AP Photos: Kids encouraged to smoke in Portugal at Epiphany
The Epiphany celebrations in the Portuguese village of Vale de Salgueiro feature a tradition that each year causes an outcry among outsiders: Parents encouraging their children, some as young as 5, to smoke cigarettes.
Locals say the practice is centuries-old, but nobody is sure what it symbolizes or why parents buy the packs of cigarettes for their children and encourage them to take part.
The legal age to purchase tobacco in Portugal is 18, but nothing prohibits parents from giving kids smokes, and Portuguese authorities don't intervene to stop the practice.
Guilhermina Mateus, a 35-year-old coffee shop owner, cites custom as the reason why she gives her daughter cigarettes.
"I can't explain why. I don't see any harm in that because they don't really smoke, they inhale and immediately exhale, of course," Mateus said on Saturday. "And it's only on these days, today and tomorrow. They never ask for cigarettes again."
The two-day celebrations, which start Friday and end Saturday with a Mass, include dancing around bonfires, a piper playing music and an elected "king" who distributes plentiful wine and snacks.
Jose Ribeirinha, a writer who has published a book on the Vale do Salgueiro festivities, believes the relative seclusion of the remote village at 450 kilometers (280 miles) to the northeast of the capital Lisbon has helped keep the tradition alive. He said that the surrounding Tras os Montes region "has always been the furthest from Lisbon, the most 'forgotten one'."
Portugal, like many countries, has taken steps to reduce smoking, including a partial ban on smoking indoors.
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AP write Barry Hatton contributed from Lisbon.
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