The rooms, the Board and the Biblioteca da Limia: the Ethnographic Museum inside

The Museo Etnográfico da Limia, in Vilar de Santos, has seven themed rooms, its own library and a programme of activities run by the association Board of the Museum (Padroado) ^[1][2].

The rooms

1. O Mar da Limia (The Sea of A Limia). The draining of the lagoon and the events that preceded it: geography, environment, Lagoa de Antela, history and society of the territory ^[1].
2. O mundo rural (The rural world). The building, the former rectory of Vilar de Santos, stored a good part of the harvests that the peasantry paid as a tenth to the priest and the bishopric; it was the richest house in the village. The room explains the parish, created in the Middle Ages, and the "concellos abertos", assemblies of neighbours gathered in the churchyard to mend the paths, use the common land and look after the livestock ^[1].
3. O patio, os cultivos (The yard, the crops). Cultivation was based on rotation without fallow on a two-year cycle; between 30 and 45 % of the surface was devoted to it and the rest to meadows and scrub, which gave bedding to pigs and then manure ^[1].
4. A casa (The house). The interior of a traditional Limia house, with the hearth and the bedroom; the house defines the dwelling and also the family, the straw loft, the lands and the harvests ^[1].
5. O Liño (Linen). The socio-economic base until the production crisis of the 19th century; a loom and a recreation of a spinning evening stand out, and it includes a weaving workshop ^[1].
6. Os oficios da Limia (The trades of A Limia). Stonemasons, sawyers and carpenters travelled wherever they were hired, with their tools and helpers ^[1].
7. A tenda e as feiras (The shop and the fairs). Fairs were the chance to sell surplus, stock up and even arrange marriages; the shop-bar was the men’s meeting point and the only place of supply between one fair and the next ^[1].

The Board and the Advisory Council

The Board’s Executive Committee has Delfín Caseiro Nogueiras as president, Mercedes Veites Pérez as vice-president, Xosé Antón Jardón Dacal as coordinator, Xoán Jardón Nogueiras as secretary and Julio Blanco Dapoza as treasurer. The Advisory Council (more than twenty people) brings together teachers, architects, historians (Edelmiro Martínez Cerredelo, Alex de los Ríos Conde of Vía Lethes), booksellers, civil servants and craftspeople from across the comarca ^[2]. It awards the Pedra Alta Prize.

The Biblioteca da Limia

It opened on Friday 4 May 2018, in Galician Letters month. It is a museum space inside the Museum that displays published works, catalogues and photographic identification of more than 50 creators from the comarca (literature, research, essay, painting, sculpture, music, audiovisual, photography), with an online resource of biographies and a bibliographic database of everything published about the territory. Its scope is the lands watered by the Limia river and its tributaries from the source to the border with Portugal: the comarcas of A Limia and the Baixa Limia, up to 17 concellos. It already held more than 200 volumes donated by the authors ^[3].

The craftspeople’s association Limiar

In December 2021 LIMIAR, the Association of Craftspeople of A Limia, was formed, with ten craftspeople chaired by the Vilar de Santos seamstress Mercedes Veites Pérez ("Lumecú"), all holding the Galician craftsperson card, in the fields of basketry, pottery, musical instruments, pantalla, sewing, filigree and silverwork. They launched on 11 December 2021 and have a permanent space in the Museum to display and sell, on Saturdays and Sundays, and the museum is the association’s headquarters and a venue for courses and workshops ^[4].

Conversas na Taberna

These are meetings in the museum’s "A Tenda" room. The 2nd edition (8 July 2017) dealt with environmental struggles in A Limia, with representatives of "Non máis lume" (Cualedro), "Non á Planta Asfáltica", Plataforma Corno do Monte, Amig@s das árbores da Limia and SCDX Fontefría, whose president, Xoán Carlos Rodríguez, explained the state of the As Conchas reservoir, where cyanobacteria were detected in 2011 ^[5]. The 3rd edition (7 April 2018) was devoted to the potato (see The potato of A Limia).

An industrial heritage event: the gaseosas (2025)

On 5 July 2025 the museum hosted "Gasosas da Limia. Tributo á bebida de todos e todas", for the 80th anniversary of the Berardo Méndez gaseosa factory of Sandiás (1945-2025), with over fifty attendees. Taking part were Xavier Feijóo (Berardo’s grandson), Miro Martínez Cerredelo, the collector Jorge Pulido, Juan Carlos Villar Angeriz (author of Apuntes sobre la gaseosa en la provincia de A Coruña), the painter Miguel Martínez Coello and the representative of the Cid factory of O Pereiro de Aguiar. Xavier Feijóo donated a Barnett and Foster saturator machine and bottles with the original screen-printed designs from Celso Gómez’s collection were displayed ^[6].

The centenary of the Arracada (2024)

On 20 December 2024 the centenary of the discovery of the Arracada of Vilar de Santos (1924-2024) was celebrated in the multipurpose hall of Vilar de Santos, with talks by Xosé Carlos Sierra, Bieito Pérez Outeiriño, Francisco Fariña Busto, José César Llana and Antón Jardón Dacal. An honorary piece was presented to Josefa Saburido Traveso, granddaughter of Benito Saburido, who found it by chance, and the original was displayed at the museum to the public from 11:00 to 18:00 ^[7].

Links

• Museums and centres of A Limia
• Museo Etnográfico da Limia
• Pedra Alta Prize

Sources

1. «As Salas do Museo da Limia», Museo da Limia. https://museodalimia.com/salas/
2. «O Padroado do Museo da Limia», Museo da Limia. https://museodalimia.com/padroado/
3. «No mes das Letras, inauguramos a Biblioteca da Limia», 30/04/2018. https://museodalimia.com/no-mes-das-letras-inauguramos-a-biblioteca-da-limia/
4. «Inauguración da Asociación de Artesáns da Limia – LIMIAR», 10/12/2021. https://museodalimia.com/inauguracion-da-asociacion-de-artesans-da-limia-limiar/
5. «Magnífica xornada de debate nas II Conversas na Taberna», 11/07/2017. https://museodalimia.com/magnifica-xornada-de-debate-nas-ii-conversas-na-taberna/
6. «Acto público Gasosas da Limia 80 aniversario», 05/07/2025. https://museodalimia.com/acto-publico-gasosas-da-limia-80-aniversario/
7. «Vilar de Santos conmemora o centenario da descuberta da Arracada», 20/12/2024. https://museodalimia.com/vilar-de-santos-conmemora-o-centenario-da-descuberta-da-arracada/