The Galo de Barcelos on a Portuguese restaurant in New Bedford. Photo from antoniosnewbedford.com

Are your feet sore yet? We’re continuing our expedition through an urban ethnic landscape, learning about a different culture, that of Portuguese Americans in southeastern New England.

I grew up in this area and in the Portuguese American culture. Now I’m a retired geography professor and I’ve outlined these ideas in detail in my book Making History — Creating a Landscape: The Portuguese American Community of Southeastern New England. https://www.amazon.com/Making-History-Creating-Landscape-Southeastern-ebook/dp/B07HG68BGY

The author’s book, available on Amazon.com

Signs, symbols and stones (monuments). What can we learn today about the cultural signifiers or ethnic landscape signatures of this community? In the last post we looked at the Portuguese flag and its rich symbolism. Today we’ll look at some other names, signs and symbols starting with the Portuguese Cross.

Portuguese Crosses on the steeple of St. John of God in Somerset. Photo by the author.

Let’s look at St. John of God’s Catholic Church located in a suburban setting in Somerset, Massachusetts, across the Taunton River from Fall River. The church gives no obvious clues to its ethnic connections. Even the name of the church does not give an apparent hint. Yet this church was founded as a Portuguese National Parish with masses offered in Portuguese. The semiotic clue to the cultural connection is found in the architectural design of the steeple that incorporates stylized sails marked with the Cross of Portugal (above). This style of cross has many other names: the Cross of St. John, the Portuguese Cross of the Order of Christ, and the cross formée. The cross is a common symbol of Portuguese culture found on monuments and especially on the sails of ancient and modern Portuguese sailing ships. In the Dighton Rock museum honoring a Portuguese explorer who may have engraved the rock in 1502, a floor display of giant ship models with sails featuring the Portuguese Cross dominates the exhibit (below).

Portuguese crosses on a ship model in the Dighton Rock museum. Photo by the author.

The name Sagres acts as another national cultural symbol. Sagres is the point of land at the southwestern tip of Portugal (also the southwestern tip of Europe) from which Prince Henry the Navigator dispatched explorers to discover the sea route around Africa to India. Sagres is also the name of the Portuguese navy’s “tall ship” that travels to maritime celebrations around the world. (Its sails feature the Portuguese Cross.) Sagres is also the name of the best-selling national beer. Below is a sign as an example, again with the Portuguese Cross on the sails.

The name Sagres is a common symbol. Photo by the author.

Names of famous Portuguese explorers are also used frequently enough to be seen as cultural symbols. An example is Vasco da Gama, the first Portuguese explorer to round the Cape of Good Hope and reach India, whose name is used on restaurants and businesses, one in New Bedford shown below.

The names of Portuguese explorers are used on businesses. Photo by the author.

Another cultural symbol connected to exploration is the compass rose, used frequently in architecture in Portugal such as on the plaza surrounding Lisbon’s famous Monument to the Discoveries in Belém. The compass rose is often used in similar symbolic settings in New England. For example, both statues of Prince Henry the Navigator in Fall River and in New Bedford are placed within settings of compass rose and tile work, as are the re-created gates of Ponta Delgada in Fall River. At the Portuguese Discovery monument in Newport, Rhode Island, stones representing the points of the compass are incorporated in the megalith-like structure. Three of these monuments also incorporate the back and white wavy tiles representing the sea, along with the compass rose, as shown around the base of the Prince Henry monument in Fall River.

The distinctive tiling and compass rose around the statue of Prince Henry in Fall River. Photo by the author.

If you have been following earlier posts, you will note that all these symbols mentioned so far bring up once again the deep-seated association of Portugal with maritime exploration: Portugal’s famous explorers, Dighton Rock, Sagres, the compass, the sea, the Portuguese Cross on sails. Exploration is bravery but colonialism is exploitation; however, it’s difficult for a nation to break away from its colonial past when so much of its history is intertwined with it.

Fatima is another name laden with Portuguese cultural symbolism because of the miracle and shrine at Fatima, Portugal. Catholics believe that in 1913 a vision appeared here of the Virgin Mary, known as Our Lady of Fatima. The name Fatima is also a common given name for Portuguese women. Interestingly, the name Fatima itself reflects cultural syncretism. The name Fatima came into Portuguese culture during the time of Moorish domination of the Iberian Peninsula. Fatima was the name of the Prophet Mohammed’s favorite daughter.

A shrine to Our Lady of Fatima in Fall River. Photo by the author.

Six Catholic churches (some have closed) in the Portuguese communities in southern New England have been named Our Lady of Fatima: two in Massachusetts, one in Rhode Island and all three Portuguese Catholic parishes in Connecticut. Portuguese churches and churchyards often display statues honoring Our Lady of Fatima as do many private homes. Statues of the Virgin Mary are common in the yardscape of the Portuguese community but a shrine specific to Our Lady of Fatima is easy to identify by the two girls and boy kneeling, to whom the visions appeared. They were shepherd children, so look for the sheep too! See the example above of a shrine in a yard in Fall River.

The Galo de Barcelos. From portugaliamarketplace.com

Another common symbol is the rooster, a token of good luck. Often it’s mainly black, but always also multi-colored. (When we were kids we used to call it the “good luck chicken” — what did we know? LOL) It’s called the Galo de Barcelos and it is sold in gift shops and seen on signs of Portuguese businesses such as the display on Antonio’s Restaurant (shown at the top of this post) or on a shop, below. Both examples are in New Bedford.

The good luck rooster on a sign in New Bedford. Photo by the author.

Another word that is a cultural symbol of Portuguese presence in the landscape is Luso or Luzo. In the Portuguese language Luso Americano is used a synonym for Portuguese American. The prefix comes from Lusitania, the Roman word for the area that is now Portugal. An example from a bank in Fall River is shown below.

Luzo or Luso is related to Lusitania, the Roman name for Portugal. Photo by the author.

And one more! Azulejos — blue and white ceramic tiles (you recognize that azul = blue) that cover some entire building fronts in Portugal. The tiles may simply have a repetitive pattern or they may depict images. As you might guess these images may be holy pictures, such as Our Lady of Fatima, or sailing ships with the Portuguese cross (below).

Azulejos (tiles). Photo from ebay.com

In southeastern New England most examples of azulejos are indoors but below is one example from the entrance to a home in Fall River.

Tiles on the entryway to a home in Fall River. Photo by the author.