Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  “What would you want with the savage?”

  “Ah, Captain, I’ve heard men praise the talents of such creatures. I wouldn’t take her for myself,” Velloso said. “A gift, Captain, for the royal household. Such a plump and exotic bird would give pleasure to the ManiKongo.”

  From Velloso, who’d lived here nine years, Cavalcanti heard much of this ManiKongo (Lord of the Kongo) and his royal city of Mbanza, in the interior. Cavalcanti had some idea of the place, gained from the talk on Lisbon’s waterfront, but still found aspects of Velloso’s descriptions difficult to accept. Who would acknowledge, for instance, that there was a black chief who called himself Affonso I, son of King João da Silva, (John of the Woods) and Queen Eleanor; who ruled his lands not with chiefs and elders but with nobles he addressed as his duques, marquezes, viscondes, and baroes?

  According to the slaver, Affonso I, as a young man, had been banished from the capital by his father, who’d had second thoughts about the Portuguese. Affonso had gone into exile, taking with him those who had accepted the Christian faith. When King João da Silva died, Affonso returned to fight, and win, a war against a pagan relative. From the time of that victory, the Portuguese, who’d helped him, were his brothers, and Christ, Savior of his people. That all should know this, he had sent his own son, Henrique, to Lisbon and Rome, where the worldly Leo X had authorized the young man’s elevation as bishop of Utica.

  Three weeks after their arrival, Velloso announced that he was to journey to the capital, and invited Cavalcanti, Fernandes, and Padre Miguel to accompany him. Cavalcanti declined, saying that he could not leave São Gabriel.

  “Why not, Captain? It’s a month, perhaps more, before your men finish the work. Travel with us. You have my promise that we’ll return before your ship is ready.”

  “God knows, the report we take to Lisbon is bleak enough,” Cavalcanti said. “Our Brazil lies undefended. We dare not allow a single day to be lost.”

  “It isn’t far,” the slaver said. “Five, six days at most. Come, Captain” — he laughed — “your feet need not touch the ground! I, personally, will select for you the finest wooden horse in Mpinda!”

  A “wooden horse” was a hefty log to the middle of which was strapped a hide saddle. Two slaves would shoulder this burden, where the pathway permitted, along one hundred miles between the port and the capital.

  Cavalcanti gave in. “Hear me, Senhor Velloso: I’ll hold you responsible if São Gabriel’s departure is delayed for a single day!”

  Two days later, they left for Mbanza, the capital, and had gone only a few leagues when Cavalcanti created a small scene:

  “By all the saints, let me walk!” With great awkwardness, he abandoned his wooden horse and stood next to it.

  “You’ll regret it, Captain,” Velloso said. “It can be a tiring journey. This way, you’ll travel like a prince.”

  “Prince be damned! I’ll not have my insides jolted apart. Send this infernal thing away.”

  “As you wish,” Velloso said.

  They continued their journey, with Padre Miguel the only member of Cavalcanti’s party to remain in the saddle of a wooden horse. Also on foot from the start were little Brito Correia and Itariri. The little princess wandered the footpath, a cloth of rich purple around her waist, a faraway expression on her face. She had not the slightest idea where she was.

  Their route lay to the southeast through lands that became increasingly populated as they neared the capital, the hillsides and valleys dotted with neat villages of straw huts. Droves of children ran down to the path, darting between the travelers, shouting greetings. Their parents observed from a distance, remaining at their fields or wherever they stood.

  The third morning, the forest began to thin and the landscape became varied, with fields of green and gold grasses taller than any man, and lush, fertile soils and rivers crossed by sturdy branch-and-vine bridges. At each crossing, the small caravan had to halt and pay a toll to the representative of the local headman. It was just after passing one of these streams that Cavalcanti and his party got their first real glimpse of what lay ahead.

  Six warriors, powerfully built, their shoulders oiled and glistening in the sun, came running along the path, shouting and waving their weapons as they neared the travelers.

  Instinctively, Cavalcanti went for his sword.

  “No!” Velloso barked. “They mean no harm.”

  Before Velloso could answer, the warriors drew abreast of them, still crying out their alarm.

  “Move!” the slaver urged. “Quickly! Get off the road!”

  The slaves shouldering Velloso’s wooden horse needed no such command and were already swinging into the grass beside the track. The others did as they’d been told and stood near Velloso, who motioned Cavalcanti to keep still and wait.

  Within minutes, there came the sound of a great multitude approaching, and it grew louder, until a thick file of warriors stomped into sight. Between their front and rear ranks, four slaves carried a litter in which a large man reclined amid cushions and drapes. Attendants kept pace on either side, one cooling the passenger with a palm-leaf fan.

  “Who is he?” Cavalcanti asked, when the litter had passed.

  “Chief of a western province,” Velloso said. “He’s less important than he appears to be. When Affonso comes this way, it’s not only six runners who go before him: Every step must be swept so clean that you could eat your food off this path. God protect the villager who leaves a single pebble, a blade of grass on the ground. God help those whose eyes aren’t averted when the king’s litter comes.”

  On the morning of the sixth day, after crossing a wide valley that lay before a steep ridge, they reached the capital. There had been one more river to pass and then they were scaling the last, precipitous height before a grand plateau above the wet, steamy low country they’d traversed. For two centuries the kings of the Bakongo had ruled their empire from this lofty hideaway.

  Cavalcanti’s first impression of Mbanza, palace and place of justice of the ManiKongo, was one of confusion. He was taken aback by the sight of a wall, like those in Portugal, raised before this city in the heart of Africa. Parts of this defense were still under construction, a labor guided by stonemasons from Lisbon. Within the wall were thousands of people, their straw huts stretching as far as the eye could see. Most of the inhabitants were like those encountered in villages along the way, but some warriors carried swords of iron and pikes, and wore cloaks and tunics. Stone structures — small, solid houses — stood between the clusters of huts, and many more were in the process of being raised.

  Velloso led the party along straight tree-lined roads toward the southern end of the city. “There,” he said, “is where our people live.” Before they reached the Portuguese quarter, he stopped to indicate a walled enclosure in the distance: “That is the court of their king.”

  “This king,” Cavalcanti said, “whom none may look upon — is he ever seen?”

  “Yes, Captain,” the slaver replied. “Remember, you’re Portuguese, the subject of his brother, João the Third. A day or two, Captain and I’ll arrange a meeting.” He now looked at the Tupiniquin girl. “He’ll want to see you,” he said to Cavalcanti. “Such a fine gift you’ve carried to these shores!”

  Almost one hundred Portuguese lived at the capital. Besides Dom Carlos Machado, Lisbon’s ambassador to the Bakongo, who greeted Velloso with great familiarity, and other officials of João III, who also showed the slaver respect, there were masons and carpenters, farmers and traders, some of whom had been here longer than Lourenço Velloso and had filled households with their children from Bakongo women. There were also some Portuguese ladies, not the orphans and whores Cavalcanti knew to be transported to the empire’s outposts but women chosen for service at Mbanza as teachers of cooking and sewing.

  The morning after their arrival, Padre Miguel went to inspect a new church being built near the royal enclosure. The priest who headed the mission to the Bakongo, Padre Antôni
o Andrade, an older man, lean and energetic, took him there.

  “We have no problem with the minds and hearts of these pagans,” Padre Antônio told his visitor, “but, oh, my son, the awful climate! Up here we do God’s work in comfort, but in the forest and marshes, no white man can long endure the terrible fevers.”

  What was it, Padre Miguel asked his guide, that had made these blacks so receptive to His word?

  “Their king,” Padre Antônio replied without hesitation. “Affonso knows the Prophets and the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ and all the lives of the saints. He is very assiduous in the exercise of his faith, and punishes with rigor those who worship idols, and has them burned along with the idols.”

  Cavalcanti and Fernandes presented themselves to Ambassador Dom Machado. The ambassador showed cursory interest in them. He was impatient to attend to two little black girls who stood waiting for his consideration: A settler who had chanced on them while on a hunting expedition had brought the girls in the night before. He was offering them for sale to the ambassador, whose private dealings in such merchandise nearly rivaled those of Velloso.

  “There’s scarcely one who’s not involved,” Velloso said afterward. They had left Dom Machado’s house and were on their way to the capital’s marketplace. “They’re sent out as carpenters and stonecutters and even teachers; they amuse themselves with their skills, but soon they swear that nothing will keep them from making a fortune through slaving. Even the fathers, glorying in their conversion of so many heathen, see others as forest cattle herded to be sold on their behalf.”

  Mbanza’s marketplace was filled with exotic wares to be seen, touched, and sniffed, amid the hum and bustle of an immense throng of merchants and their customers.

  Cavalcanti stopped when he saw a group of lean, half-naked men with vaguely slanted eyes and yellowish skins. He remarked to Velloso that they were like men from the East.

  “Not east but south,” the slaver said. “They are Khoi-Khoi, who bring copper and ostriches to the kingdom. They live near the Cape.” — The Cape of Good Hope, at the tip of Africa.

  Velloso pointed out others who’d come from afar: Swahili merchants, most redoubtable of all wanderers, who had long traveled the width of Africa carrying the merchandise of the Moor. That trade had dwindled after the Portuguese seized the East Coast traffic, but small parties still ventured across the interior with the gold dust of the Monomotapa of Great Zimbabwe.

  Two commodities predominated at the market: the Bakongo’s palm manufactures and the anvil.

  When Cavalcanti first saw the cloths woven from palm fibers, he had to reach out and touch those marvelous fabrics to assure himself that they were not the finest silk of the East.

  As much as the softness and hues of the palm cloth impressed the visitors, so did the work of the Bakongo blacksmiths. More astonishing than the everyday items, such as tools and spearheads hammered out with great force, were the ornaments and musical instruments wrought in the same hard metal.

  “Now, Captain,” Velloso said, when they reached a part of the market fenced off with a stockade, “let me show you the real wealth of this kingdom.”

  He led them through the entrance, acknowledging the greetings of the men who stood there.

  “Here, Cavalcanti, are riches enough to build a castle in Sintra!”

  More than three hundred men, women, and children lay on the ground. Many turned to look in their direction, but some showed no interest at all and continued to doze in the sun.

  “Where do they all come from?” Cavalcanti asked.

  “Here, there . . . who knows? The men who capture them bring them here or to Mpinda, to sell to Lourenço Velloso and others. Affonso’s slave commissioners must approve all peças as not being subjects of his kingdom.

  “There will never be enough,” Velloso added. “Today, Spain wants peças for her colonies in the New World. Tomorrow? Who knows what the demand will be for territories yet to be discovered? The Bakongo don’t understand this commerce. They’ve always had slaves but treat them like family. Some come and go as they please; others are less free — serfs of their owners — but none were ever sold . . . until we taught the Bakongo, how much profit they can earn.”

  Their visit to King Affonso took place two days later. Four trumpeters stood at the entrance to the royal enclosure, with long, beautifully carved ivory instruments. Next to the musicians were royal guardsmen — tall, athletic soldiers with white tunics and black buffalo-hide shields, carrying the same weapons as the Portuguese and standing as smartly as men who might protect João III in Lisbon.

  The visitors passed through the outer wall into the enclosure and faced yet another wall: In the space between these two barriers were housed the king’s councilors and his bodyguard. A trumpeter blew short blasts and two pages came to meet them.

  “They are dwarfs,” Brito Correia said.

  “Not dwarfs,” Velloso corrected. “They are the little people from the forest. They never grow taller.”

  The Pygmies beckoned for the party to follow them through the last barrier before the royal palace. This was an intricate maze, a network of narrow passages between walls of latticed twigs.

  “When we reach the end,” Velloso said, “we must go down on our knees.” His words were greeted with mutterings from Cavalcanti and Padre Miguel. He stilled them. “No stranger approaches the ManiKongo in any other manner.”

  They followed the Pygmies along the labyrinth’s elaborate twists and turns as if working through the core of a great beehive. At one place, a Pygmy barred the way down an offshoot, and Fernandes asked where it led. “Follow it,” the slaver said, “if you wish to meet the sacred crocodiles.”

  Itariri was awed by this strange maloca. She had been confined in the house of a Portuguese, and visited by a parade of the curious and the amused, who’d peered and poked at her and spoken words unintelligible to her. This trip through the maze was no less strange, but she followed the example of the others when it ended, falling to her knees the moment she stepped out of it.

  Affonso I, Lord of the Kongo, sat upon a throne inlaid with gold and ivory and draped with leopard skins. He was dressed in the fashion of a Portuguese noble, with scarlet tabard, pale silk robe, satin cloak with embroidered coat of arms, and velvet slippers. As concessions to his tribal heritage, he wore a small cap of palm cloth, a necklace of iron, and over his left shoulder the insignia of kingship: a zebra tail.

  Immediately to the right of him stood his son Henrique, with the white linen alb, chasuble, and other vestments of a bishop of the Church of Rome. Beyond the bishop and to the left of the king stood his senior councilors and the provincial. These, too, were dressed as fidalgos.

  Elsewhere in the palace square were ranks of the royal bodyguard: Unlike their counterparts at the entrance, these retained their traditional appearance, their oiled bodies and the feathers and animal skins they wore a striking contrast to the sophisticated garb of their sovereign and his officials. There were women, too, dressed as Portuguese donas, with veils over their faces and velvet caps and cloth gowns. Their gold and jewels were such as few ladies of Lisbon possessed.

  Several stone buildings faced the heart of the enclosure, but the royal palace itself was made up of several large huts of reeds and grass. Only their golden round tops were seen, for none but the king and his immediate family and their servants were allowed in the area, which was screened off with painted cloth panels and mats that swayed gently in the breeze.

  Ambassador Machado approached the throne and spoke to the king in a low voice. Then he turned to the party on their knees: “His Highness Affonso the First, Lord of the Kongo, greets you and will hear from the one who comes from Santa Cruz.”

  Cavalcanti shuffled forward.

  “Your Majesty, we thank you for the welcome given us by your people,” Cavalcanti said.

  “It is what we would hope for from our own friends,” the king said.

  He listened intently, with few interjection
s, to what Cavalcanti had to tell of Brazil. Some things he already knew, for other homebound ships had passed this way: In the royal gardens were plants from that land, including manioc, which had so amazed Affonso with its fertility that he had distributed cuttings to his farthest provinces.

  When it was time to present Itariri to Affonso, there was excitement in the ranks of dukes and nobles. Never had they seen one of the people from Brazil. Velloso made the presentation:

  “A gift, Your Highness, for the royal household.”

  “Rise, girl,” Affonso commanded.

  Velloso pushed her to her feet. “She does not know our language, Highness,” he said, “but she’s of noble birth — a princess, Highness, among her people.”

  Affonso climbed off his throne. “She is one of those who devour humans?” he asked Cavalcanti.

  “True, my lord.”

  “A bestial practice,” the king said. “There are pagans beyond our lands who do the same.”

  The girl was trembling.

  “She is a pleasing sight,” Affonso said. “Let her be taken to the women’s place.”

  Affonso now gave his attention to the slaver, who moved near the edge of the carpet. “Were I to receive other gifts with such ease, it would be pleasing,” the king said.

  “I understand His Highness.”

  “Yes, Velloso, you say this: You Portuguese always understand the words of ManiKongo,” he said. “If we are good friends, where is the ship I have asked for?”

  Velloso looked from the king to Dom Machado.

  “My lord,” the ambassador began, “it is difficult — ”

  “Difficult!” Affonso snorted. “That is all I ever hear! That is all I’ve heard from those they sent before you: ‘difficult’! A ship! One small caravel for your biggest friend in Africa is all I ask.” He now looked at Cavalcanti: “Perhaps, Captain, I should seek this favor from your Norman enemies? Perhaps the men from Dieppe, who drove you to these shores, would be willing to find a ship for me?”

  Cavalcanti said nothing.

  “My lord,” Dom Machado started again, “we wait for new word from Lisbon. Our king is aware of your need.”