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As briefly outlined in my previous article,
the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath dealt harshly with
the local population, although actual fighting lasted only
five weeks. The years of repression following the fighting
of 1936 are remembered with horror by many elderly Ibicencos.
Right wing Nationalist troops occupied the island, most of
them quartered in the Vila (Ibiza Town) area. The local supply
of money became even more restricted than before. This had
a rather interesting inverse effect on the population of the
island: Ibicenco peasants, who had extremely limited access
to money beforehand were, in general, less affected than the
inhabitants of Ibiza Town. Inhabitants of the town were not
almost completely self-sufficient as the majority of rural
peasants were - money, in various forms, had ruled in 'the
Town' since ancient Phoenician times. Town dwellers were at
a disadvantage at a time like this: very few people were buying
anything produced by the town's tradespeople. Starvation stalked
many of the narrow streets of D'Alt Vila and the lower town.
The Nationalist forces had brought in hundreds
of horses for its occupying troops - modern motor vehicles
on the island could almost be counted on the fingers of two
hands in those days. The horses consumed large quantities
of 'garroves', the large brown carob beans that are still
grown widely on the island as animal fodder. These are usually
harvested around September/October and a common soothing country
sound at that time of the year is the gentle rattle of the
long cane poles used by the rural population as they persuade
the trees to drop these precious beans to the ground. Some
town dwellers had their own carob trees on family land near
the town, but most of this food for the horses had to come
from country areas. If lucky, carob bean suppliers were paid
by the Nationalists, but stories also circulate of periodic
'forced appropriations' of commodities such as these. The
troops also needed food.
And this is where the rural inhabitants
of the island won out. They had an alternative to money -
food - which most of the town dwellers did not. It was a classic
example of how useless money can often be in times of crisis:
you cannot eat it. Ibicenco peasants visiting the town returned
home with stories of having seen starving town dwellers raiding
the large heaps of 'garroves' stored for the horses. Most
'pagesos' (rural peasants) outside of the town had their own
land, which provided the basics of life and enabled them to
survive rather well. Traditional self-sufficiency comes in
to its own at times like these and I suspect that certain
town dwellers rather envied - for the first time ever, probably
- the Ibicenco peasants' lifestyle. For a few short years
certain aspects of social roles became slightly reversed.
Some of the 'Masters of the Town', renowned for so long as
looking down upon and deriding the peasants as worthless,
stubborn, independent, traditionalists, suddenly had to become
extremely polite and friendly with them to gain access to
the kind of riches without which one cannot survive. Admittedly,
these changed attitudes did not necessarily survive the ending
of the years of hardship!
For certain peasant families who had large
areas of land and lots of produce, things actually worked
out rather well. More important families who needed extra
labour (to plant and look after more crops) paid the labourers
in food, all being provided with healthy rural fare in return
for their work. Many people in the town were absolutely desperate
for food and some peasants with food stocks in abundance to
spare found that they were actually in a position - for some,
for the first time ever - to obtain goods in exchange from
the townsfolk that they may never have been able to afford
before in the days when only money was accepted. Producers
of cloth in the town were willing to exchange larger amounts
of cloth in exchange for food than would ever have been possible
if the rural peasants only had money to offer. Olive oil,
an essential in this part of the world, became a 'luxury item'
of great value. Ibicencos with their own ancient olive presses
were able to exchange olive oil for all sorts of commodities
and a few even became briefly what might lightly be called
'olive oil millionaires' if money had been involved. Trading
and bartering of agricultural produce had always been part
of the rural economy, and this now expanded in a big way into
Ibiza town. To a certain extent, money itself lost its value.
Rural peasants from all over the island began to make more
than normal regular trips to the town, albeit rather warily
because of the tense situation and a fear that soldiers might
arrest them on a whim or technicality, to supply food. Many
had relatives too in the town and wanted to make sure they
were well supplied.
One small example, to set the style. A large
land-owning family (with olive oil press) in the isolated
'Sa Coruna' (Sant Agnès/Santa Ines) area in the NNW
of the island paying extra labourers with food began sending
a cartload of agricultural produces per week to the town.
'Sa Coruna' was (and until very recently was still) a complete
world away from the town, and it was an early start. There
were no paved roads anywhere on the island except in the town
and these only reached a few hundred yards out from the Vara
de Rey to Can Ventosa ('sa fabrica de calcetines'), the present
Casa de Cultura. But with a healthy horse and a sturdy cart
at a relatively fast clip one could make it along the rocky
caminos from 'Sa Coruna' to 'Vila' in approximately three
hours. To avoid the heat of the sun as much as possible one
had to make an early start: an early quick breakfast snack
crouched around the 's'arrejol' (the small round fireplace
set in the middle of the floor of 'es porxo', the entrance
hall/room), the loading and tightening of the produce into
the cart, strapping an 'ofabis' (amphora pot) with drinking
water to one of the cart's inner sides and…one was off,
hopefully before the sun broke the eastern horizon. Some say
a fee (usually paid then in food stock) was paid at a military
checkpoint as one entered the town. One old 'pages' told me
that he still had to pay this entry 'fee' as late as 1962
when he was still bringing agricultural produce to town. He
thought it was still the fee dating from the Civil War times,
but he may have been confusing it with a market produce tax.
Another told me he though it was a 'peasant tax' imposed by
'The Masters of the Town'. Maybe it was all three, at different
levels of analysis. Once our friends from 'Sa Coruna' had
finally gotten into the town, they could then trot the cart
to relatives, friends, or contacts to begin the trading of
their land's produce for what they wanted - cloth, knives,
nails, soap and a few other items - maybe some medicines,
etc. Interestingly enough, though, although we might class
a large range of items as essentials, most of these 'purchased'
(or traded) things (except for certain iron objects) were
in reality 'luxuries'. Life could continue without most of
them. And this is something that our 'modern' societies have
actually forgotten - most of our 'essentials' are exactly
that, 'luxuries'. It does actually seem rather sad that the
recent worldwide trends to try and - sometimes almost forcefully
- 'modernize' isolated, self-sufficient, traditionally oriented
societies around the world has often been a process in which
our world robs them of their identity and independence and
basically persuades them that their essentials should be the
same as ours. But often what we are really doing is forcing
them to turn luxuries into essentials. Traditional peasant
life was hard on Eivissa/Ibiza, and when the possibility of
change came in the 1960s with the arrival of tourism, many
Ibicencos needed little persuasion to abandon their independent
lifestyles and 'head for the coast' and...money. And who can
really blame them? Some could say they were fed up with scratching
the ground for a pittance and getting arthritis. But if another
crisis such as the Civil War should affect the island in the
future, almost everyone will be in the same boat, or, maybe
one should say almost everyone would be down stealing the
'garroves' due to be fed to the Nationalists' horses! Everyone
else would be trekking through the hills trying to find the
last smart self-sufficient peasants to steal their food. Most
governments in the so-called 'developed' world seem almost
to act as if the remaining self-sufficient populations within
their boundaries (and elsewhere) are to be suppressed and
then squeezed in to the rather ridiculous '9 to 5 mold' which
so many of us think is normal. It is not. It just happens
to be a norm for our rather stressed-out populations at this
particular time in history and it may only be a brief phase
at that - it may just burn itself out. These isolated, independent
cultures are the real survivors in terms of long-term history.
Our 'modern' cultures haven't really been around long enough
for anyone to say the same about them.
And why don't modern governments like self-sufficient,
independent, population sub-groups? Well, it's almost as if
they were looked upon as some sort of potentially contagious
disease (rather like the US looked upon 'Communism'): 'If
our population sees them getting away with it then everyone
will want to do it'. It should also be pointed out though
that it is very difficult for any modern government to tax
such a population - and therein may lie the critical factor.
Governments do not like being paid in carob beans. Think about
it.
Kirk W Huffman
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