ABSTRACT
Vale Judeu—the Valley of the Jew—is a village a few miles away from the sea in southern Portugal, the Algarve. Idália Custódio, a 59-year-old secondary school teacher who is the granddaughter of a local landowner, lived in Vale Judeau from the time she finished primary school until she was 21. She left the area to pursue studies that eventually led to a degree in Romance studies. During the 10 crucial years of transition from childhood to womanhood she lived as a villager in Vale Judeu. Because of an acute awareness of the radical changes that this locale has undergone since the halcyon days of her youth, she decided to record and transcribe the stories, ballads, prayers, and songs that her old friends in the village remember and graciously recite for her benefit and for posterity.
