ABSTRACT
In all cultures, time is experienced as a multi-faceted phenomenon. The French sociologist Gervitch has argued, ‘social life takes place within times which are multiple, always divergent and frequently contradictory. Their unification … represents a problem for any society’ (1958, p. 1). This temporal complexity carries within itself potential contradictions, yet the relative unification of times is an essential aspect of all cultural life. In this paper, I will summarize three instances from rural northern Portugal: popular opposition to the building of modern paved roads, the division of the past into distinct phases and belief in the existence of an autochthonous population. By this means I hope to illuminate the processes to which the peasant society of Alto Minho resorts in its struggle to unify the experience of time.
