Heritage of A Limia: towers, convents, mills and ethnographic villages

The vanished peto de ánimas of the Rúa do Peto, in Xinzo de Limia

The peto de ánimas (souls' shrine) that stood on today's Rúa do Peto in Xinzo until the late 1950s, when the Santa Mariña council housing was built: what it looked like, what it was for and how Ángel Cerrato classifies it.

A peto de ánimas is a small religious structure where the neighbours leave an offering (coins, flowers, maize cobs, bread, bundles of grass…) so that the souls in purgatory may shorten their stay. The source, an article by Xosé «Pepe» Calleja López in As tradicións da Limia, says the offering was «self-interested», because whoever gives it counts on others doing the same when their turn comes, and that people also asked for luck on a journey, in love or in earning money at the fair ^[1].

Where it stood

Xinzo had one, on today’s Rúa do Peto, which still bears the name of the heritage element. It stood in the same place until at least the late 1950s, when the Casas Baratas of the Santa Mariña group were built. A photograph taken from the bell tower of the Igrexa Vella, published on Facebook, shows the peto to the north of the Casa Rectoral ^[1].

What it looked like

From the image, the author says it was very similar to the peto of Ponte Liñares (A Feira Nova). It has a large niche (fornelo) in the centre (the space where the saint or the Virgin goes) and a projecting top, and it is not clear whether it carried crosses or pinnacles. A witness remembers that it held a stone Virgin or saint (later they doubted this and spoke of a wooden one), that children brought flowers and that the lads chatted sitting in the fornelo. The images on petos tend to resemble the one on the altarpiece of the church of Laroá: a saint, the Virgin or angels trying to pull the souls out of the flames of the purifying fire ^[1].

Cerrato’s classification

According to Ángel Cerrato (O mundo dos cruceiros, cruces e petos de ánimas na bisbarra da Limia), the Xinzo one would be an alms peto (peto esmoleiro): beneath the figure a hollow was cut in the stone for a wooden box or lid with a slot for coins, padlocked against theft. By its form, it was one of the «wide single-body» type, in broad masonry, and by its location one of those beside churches and under the influence of the Way of St James: many petos stood on paths, to help at the start of a journey after an offering ^[1].

A heritage that was lost

The author laments that when such elements disappear, the community loses a point of reference and, two generations later, sometimes not even the memory remains: he does not remember it, his sister, four years older, does. For the inventory of the petos that do survive, see cruceiros e petos de ánimas da Limia ^[1].