Backlands (22 page)

With the meager help of his own observations and those of his ancestors, whose practical teachings are mixed with extravagant superstitions, he has sought to study this curse as best as he can, in order to understand it, get through it, and overcome it. He prepares for the battle with singular serenity. Two or three months before the summer solstice, he reinforces the walls of his wells and cleans out the cisterns. He tends to his fields and plows narrow strips of land on the riverbank to prepare small plots for the arrival of the first rains. Then he tries to discern what the future holds in store. He turns his gaze upward and looks in all directions—he examines the minutest traces of information that land and sky may have to offer.

The signs of the drought soon arrive in a series of implacable waves, like the symptoms of a disease—a terrifying fever of the earth. The scant October rains, the
chuvas do cajú
, come and go in quick showers that immediately evaporate in the dry air, leaving not a trace. The brushland becomes spotted with brown and gray clumps of dried trees, which after a while look like the ash of a large conflagration. In time the ground cracks open, and the water table drops. The days are searingly hot, even at dawn; however the nights become constantly colder. The dry atmosphere sucks the sweat off the
sertanejo
’s brow with the efficiency of a sponge, while his leather armor loses the flexibility it had and becomes stiff and hot on his torso, like a bronze shield. As the afternoons grow shorter every day and fade into evenings with no twilight, the backlander sadly observes the migration of birds to other climates.

This is just a prelude to the situation that is about to occur. And it will continue to build until December.

He takes precautions: He apprehensively takes stock of his herds, touring the far pastures. Then he seeks the more fertile lowlands, where he leaves his cattle to feed. And he waits with resignation for the thirteenth of the month. On that day ancestral tradition will allow him to divine the future and question the designs of Providence.

At dusk on the feast day of Saint Lucy, December 12, the cowboy places six lumps of salt in a row where they will be exposed to the elements. These represent, from left to right, the six coming months, from January to June. At dawn on the thirteenth he examines them: If they are intact, they foretell a drought. If only the first has dissolved into a sodden mass, then rain is certain to come in January. If this has happened to the second lump, then rain will come in February. If most or all of the lumps are dissolved, then the winter will be mild.

This is a very interesting experiment, in spite of the stigma of superstition associated with it. It tests the amount of vaporized moisture in the air and, by deduction, the probability of barometric depressions that will cause rain. Meanwhile, despite the time-honored value of the test, it still leaves the
sertanejo
in a state of uncertainty. Yet he does not become discouraged, even when faced with the worst predictions. He waits patiently till the spring equinox for a definitive consultation with the elements. He spends three long, anxious months, and on the feast day of Saint Joseph, March 19, he seeks one last reading of the future. This day will be the index of the following months. In the span of twelve hours it will show him all the variations in climate that are to come. If it rains, the winter will bring rain. If, on the contrary, the sun blazes across a clear sky, his hopes are dashed. The drought is a certainty.

Then the
sertanejo
is transformed. No longer the incorrigible slacker or the violent thug who spends his days impulsively riding the cattle trails, he now rises above his primitive condition. He is now resigned and tenacious and assumes a calm fortitude, squarely facing the fate he knows he cannot change and preparing to meet it. There are untold tales of heroism and horrible tragedies in the backlands that will be forever lost to us. We cannot relive or recount them. They come out of an epic struggle that no one has yet described—the revolt of the earth against man. At first the cowboy prays, eyes lifted to the horizon. His first refuge is his faith. Holding their miracle-working saints in their arms, crosses raised, bearing litters carrying icons and fluttering pennants, entire families may be seen carrying their saints from one place to another. Not just the strong and healthy but also the aged and infirm, the sick and the lame, walk along with stones from the road on their heads and shoulders. The
sertão
wasteland echoes their mournful litanies for long days as the supplicants wind their way through the wilderness. During the long nights, the plains glow with the lit tapers of the wandering pilgrims. But the skies retain a sinister clarity—the sun scorches the earth and the frightening spasm of the drought grips the land. The backlander contemplates his terrified family and sadly surveys his subdued herd, which huddles in the marshes or strays slowly, with lowered heads, bellowing pitifully as they attempt to find the scent of water. Without faltering in his faith or doubting the Providence that is about to crush him, continuing to murmur the customary prayers at the appointed hours, he presents himself to be sacrificed. He attacks the earth with hoe and spade, looking for groundwater. Sometimes he finds it and other times he strikes rock, in a useless expenditure of effort. More commonly, he will uncover a subterranean stream of water, only to see it evaporate in a day or two or be sucked back into the ground. He pursues it stubbornly, digging deeper in search of the fugitive treasure, which may reappear briefly in the pit he has dug, like someone rising from the dead. His unusual hardiness keeps him going for days on a few handfuls of
paçoca—
a mash of nuts, manioc, and sugar—and he is not easily discouraged.

The surrounding brushland is his granary. He chops up the boughs of the
juazeiros
and
mandacarús
to slake his thirst and nourish the starving herd. He digs up
uricuri
palm roots, scrapes and pounds them, and then cooks them, shaping the mass into coarse bread that he calls
bró
and which bloats the bellies of the starving to give them a sensation of fullness. He stores up coconuts and digs up the swollen roots of the
umbú
for the children to drink. For himself he saves the astringent juice of the branches of the
xique-xique
, which makes him hoarse or causes him to lose his voice entirely. He works excessively, exhausting every resource. He is a strong and caring human being, with superhuman effort taking care of his suffering family and the animals entrusted to him.

He labors in vain. Nature fights him on all fronts. After the flight of the crested
seriemas
to the tablelands and the parakeets to the distant seashore, the desert is invaded by a cruel bestiary. Legions of bats swoop down on the cattle and destroy them. In the dried patches of scorched weeds, the sound of thousands of rattlesnakes can be heard, and the more intense the heat, the greater their number. At night the sly puma steals his calves and steer at his very doorstep. This is one more enemy he must fight off. He attempts to frighten it with firebrands, and if it does not retreat, he attacks it. He does not attempt to shoot it, knowing that if his bullet should miss its mark the puma would certainly be the victor. The intense combat is one of a weakened warrior, brandishing a pitchfork in his left hand and a knife in his right, jabbing at the intruder and goading it to pounce. He then strikes it in midleap and kills it with a single blow.

He cannot always take such risks. A strange malady adds to his misfortunes. It is nyctalopia, a type of blindness that is a paradoxical reaction to light.
²¹
It comes from the clear, hot days, the shimmering skies, and the currents of hot air wafting over the naked earth. It is a false blindness that is due to surfeit of light. No sooner does the sun set than the victim is struck by blindness. Night blindfolds him suddenly, even before enveloping the earth. The next morning, his extinguished sight returns, rekindling with first light to be snuffed out again at sunset, with painful regularity.

With his sight, his energy is restored. He does not consider himself done in. He still has recourse to the tender branches of wild bromeliads to quench the thirst and sate the hunger of his children. With these barbaric concoctions he cheats starvation.

He continues on foot now to the pastures, because it breaks his heart to look at his horse. He surveys the ruins of his ranch. His ghostlike cattle are mere skeletons, still alive but barely so, one knows not how, prone under the dead trees. They can barely stand on their thin legs and they slowly stagger about. Steer that have been dead for days are still intact and even the vultures spurn them since their beaks fail to penetrate the desiccated hides. Cattle about to expire huddle around a bowl of cracked earth where their favorite waterhole used to be. What saddens him most are the beasts that surround him trustingly, bellowing softly as if weeping. Not even a cactus is left; the last green leaves of the
juazeiro
trees have long since been devoured.

However, there is still the last reserve of the
macambira
thickets. He sets fire to their dead foliage to strip them of their thorns as efficiently as possible. As the smoke rises into the clear air a sorry troop of starving cattle comes hobbling from all sides in search of a last meal.

Finally, all his resources are exhausted and the situation has not changed. There is not the slightest possibility of rain. The bark of the
mariseiro
trees, harbingers of rain, fail to ooze moisture. The northeast wind continues to blow strongly over the
sertão
, humming and howling through the brushlands. The sun sears through the cloudless sky, casting its unforgiving heat onto the dog days of the land. Overwhelmed by these adversities, the
sertanejo
finally gives up.

One day the first band of migrants passes by his doorstep. He watches in alarm as the miserable band crosses the village and disappears in a cloud of dust at the bend of the road. The next day there are more of them, and then more. The
sertão
is being emptied out.

He can hold out no longer. He attaches himself to one of the groups, which strike out on the road, leaving their bones along the wayside. He joins the painful exodus to the coast, to the distant mountains—anyplace where man is not denied the basic elements of life.

He reaches this place, and is saved.

Months pass. The scourge is over. Longing for the backlands overcomes him and he embarks on a reverse migration. He returns happy, reinvigorated, singing. He forgets his travails, going back to those same fleeting hours of unstable fortune, the same long days of drawn-out suffering and tests of strength.

The
sertanejo
lives in isolation in a country that hardly knows who he is. His existence is defined by constant warfare with the environment, which imprints an extraordinary ruggedness on his physique and his psychology. He is a nomad, with shallow roots in the soil and he does not, in truth, have the organic capacity to attain a higher position in life.

His limited existence delays his psychological development. He does not understand his monotheistic religion, which is tainted by an extravagant mysticism and an incongruous mixture of Indian and African fetishism. He is a bold, strong primitive but he is also ingenuous and readily led astray by absurd superstitions. An analysis of these beliefs will reveal that he is subject to a combination of different emotional states.

His religion is, like him—mestizo.

The physical and physiological characteristics of the races from which he comes parallel his moral qualities. They are a map of the life of three races. His singular beliefs translate the violent juxtaposition of distinct attitudes that need not be described. These include the chilling legends of the wily and mischievous
caapora
dashing across the plains on the back of a fiendish
caitetú
on mysterious moonlit nights; the devilish
sací
, a scarlet cap on its head, attacking the straggling traveler on an ill-omened Friday night; werewolves and headless she-donkeys wandering in the night; the snares of the evil one, the devil, tragic emissary of celestial displeasure; the prayers to Saint Campeiro, saint of the plains, canonized
in partibus,
for whom candles are lit in the fields to ask for his help in retrieving lost objects; the kabbalistic rites for curing animals and their fevers; the visions, fantastical apparitions, and bizarre prophecies of deranged messiahs; and the pious pilgrimages, missions, and penances—all easily explained manifestations of a complex religious mix.
²²

It is not a stretch to describe mestizo religion as miscegenation of beliefs. These include the anthropomorphism of the savage, the animism of the African, and the emotional makeup of the superior race during the period of discovery and colonization. The latter is a notable case of historical regression.

The religious agitations of the backlands recall a critical phase in Portugal’s spiritual history at the end of the sixteenth century. After having been at the center of history’s stage, this interesting population suddenly entered into a period of steep decline, which was poorly disguised by the oriental opulence of Dom Manoel’s court. In the Brazilian backlands, as in the mother country, religious fanatics and hair-shirt ascetics are followed by a mob of sorrowing, obsessed disciples. The intensive period of colonization in Brazil occurred under King John III, at the apex of a time of complete moral disintegration when “all the terrors of the Middle Ages had been crystallized into peninsular Catholicism.”

A great legacy of extravagant superstitions remained intact in the
sertão
even though they had been extinct on the coast due to the modernizing influence of other creeds and races. These beliefs were brought to our land by the impressionable people who flowed in after the miraculous mirage of the Indies had dissipated in the East. The newcomers arrived full of an intense mysticism, a religious fervor that flared up from the Inquisitional fires that had burned so intensely in the peninsula. They were from the same people who in a state of hallucination had witnessed above the royal palace in Lisbon processions of white-hooded Moors carrying prophetic caskets and engaging in paladin combat through mysterious tongues of flame. They were the same ones who after Alcácer-Quibir, which marked a “national decline” according to the emphatic pronouncements of Oliveira Martins, sought as their only salvation from imminent ruin the higher plane of messianic hopes.