondence to the Mourama in the Irish Fairyland and to the Mouros in the Tuatha dé Danann⁷. To the archeologist the Irish Fairyland and the Mourama are both the “old mythological world of our past”⁸.

There is a great variety of stories about Mouros and the Mourama. More usually than not, they involve treasures and enchantments, moors who, for no reason, want to offer people treasures or the treasure may be offered as a payment for breaking the spell the Mouro/Moura was under.

It is also important to stress that many of these stories make refference to the departure of the actual Moors from the Peninsula and the fact that they left behind buried treasures. It is a common practice in North Africa to bury treasures or valuables in difficult times, and even today in Marocco and Egypt treasure hunters search for riches even through sorcery⁹ . Just like in North Africa, in Portugal some people tried to find these Moorish treasures through witchcraft, resorting to a very popular spell book in Portugal (I will not name it). It is also common to read about the fact that Moors are not Christian, but giving that those who study this subject say the origin of the Mourama is prior to the Islamic Invasion, It is possible that the people simply added the Islamic elements to the stories that existed before.

Now, I will finish with some light hearted stories about Mouros:

Fonte Coberta¹⁰

In a certain place, called Fonte Coberta, near Lagos, lives a mouro or a moura. In a certain occasion a poor woman went to the fountain to get water and, while she was going away, she saw two mats with figs drying in the sun.

The poor woman could not resist the desire to take some of the figs, so she took five. After some time she noticed she was being followed by a child crying, calling for his mother. The woman asked why he was crying, but he did not answer and started crying even more. She felt sorry for the child and, believing he was hungry, took two figs from her pocket and gave it to him. She was very surprised because instead of the figs she had five pieces of gold! In that moment the child disapeared and in his place a swarthy man appeared dressed as the maltezes (typical portuguese costume), with a red cap and with a beanpole in his hand. The woman was scared by the sudden appearance of the man, but he told her: “-You stupid, why didn’t you take advantage of the figs, you could take all you wanted! As he said that he dissapeared.

Stall of Lameiras de Castro¹¹

It is said that, in ancient times, in Lameiras da Base de Castro a girl was grazing cattle, when she saw a very beautiful stall with many gold objects: earrings, rings, necklaces and arrecadas in such quantity it caused admiration.

In that stall, a kind of store, there was an old lady who asked the girl for a pan with milk. If she brought it to her, she would give her all that treasure. Dazzled, the girl went home very quickly and brought the old lady the pan of milk, that she drunk with great pleasure. To thank the girl, the old lady filled the pan with something, but the girl could not see what it was. The lady gave the girl the pan and told her not to look into the pan until arriving home.

Half way home, the girl could not old her curiosity and looked inside the pan. She was so disapointed when she saw that the pan was full of charcoal! She began throwing it away. Having arrived home, she told her mother what happened, how the old lady having promised her riches, only gave her charcoal!

The mother wanted to see it for herself, and also looked inside the pan and, afterall, the girl did not throw all away, she had left two or three pieces who by now had turn themselves into gold.

Mother and daughter went to look out for the rest of the charcoal the girl had turn away, but they didn’t find anything.

1. SARMENTO, Francisco Martins, A Mourama. Revista de Guimarães, 100 Jan.-Dez. 1990, p.343-353

2. VASCONCELLOS, J. Leite de, Religiões da Lusitânia na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal, Vol. II, Imprensa Nacional, Lisboa, 1913, p. 241

3. VASCONCELLOS, J. Leite de, Religiões da Lusitânia na parte que principalmente se refere a Portugal, Vol. II, Imprensa Nacional, Lisboa, 1913, p. 220

4. SARMENTO, Francisco Martins, A Mourama. Revista de Guimarães, 100 Jan.-Dez. 1990, p.343-353

5. SARMENTO, Francisco Martins, A Mourama. Revista de Guimarães, 100 Jan.-Dez. 1990, p.343-353

6. Psalm 95:5

7. SARMENTO, Francisco Martins, A Mourama. Revista de Guimarães, 100 Jan.-Dez. 1990, p.343-353

8. SARMENTO, Francisco Martins, A Mourama. Revista de Guimarães, 100 Jan.-Dez. 1990, p.343-353

9. https://www.newarab.com/analysis/dark-world-moroccos-treasure-hunters

10. OLIVEIRA, Francisco Xavier d'Ataíde As Mouras Encantadas e os Encantamentos do Algarve Loule, Notícias de Loulé, 1996 [1898] , p.245-246

11. PARAFITA, Alexandre A Mitologia dos Mouros: Lendas, Mitos, Serpentes, Tesouros Vila Nova de Gaia, Gailivro, 2006 , p.210-21