{"id":6997,"date":"2021-04-20T20:34:30","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T20:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/the-village\/origins-and-history\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T11:59:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T11:59:29","slug":"origins-and-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/the-village\/origins-and-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Origins and History"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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There are no definitive conclusions about the toponym Drave. However, there are several references to words close to the term Drave, such as Drava, Dravus, Dravo, Drauss, and Drab. All of these are river names; terms that emerged from associating the names of submerged plants and animals. Although the name Drave is uncommon, there are a few European rivers, all tributaries of the Danube, with that name. There are also personal names such as Dravinius and Dravius, derived from the Gaulish Dravos. But how did Drave come about? <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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One of the most relevant hypotheses is that this region has been inhabited since the earliest times. Evidence of this includes the discovery of several archaeological remains, such as cist graves and hillforts, with particular note given to a Celtic gold bracelet found near Drave, in Regoufe. What may have attracted people to places as remote as these was likely the presence of several watercourses and the fertility of the land, which allowed communities to sustain themselves. Another possible explanation for the emergence of Drave as a settlement has to do with its clear isolation. It is said that Drave developed as a refuge from criminal prosecution\u2014that is, people who had committed certain crimes would hide there, in a place sufficiently remote and concealed. But these are nothing more than suppositions. The oldest document in which Drave is mentioned is the Inquiri\u00e7\u00e3o dos Reguengos da Beira, from the reign of King Dinis (1279\u20131325). <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Everyday Life in Ancient Times<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In Drave<\/span>, day-to-day life followed, with rare exceptions, the same pattern. As soon as the sun rose, the silence was broken by the creak of doors and the slow footsteps of those heading to the animal pens. It would be time to feed the livestock and then lead them up the hillside. <\/p>

After that came the farm work. Working the land demanded attention and specific tasks depending on the season of the year. Fields were ploughed, manured, sown, and watered in an unbroken succession of chores; repeated over generations of Drave\u2019s inhabitants, and gradually refined over time.
In the days when Drave\u2019s last residents still lived there, carrying out so many duties was only possible with the help of Drave\u2019s sons and daughters who lived in the surrounding area.  Tasks that generations in Drave had gradually perfected.<\/p>

In the days when Drave\u2019s last residents still lived there, carrying out so many chores was only possible with the help of Drave\u2019s sons and daughters who lived in the surrounding area.
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Meals, often prepared late, were enjoyed by everyone. After eating, some time was set aside for rest. <\/p>

They would use that time to talk about current events, watch the cows from the balcony, or simply lie back to recover strength for the day\u2019s work. If anything was missing, it was necessary to go to the nearest village and ask the local grocer for help\u2014or, in more modern times, call a taxi. <\/p>

By late afternoon, when the dim light threatened to cover the mountain with its dark mantle and the livestock had not yet returned to the village, it was necessary to go up the mountain to bring them back. This was a dangerous task: although wolves did not usually attack humans, they were always a threat. Even more dangerous, however, would be an encounter with a wild boar enraged by the invasion of its territory. <\/p>

From time to time, a cow would be taken to the neighbouring village of Silveiras to be bred by a bull.<\/p>

Other times, bread was baked. Bread was an integral part of the Drave population\u2019s diet. It was made by hand,
 using cornmeal ground in the village mill. A small amount of rye flour was added so it would bind better. The starter was a piece of dough left over from the previous bake and allowed to sour. The flour was placed in a kneading trough, and a small hollow was made in the centre where salt\u2014one of the most precious goods in the area\u2014was added. Water was then gradually poured in, stirring constantly with a large wooden spatula. After mixing in the starter, the dough was kneaded until it \u201cbound well.\u201d Small pieces of dough were taken and set aside in another trough. After moving all the dough to the opposite side, the process was repeated, moving it back to the original side. This was repeated three times.
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Moinho na Drave<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAt the end of the third time, the trough was carefully covered, dusted with flour, and a cross was made on the dough. Over that cross, more crosses were symbolically traced by hand while praying the Our Father. \u201cThere\u2014you\u2019re with God now,\u201d the cook would say, following ancestral customs passed down from mother to daughter. In the centre of the cross, three small pieces of bay laurel wood\u2014or an onion\u2014were placed, as it is said this helps the dough rise better. The trough was closed and the dough left to rise for at least two hours. Once it had risen enough, wood was placed in the oven and a small fire lit. Portions of dough were placed in a basin and shaped into a large round loaf (broa), which was put into the oven with a peel. The oven door was closed and sealed with cow dung so that air could not enter. After some time, the oxygen inside the oven was consumed by the flame and the fire went out.
It was the oven\u2019s retained heat that baked the bread\u2014a process that took about three hours.
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In Drave, people cultivated corn, beans, rye, potatoes, vegetables, vines, and fodder for animals. Most production\u2014especially in the later period when the village was still inhabited\u2014was for family self-consumption, since the isolation made it difficult to take products to market: \u201cj\u00e1 n\u00e3o d\u00e1 para a sola dos sapatos e tamb\u00e9m j\u00e1 estamos velhos, n\u00e3o podemos<\/em>\u201d said Mr Joaquim, the village\u2019s last resident. <\/p>

Rye and corn were used to make bread; the leaves and rye straw were used for feeding cattle and bedding. Beans, potatoes, vegetables, and wine were consumed at home. Milk was for the calves, and fodder for the animals. <\/p>

In Drave therefore practised mixed farming for household consumption. However, the crops grown on the largest scale were corn and rye. Corn cultivation had several stages: sowing began in  April and was done by broadcasting. Then came hoeing and earthing up, which involved pulling soil up around the base of the corn while removing weeds\u2014hard work requiring a lot of  labour. Next came thinning, removing plants that prevented properly spaced growth. When the corn was nearly fully grown, the tassel was cut off and either fed green to the cows or dried for
 winter <\/span>feed. In
 September, when the corn was ripe, the ears were cut and carried in ox carts to be stored in haylofts, and later husked. The husked ears were dried on the threshing floor and then stored in the granaries, from which they were only taken as needed.
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The leaves were stored in haylofts for animal feed. The stalks were cut with a small sickle and carried on people\u2019s heads to the haylofts, where they were stored for later use as bedding and feed during the harsh  winter. Threshing was done by hand: the corn was spread on the threshing floor and beaten with a flail\u2014a long stick with a wooden strip at the end called a  pitolo. The corn was ground in the family mill when the river had water. During  summer, when the river dried up, it was necessary to grind corn in a neighbouring village. Cobs and husks were used as fuel for the hearth. Beans, which were sown alongside the corn, were harvested as they ripened. <\/p>

Rye adapted well to Drave\u2019s schist soils. It too was broadcast-sown, cut with a small sickle, tied into sheaves, dried in stacks, and hand-threshed. It was used both for mixing with corn in making broa and for sowing fodder. The straw was stored in the pens as animal feed. <\/p>

In september<\/span> \/ October<\/span> September\/October, fodder was sown by broadcasting in the corn furrows. Throughout  winter, most fields were occupied with fodder for animals. Vines were also very important; some even said that  Drave\u2019s calling card is its wine. Vines were trained on trellises, but some also climbed trees. Red grapevines were far more common than white, so only the so-called \u201cAmerican\u201d wine was made. The grape harvest took place in late  September\/October. Cutting the grape bunches was difficult and dangerous because they grew in the most unlikely places\u2014climbing trees, above the river, and so on. After being picked, the grapes were placed in the press and crushed by foot. <\/p>

Some of the Martins devoted themselves to beekeeping. They had several beehives\u2014some covered with slate lids, others with wooden shelters\u2014set up on the hillsides, protected by rocks. Honey production was mainly intended for household consumption. When there were wildfires, it was a bad year, since the bees were deprived of their food sources: eucalyptus blossom, gorse, and chestnut flowers. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Source: “Antropologia e Realidade Portuguesa. Drave: um passado sem futuro?” de Cla\u00fadia C. Silva, Eug\u00e9nia C. Almeida, Maria J\u00falia Morais e Maria Madalena Soares, 1989<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are no definitive conclusions about the toponym Drave. However, there are several references to words close to the term Drave, such as Drava, Dravus, Dravo, Drauss, and Drab. All of these are river names; terms that emerged from associating the names of submerged plants and animals. Although the name Drave is uncommon, there are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6996,"parent":5326,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6997","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6997"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7316,"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6997\/revisions\/7316"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drave.escutismo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}