THE SALOIO (Country bumpkin) MYTH

The Saloio is a figure who cannot be dissociated from the history of Mafra and the rest of the municipality due to his role as an economic and cultural mediator in relation to the capital, linking the Mafra region to the Lisbon capital.

Its origins, together with the territory over which it spread and its characterisation as a social group, were the subject of heated debate among intellectuals, from which emerged various theories, somewhat fanciful and even romanticised, but which in some cases have survived to the present day, designating it as an ethnic group.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was widely believed in literary circles that the Saloio was descended from the converted Moors who, through the mercy of King Afonso Henriques, settled in the outskirts of Lisbon after the Christian reconquest.

At the height of this debate, in 1917, David Lopes, a specialist in Arabism, refuted the current theories. According to him, "Saloio" meant "country dweller" instead of city dweller. Therefore, this denomination would have been used long before the Christian reconquest of Lisbon from the Moors to distinguish between the indigenous populations who lived on the city's outskirts and dedicated themselves to agriculture - the Mozarabs.

As a rural population based in the capital's outskirts, their territory, of which the municipality of Mafra was a part, was redefined as the Lisbon Term was extended under pressure from urban growth and population increase. This was a vast territory of an agricultural nature, where this social group dedicated itself to working the land, producing agricultural products and craft goods, offering services, and supplying the city with essential goods for the survival of its inhabitants.

The figures of these rural people gave rise to the creation of typical popular figures, albeit stereotyped, satirised and parodied in the arts and literature.

In recent decades, the municipality of Mafra has undergone profound transformations, ceasing to be a primarily rural municipality and opening up its territory by installing a vast road network to accommodate other economic activities and respond to the exponential population growth that has been felt in its main towns.

Nowadays, the figure of the Saloio - the recognisable inhabitant of the countryside - has become a figure of the past.

Today, the Saloio has moved into the symbolic realm, becoming an attribute of quality and authenticity for its products from the land, for the variety of its local gastronomy and a tourist attraction for a city population eager to feel a return to its origins and the pastoral search for country well-being.