Mountain View Portuguese Celebrate Holy Ghost Festival

The season of the Portuguese festival of the Holy Ghost has begun.

In dowtown Mountain View, some Sunday strollers and farmers market patrons stopped in their tracks, intrigued, unfamiliar with the 100-plus-year tradition that is practiced up and down California among descendents of immigrants from the Azores.

The procession of young girls in gowns and long flowing capes, marching bands and a couple of floats, set out from the I.F.E.S. Society hall on Stierlin Road to St. Joseph's Church for Mass to crown the 2013 queens at 9:30 a.m. Then they returned in the early afternoon, police directing traffic across the Central Expressway, down Moffett Boulevard.

They have observed this custom in Mountain View since 1926, though it dates back much farther to the 1870s and '80s in communities such as Half Moon Bay and Sausalito. Mountain View also has the S.F.V. Lodge on Villa Street near Calderon Avenue. 

"I grew up with it too, in Manteca," said Teresa Bettencourt, whose daughter, Grace, is the 2013-14 I.F.E.S. Society Senior Queen, at the tender age of 12. "The Portuguese get around."

The Portuguese who founded the community of Sausalito, describe the festival this way on its Sausalito Portuguese Hall website:

Behind the Holy Ghost Festa is a beloved Portuguese legend that still moves people, especially in the Azores where traditions remain the center of community life. The legend dates to two centuries of hunger and poverty beginning in the late 1200s when famine ravaged the Portuguese countryside.

The struggling people gathered in their churches, and prayed to the Divine Holy Spirit. The Mass evolved into the Espírito Santo Festa, an annual celebration of thanksgiving for Queen Isabel’s unselfish gifts of food for the poor (see story of Queen Isabel on our Events Calendar page). Tradition is that young girls are crowned queens during a special Mass. 

In tribute to Queen Isabel, each society has queens in different age groups, and many queens have two side-maids. There are "Baby" Queens, Junior Queens and Senior Queens. They carry bread in symbolic re-creation of Queen Isabel's actions.

The Portuguese organizations have a host of names, often referring to the Holy Ghost. I.F.E.S Society stands for Irmandade da Festa do Espirito Santo. The large hall on 432 Stierlin Road hosted a meal of sopas, entertained guests with the bands and had a live auction of handmade cheeses, crocheted blankets and crafts of its members. 

The Holy Ghost Festival celebrations run roughly from April to September, with each community organization or Portuguese society holding its own on a Sunday. The Each visits the others' celebrations.

"Patterson, Oakley, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Pismo Beach..." recited Bettencourt, only barely scratching the surface of a huge number communities and societies from the tiny, such as Santa Maria to the large such as San Jose.

So many that they split up in order to carry out their obligations.

"Next week, the big queens go to Half Moon Bay and the little queens go to Modesto, said Connie Vieira. Her daughters, Silvana, 7, is a junior queen and Kyla, 5, is a side-maid for the 2013-14 season.

"Every Sunday, we are going somewhere," Bettencourt said.

Also in Patch

• Holy Ghost Festa Celebrates 90th Year in Newark
• Photo Gallery: Portuguese Celebrate 85th Annual Holy Ghost Festival (Union City)
• Unraveling the Meaning of Newark's Holy Ghost Festa
• Parading for Pentecost in the Festa do Espirito Santo