Las Hurdes 



2-39 



As regards the habits and customs of these people, we here 

 roughly transcribe from the work of Pascual Madoz ^ some selected 

 extracts that appear to be as accurate to-day as when they were 

 written some sixty years ago. 



The food of the Hiirdanos is as noxious as it is scanty. The potato 

 is the general stand-by, eitlier boiled or cooked with crude goat's suet ; 

 sometimes beans fried in the same grease, and lastly the leaves of trees, 

 boiled ; with roots, the stalks of certain wild grasses, chestnuts, and 

 acorns. Bread is practically unknown — all they ever have is made of 

 coarse rye and such crusts as they obtain by begging outside their 

 district. Only when at the point of death is wheaten bread provided. 



A WOLF-PROOF SHEEPFOLD ON THE ALAGON, NORTH ESTREMADURA 



Walls 10 feet liigli : note tlie shepherd's dwelling alongside. W'ithin aie sheep. 



Their clothing consists of a shapeless garment I'eaching from the hip 

 to the knee, a shirt without collar, fastening with one button, and a sack 

 carried over the shoulder. They have no warm clothing and all go bare- 

 foot. The women are even less tidy and dirtier than the men. Never 

 have they a vestige of anything new — nothing but discarded garments 

 obtained by begging, or in exchange for chestnuts, at the distant towns. 

 Tlieir usual " fashion " is never to take of}', to mend, or to wash any rag 

 they have once put on — it is worn till it falls off through slieer old age 

 and dirt. They never wash nor brush their hair, and go bare-legged like 

 the men. 



These, moreover, are the richest ; the majority being clad in goatskins 

 (untanned) that they kill or that die. These skins the men fix round 



^ IHccionario (jeoijrajico, cstadistico, y historico dc Espana, by I'ascual Madoz (Madrid, 



1845). 



