LES ROMEIROS (GROUPES DE PÈLERINS)
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Pilgrims travel around the island for a week, entering all the chapels.
The romeiros are groups of pilgrims to São Miguel who, during Lent, travel around the island for a week, passing by all the chapels whose worship is linked to the Virgin Mary.
Today, they also stop off at other Catholic buildings along the way. They sing and pray along the way, walking almost 200 km barefoot: a mystical fervor pervades them.
Some eat only bread and water. Dressed identically, they carry a handkerchief tied around their necks, a staff in one hand, the rosary or rosary beads in the other, a shawl slung over their shoulders to protect them from the rain or wind, and the cevadeira, a sort of bag strapped to their backs to carry everything they need for the journey. Their song, the Ave Maria, is profoundly sad and melancholy.
Although they are all dressed in the same way, placed in two straight lines, a certain hierarchy nevertheless emerges: the master-brother is the leader; the encomendador collects prayer requests from the group's faithful and the guides lead the brothers on the roads.
These "fiestas" probably had their origins in the natural disasters that recurred on the island in the 16thcentury . It's a very popular event, but it's not just for fun: no drinking, smoking or giving up along the way!
Only men form these groups (around twenty each year, made up of between twenty and a hundred brothers), but there were undoubtedly women in the past.