The Summer Festival in Porto Where People Just Whack Each Other with Hammers
Unfortunately “getting hammered” doesn’t quite translate in Portuguese.
It was my first Festival of Sao João, a few days after the summer solstice, undoubtedly the most lively night of the year in Porto. My friends and I, having just watched fireworks on my balcony, descended into a street that’s normally empty aside from a few stray cats. But that evening the air buzzed with excitement and pure debauchery. In front of the colorful Portuguese tiled buildings, local families grilled sardines, sent lanterns off into the night, and generally danced like no one was watching. In almost everyone’s hand: a giant hammer.
I never pictured myself whacking any stranger on the head with a hammer—and certainly not a child or a senior citizen. But as an American living in Porto, I can attest that’s exactly what happens during the city’s famous annual festival. Although Sao João is ostensibly meant to mark the birth of the youngest apostle, it’s also a drunken reverie involving fireworks reflecting over the Douro River and its larger-than-life bridges, a night sky full of lanterns, and polka-like music echoing through the cobbled city streets. And when I bonked a little girl and her grandmother on the head with a piece of hollow plastic, they smiled and laughed.
So did I when they returned the favor.
It was the Celtics who first celebrated the summer solstice. And while the precise origins of Sao João remain a mystery, it first entered the historical record in the 14th century when the chief chronicler of Portugal’s kingdom traveled to Porto ahead of an upcoming visit for the king. He happened to arrive on the day of Sao João, which happens each year on the Sunday following the solstice.
The word on the street is that, back then, men would hit people on the heads with leeks, leaving behind a wafting garlic scent, and women would rub lemon balm in people’s faces. This was done to get attention from the opposite sex. The idea was that both plants symbolized fertility (though according to some, the lemon balm represented pubic hair, too.) That practice evolved in the 1970s, after Manuel António Boaventura, a toymaker from the Estrela do Paraíso plastics factory, was inspired to make a toy based on an unusual set of salt and pepper shakers he saw during his travels. He eventually settled on a toy hammer, the shakers serving as the model for the hammer’s head. So, he made giant plastic models of these shakers and added a proportionately large handle that doubled as a whistle. The unintentionally phallic noisemakers became such a hit with kids and teenagers at smaller celebrations in Porto that they quickly broke onto the Sao João scene, gradually overshadowing the lemon balm and leeks. While the original theme of the festival has become less explicit, some parts of the city still sell sweet bread and cake in the shape of a phallus.
Several hours after we’d ventured into the street, we arrived at a small block party complete with its own DJ, Super Bock (Porto’s local lager), and some of the phallic cake. It was the earliest morning hours and the peak of Sao João madness. Miguel Moura, a dry-humored 33 year old who was born and raised in Porto, started a dance train that eventually the entire block party ended up joining. He told me later that in Portugal there is a saying: “You don’t hit a woman, not even with a flower.” But, with a flower or hammer on Sao João, he said with a chuckle, it’s fair game.
Meanwhile, Joana Ranito wielded her hammer as she bounced across the square that doubled as the dance floor. While Moura highlighted the transgressing of taboos, the 30-year-old type designer said that her favorite aspect of Sao João is that it brings together every aspect of the community. “It’s a day when traditional barriers are broken down,” as she put it. “You see old people dancing with young people and teenagers.” Although it’s an all-ages affair, she thinks a big part of the fun is attributable to the tradition of the hammers and leeks. After all, who wouldn’t be forced out of their shell by the prospect of whacking someone on the head with something meant to symbolize sex.
By the time my friends and I had wandered down a street overlooking the river, I’d probably hammered more than a hundred strangers on the head. Partaking in this eclectic ritual had indeed made me feel like part of the local community. It was just as Ranito had explained to me days before the festival: “You’re going to break out of your shell and interact with people. You’re gonna smash someone on the head and laugh about it, and it’s nice to do that.”