ABSTRACT
Pilgrimages are events in which sacredness is created and re-created repeatedly, since people would not visit a place unless they considered it to be ‘different’ from others. I conducted fieldwork in Fátima in Portugal, a world-famous place of pilgrimage. This chapter aims to show the way in which the sacredness of Fátima is created and maintained throughout the pilgrimage. This process is not only elaborated and intensified at the shrine itself, but also requires conscious and active participation on the part of the pilgrims themselves. The ethnographic data suggest that sacredness is created as a result of negotiations between shrine officials and pilgrims. I suggest a two-tiered model of sacredness: high and low. The Santuário (sanctuary) spreads over a very large plot encompassing car parks and wooded areas suitable for picnics. While children play ball games and people listen to their car stereos, talk loudly and buy food from car boots in these areas, none of these activities are allowed inside the Recinto (shrine square). In fact, this is exactly what the officials wish to achieve: by creating a sharp contrast between the outside and inside, they make the shrine different from this world. The chapter concludes that there is a constant attempt to create and maintain the sacredness of Fátima. Yet as a metaphysical notion, the sacred exists only in the minds of people who have faith and look for the sacred – the sacred does not exist naturally, it is man who gives this particular place its sacred quality.
